Last year the mobile photography community world-wide mourned the untimely death of the talented artist, Cheryl Tarrant, creator of the highly acclaimed and much loved iPhone app, Distressed FX Plus.

I had the opportunity to interview Cheryl for a blog post a few years ago and learned that she was not only a talented artist, but a truly lovely person who appreciated the simple things in life, especially living in rural Tennessee with her dogs, cats, peacocks, and other animals. Her death was a shock to us all and she is missed by many around the world.

The late Cheryl Tarrant (Photo from Distressed FX App)

Status of Distressed FX Plus

A few weeks ago, I had an exchange with Cheryl’s collaborator on Distressed FX and learned that he intends not only to maintain the app that he and Cheryl created but also has new plans for the app’s future.

This comes as good news to so many of us who use the textures and gels Cheryl created for Distressed FX to enhance our mobile photos in artistic ways.

It pleases me to learn that Cheryl’s legacy will continue at least for now and we can all honor her by continuing to create with the tools she left us.

Bug and Temporary Work-Around

If you use Distressed FX Plus as frequently as I do, you may have noticed recently that a bug surfaced in the masking tool after the last iOS update. Fortunately it's not a show-stopper and I suspect will get fixed in time. Until then here's a work-around.

The app works perfectly, except that there's a glitch when you launch the masking tool. The masking tool lets us wipe the texture effect away from select parts of the image. The masking tool also can be used with images that have a depth map, like those created with the iPhone's Portrait Mode.

To use the masking tool, tap the eraser icon shown circled in the screen shot below.

Sometimes when the masking feature is launched, the image will appear scrambled as shown in the screen shot here.

I've found that if I tap the delete (trash can) icon, the tool will reset, the image will appear as it should, and the tool will function normally. 

How I Did It!™; Masking in Distressed FX PLUS

Here is a link to a video tutorial I made in 2021, How I Did It!™; Masking in Distressed FX PLUS. The app hasn’t changed a lot since then, so the information is still current. If you haven’t used this tool before, I hope you’ll give it a try. It’s really fun and I think it’s a great way to honor Cheryl’s memory.

Thanks for being here. I hope this information is helpful as you enjoy creating imagery with your iPhone. Until next time, keep on creating!

Best,

Rad