Update: Test app now available
Thanks to excellent [persistent, dedicated, concerned, knowledgable, polite, patient, enthusiastic] service by Erik, a technical support representative at Apple Developer Program Support, who embodies every quality every employee should have in any and all jobs, a test version of the app described herein is now available for download from the App Store. Simply
send me an e-mail and an e-mail containing a link to download the app will be my reply:
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| Open my reply e-mail on your iPhone to install the app in just one touch |
Although ludicrously easy to install and use [see below], a second e-mail containing instructions will follow.
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| The app works inside the Photos app, and is about as easy to use |
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The app is accessed within the Photos app by touching the icon, shown in the upper-right corner
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Keep in mind that this is a skeleton version of the end-product; there will be bugs. Even still, it will not harm your phone; the app itself—and all other apps distributed for the iPhone through the App Store and TestFlight—are validated prior. For testers, it's simply a matter of working around the occasional quirk (I know of two), which do nothing more than exit the app, and then require you to relaunch it.
NOTE | Development is around-the-clock; a bug today is a fix tomorrow. Although this means frequent updates, they are automatic, and require no user interaction other than permission.
On top of any issues inherent to all apps still in-development (i.e., bugs), the app is not finished. It's simply at a stage in its development, the demand for it at a level, and useful enough to be distributed early.
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| The results of the Gradient filter applied to a video made on iPhone during a period of high demonic activity |
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Because the Devil is in the details, the filters are designed for clarity and detail, close-up
The app is (and will always be) free; feature requests will be implemented promptly.
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How long it will be before I can actually say the app is done is hard to determine, especially with bizarre, inexplicable error messages like these that frequently occur when using Xcode:
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| What service?! | What operation? Opening a file?! |
The original post
Hopefully, by the end of today, The Life of a Demoniac Photo Filter Extension for iPhone will be made distributable via the App Store,
ad hoc, to up to 1,000 testers:
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| The Apple app registration page for the upcoming The Life of a Demoniac Photo Filter Extension (coming tomorrow) |
This release was planned for late last week, but was delayed due to the theft of my laptop charger—the third one, in fact—and, now, complications surrounding the use of deployment certificates used by Apple to validate an app for distribution through its App Store.
The software is not even what others would call "beta," but is simply a barebones collection of the filters themselves, so that people can start finding cloaked matter now without waiting for me to finish the other aspects of the software (GUI, etc.).
About the filters
There are nearly 40 filters included in the extension, all of which can be applied to photos and videos within the Photos app for iPhone. Although the output of each filter can standalone, you can also subtract and/or "difference" it from the original. The vast number of permutations allows for capturing about as many types of demonic activity:
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| The Prewitt Kernel Filter revealed a facial transformation from demon to human in a still frame [best viewed in a dark environment] | The original image, made in the dark during a period of high demonic activity, suggested no transformation prior to processing |
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| The same filter applied to three similar still frames, albeit with both subtract and difference compositing, also show demonic facial transformation midstage |
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| The output of the Scharr convolution filter subtracted and differenced with the original reveals semi-cloaked demonic entities covering my face and neck; notice the heart shape on my neck (left) and the circle shape on my left cheek (right) |
Try every filter and every permutation, even when you find demonic activity in an image; demons often overlap in images, and can revealed "layer-by-layer" by applying multiple filters...
Using morphological operators with other filters
Some filters may render an image in a way that makes it appear to be useless, such as the Local Contrast Filter, as shown below:
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| The original image | The same image, processed by the Local Contrast Filter |
In such a case, subtracting the distorted result from the original may help, which you can do by switching on the Unsharp switch, located at bottom of the stack of switches (shown below):
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| Subtracting the output of the Local Contrast Filter from the original (unprocessed) image revealed anemone-like entities on my trapezius and left pectoral, plus scars (or other entities) in the intercostal region |
In addition to (or instead of) applying an unsharp mask to the original using the output of a filter as the mask, you can also apply morphological operators to the output, namely, dilate, erode, open and close. Although subtle, the small changes produced by using a morphological operator can (and often does) enhance the portions of the image showing cloaked entities (as shown below):
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| Dilating the output increased the brightness in the areas showing the entities, plus revealed new ones on my elbows | Eroding the output created more contrast bordering the entities themselves |
You can apply the Dilate and Erode operators together to create the Open operator; the top switch reverses the order of the Dilate and Erode operators, effectively creating the Close operator:
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| Applying Dilate and Erode together is identical to the Open morphological operator, which provides a different kind of detail enhancement | The topmost switch reverses the Dilate and Erode operations, effectively reproducing the Close morphological operator |
Interpreting your results
This blog provides the best means of helping you interpret what you see in the images produced by the filters. For example, one of the posts containing images that match the anemone-like entity shown on my trapezius in the above image is
GALLERY | Demon doorknob (and more...) [also
search for anemone on this blog].
