Photo contest awards $10,000 for finding 'everyday heroes'

Five stunning landscape photos taken with an iPhone for Earth Day

It's Earth Day today so it is only fitting that we spend some time admiring our wonderful planet. Here are five wonderful landscape photos taken with an iPhone for those who can't make it outside, but wish they could.

A beautiful photo of Garmo Negro in the Spanish Pyrenees taken with an iPhone 4 by Flickr member inakihuarte.

Gorgeous photo of the mountains in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest taken with an iPhone 4 by Flickr member Howard Kang.

Lovely sunset taken with an iPhone 4s and beautified with Snapseed. Taken by Flickr member Aaron McIntyre.

Wonderful panorama shot of Ireland's Dunree Beach taken from Fort Dunree with an iPhone 5 by Flickr member Greg Clarke.

Striking picture of Stout Grove redwoods taken with an iPhone 4s by Flickr member Ray Bouknight.

[Image at top is a baby goat in a cornfield maze in France as taken by by Flickr member "A Guy Taking Pictures" with my added text]

Blue Sky for iOS lets you visualize clearer air

Blue Sky is a free iOS app coming out of China, where skies are often gray and air pollution is often out of control. Of course, China isn't alone with that problem. Blue Sky is sponsored by the World Wildlife Federation and an advertising agency, Ogilvy and Mather, based in New York and Shanghai.

Since it's Earth Day, I thought it might be appropriate to point out this little app. It's simple in concept and execution -- you take a photo or select one from your camera roll. With your finger, paint in a bluer sky on the photo you've loaded. It's easier if you have a pretty flat horizon. The app doesn't let you magnify your photo to work in tight places, and there is one and only one brush size.

Blue Sky for iOS

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The app simply serves as an environmental reminder to let you visualize cleaner and clearer skies. The app also lets you add your signature to a petition to state your preference about 'bringing back the blue'. Although the app was designed for a Chinese audience, it works just fine everywhere else. Doug Schiff, Executive Creative Director of OgilvyOne China, said, "Many in China feel only the government can improve the worsening air conditions, but WWF wanted to encourage individuals to think up and support individual initiatives, and this app is a step in that direction."

Blue Sky isn't a sophisticated photo editor by any means. But it packs a little message, and you can certainly do some simple editing to improve your images of cloudy or polluted skies.

The app is not universal, and requires iOS 6.1 or later. It is optimized for the iPhone 5.

Daily App: Union is a powerful image blending tool for iOS

Union (U.S. $1.99) is a very well thought out tool that brings Photoshop-type power to your iPad or iPhone. It's the most impressive image blending app I've used, and it works wonders to help you create unique and compelling images.



When using the app, you first load in a background image, for example a landscape photo. Then, you add a foreground image that you want to transplant on top of the background. In the next step, you enter the mask layer by choosing the Magic Wand tool, which allows you to easily remove everything but the person.

The tool removes parts of the image based on similarity in backgrounds and luminance, so it is a lot easier if the background behind the person is more solid in color rather than patterned. If the Magic Wand tool doesn't do the trick, you can manually draw out the parts that don't automatically go away.



Union allows you to let your imagination run wild as you are not limited to only superimposing images. You can make the layers transparent, create double exposures, and more. The app also has extensive undo-redo commands, so you can just step backwards if you don't like what you've created.

Union for iOS

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The app contains tutorial videos, which are much nicer than static help pages. Photos can be exported to your camera roll, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or via email.



While excellent, the app suffers from a problem that is common among this type of app -- when removing the background, your finger covers the drawing tool, making it tricky to accurately remove an element. Some apps offset the tool from where your finger meets the screen, making the job a lot easier.



Despite this limitation, I was able to manage with the removal tool and created some great shots with little effort. Union is a universal app. It requires iOS 7 or later, and it is optimized for the iPhone 5. Give it a try if you want to create some unique and eye-catching compositions.