What Apps Are We Using This Month? with Susie Leff
What Apps Are We Using This Month? with Susie Leff
Welcome to TheAppWhisperer’s new section, “What apps are we using this month” series, where we discover which apps you are particularly enjoying. Kicking us off today is none other than Award Winning Mobile Artist, Susie Leff.
Tell us a bit about yourself
I am Susiie Leff. Born and raised in Mexico City, I now live part-time in Mexico City and part-time in San Francisco, California. I’m married to Marty Pflughoeft; he’s an Insurance Broker and we work together selling Medical, Life and Kidnap Insurance from US Companies to Mexicans or anybody living outside the US. Besides going back and forth between San Francisco and Mexico, we travelled extensively with my parents first and with my Mom after my father passed, and thus my love for photography!!
Four years ago I started taking online courses in Digital Photography and got hooked on it!! The Pandemic arrived, almost 2 years of seclusion, and the rest is history… I became a Digital Artist. I belong to some 75 Art Groups and have participated in several Expositions, some virtual and some face to face in Mexico, the US, Colombia, and Italy. My works can be seen in a couple of International virtual Museums, and I hope to continue expanding.
Tell us what apps you have been using this month.
Now, for the apps I most use, there is, most of all: iColorama, Procreate, PicsArt, Snapseed, Gloomlogue and Pastello. I love to work with Distortion and Curves blending several images until I find the right position of my characters and/or objects, and the right colours and resolution. I especially love to do portraits, and go more for intensity and force than beauty!! I will illustrate with a few examples:
PicsArt was also listed in our Best Apps to Remove Objects from Photos in 2026 – Clean Up Your Images Effortlessly
Here I started with a photo of the woman in the middle. On iColorama, with Effects, and Distort, I brought her in again, placed her on the right and kept distorting her until I got my second character. I brought her in again, moved her to the left, and did the same until I got my third character. Then I used several iColorama filters, moved my image to Procreate to work with the adjustment tool: Hue, Saturation, Balance and Curves, and then to Pastello Pro for the mate finish.
For this image I started with the photo of an “x” woman and again, on iColorama, by blending in the same image and distorting her several times I got this look. Worked with a lot of filters: painterly, tensor, water, flat, and the monochrome colors, and raised her a bit for some structure.
Well, once I picked my original(s), I used Snapseed to straighten up and tune up my image(s). Then I went to Procreate to blend my different images in different layers. Then, when blended into one layer only, I went to iColorama, and under Effects and Distort, I kept adding the same image, a couple of times and played with the Distortion feature until I was satisfied with the placement and resolution of the characters. After this, I start using a lot of the filters within the App. Then back to Procreate and the adjustment tool for light, colour and more effects with Curves. And to finish up, I used Gloomlogue for a flat and glossy finish. Voilà…
To read other interviews in this series, please go here.
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Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photography journalist, editor, curator, and the founder of *TheAppWhisperer.com*, one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to mobile photography and art. Since its launch in 2009, TheAppWhisperer has become an international hub for artists of all levels to discover, learn, exhibit, and engage with contemporary photographic practice.Built on principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and artistic excellence, Joanne has spent almost two decades championing mobile photography as a serious artistic medium. Through interviews, critical essays, exhibitions, competitions, and education, she has helped shape and document the evolution of mobile art on a global scale.Her work has taken her internationally, lecturing on photography and mobile art at institutions and events including the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, alongside appearances in the UK and Europe. She has served as a juror for international photography and mobile art awards across Portugal, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.Joanne is also the founder of *TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com*, one of the first online galleries dedicated exclusively to collectible mobile art, connecting artists with collectors across Europe, the United States, and Asia.Before founding TheAppWhisperer, Joanne worked extensively in print journalism and photographic publishing, including roles at a paparazzi photo agency and as deputy editor of a leading photography magazine. Her freelance journalism, criticism, and commentary have been published widely in both the UK and the US, with bylines in *The Times*, *The Sunday Times*, *The Guardian*, *Popular Photography*, *NikonPro*, *DPReview*, *Which?*, *Vogue Italia*, *LensCulture*, the *BBC*, and more recently, the *Financial Times*, where her published letters on photography continue to contribute to wider conversations around the medium.Alongside her editorial and curatorial work, Joanne’s own photographic practice has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, South Korea, and the United States. Her work increasingly explores themes of grief, loss, death, memory, and the body.Her current research interests centre on grief, death, and poverty, with forthcoming postgraduate study leading towards doctoral research in these areas.Joanne is currently developing new long-form writing and photographic projects and is available for commissions, editorial projects, speaking engagements, and collaborations.Contact: joannetheappwhisperer@gmail.com)
