Photography Article Must Have Photography Processing Apps for Android/Apple|Photography Artist Statement

This is the second one article in our series on Must Have Apps for phone/pill photography. The first article centered on Camera Apps for Android and Apple, whilst this newsletter will recognition on the next step: apps for post-processing your snap shots after you have taken them. (Huge thank you again to Steven, our neighborhood phone-pictures expert, for his steerage and guidelines. See greater of Steven's work here http://imaginethis55.Tumblr.Com/ and http://crated.Com/imaginethis .)

For ease, I've broken this submit-processing publish into sections: general apps for processing snap shots (those with a variety of alternatives) and specialized apps for processing pictures (the ones geared toward doing a selected issue very well). Many of those apps are loose but provide in-app purchasing alternatives. Whenever necessary, I have tried to make clean if a function is simplest to be had as an upload-on.

Apps for Processing Photographs - preferred

Snapseed (available free for Android and free iPhones and iPads) is by Nik software who were recently bought by Google who then offered the app for free across platforms. Snapseed offers a wide range of photo processing options ranging from basic corrections (straighten, rotate, crop, etc) to more advanced processing (brightness, ambiance, contrast, saturation, shadows, and warmth) and fun filters (black and white, vintage, HDR, grunge, tilt-shift, frames, and others). You can open photographs already saved on your phone or tablet or take a new picture to work with. (Snapseed is not a camera app but allows you to choose whether to use the default camera or another camera app to take the pictures.)

Snapshot from the access options in Snapseed

Once you become accustomed to the workflow, Snapseed is a breeze to work with and allows you to fine tune your photographs in any number of ways. Within each processing option you can press on your image and swipe up or down to reveal different options (such as brightness, contrast, and grain within the Black & White option). Once you have selected one, swiping to the left or right decreasing or increases that particular effect. Many conversions also have presets that you can use and compare before choosing a favorite. While working you can always press and hold the "compare" button to see the image without the current effect. Any additional benefit of working with Snapseed is that you are always editing a copy of your original photograph and any changes you make will be saved as a separate image. You can also share images directly from Snapseed to Google+ or other social media apps.

Adobe Photoshop Express (available free for Android and free for iPhones and iPads) is a greatly slimmed down version of the popular post-processing software. Photoshop Express offers both specific processing and editing options as well as packaged "looks" (premium looks can be bought within the app). You can adjust the strength of a given look as well. You can crop, rotate, straighten, and flip your photograph, as well as adjust things like clarity, exposure, contrast, color temperature, and others (noise reduction is an add-on). You can also reduce red eye (options for people and pets), add a variety of frames, and attempt to remove blemishes.

Screen shot of different "looks" in Photoshop Express

The workflow for Photoshop Express is a little more intuitive than Snapseed - each option is adjustable through a slider bar underneath the photograph that can be used to increase or lessen the impact of that particular transformation. Just like with Snapseed, you are always editing a copy of the original photograph, and you can save multiple different edits of the same original image if you wish. You can also save your final images directly from within the app.

PicsArt Photo Studio (available free for Android and free for iPhones and iPads) is a community as well as an app. You can join the community to share work or see amazing examples of photo editing and manipulation accomplished using the PicsArt app, but you can also use the app without signing up for the community. PicsArt does have an ad bar along the bottom.

Screen shot of "Pencil" effect in PicsArt

PicsArt offers basic photo correction options including cropping, selecting, cloning, stretching, resizing, and adjusting curves and color. You can also choose from a wide range of effects in multiple categories (effects, blur, artistic, pop art, paper, distort, colors, and corrections). Once you have applied an effect you can use brushes to adjust how and where that effect is applied. PicsArt also lets you apply a variety of masks, drawings, text, lens flare, stickers, clip art, frames, and borders. The shop offers many more options at various prices. PicsArt also allows you to create collages of up to ten images. You can choose from a pre-arranged grid, frame, or freely size and organize your own images. Spend a little time looking at the Featured Images on PicsArt to get an idea about what the app has to offer.

Photo Studio (available free for Android and free for IPhones and iPads) is a very similarly-named app with some similar options, but Photo Studio has far fewer free options and more in-app purchases than the apps described above. Photo Studio will allow you to crop your image, but the focus is on adding filters, frames, effects, and stickers. You can also add text or sketch on your image. Photo Studio has collage options including picture frames and more free-style collages. This app might be one to skip unless it has a specific effect you simply "must have" (and will most likely pay extra for).

Screen shot in Photo Studio - frames and text added

Apps for Processing Photographs - specialized

Photo Grid Collage Maker (available free for Android and free for iPhone and iPad) is a quick-and-dirty app for making collages. You select the photos that you want, and then you can choose from a range of different layouts, as well as add text, stickers, filters, and background colors. Shaking the app changes the arrangement of the photos within the collage (which can be frustrating if you want a certain picture in a certain place). There are ads within the app as well as in-app purchases. Not a ton of flexibility but great if you need a collage on the go.

Krispy Kreme collage made with Photo Grid on my tablet - yum!

Image Blender (available for $2.99 for iPhone and iPad) or

Image Blender Instafusion (available free for Android phones but not tablets or $1.99 for Pro version) allow you to combine and overlay two images to create interesting effects.

Image Blender allows you to create multiexposure or blended images by combining multiple photographs into one finished image. There are several different colors, textures, and blend modes available, and you can easily adjust the relative proportion of each image when combined. You can also uses masks to selectively show only part of an image, which allows you to create composites as well as blends. You can save your work as well as share it to other social media apps.

Screenshot of Image Blender combining a photograph of a flower with one of a wrinkled  purple paper

Image Blender Instafusion gives you three opening options: blend, effects, and photo booth. With blend, you choose the two photographs that you want to combine, and then you have a wide range of different blend modes to choose from. You can choose images from your phone or take a new photograph. Each blend mode has different options with it as well. In the effects panel you can choose from a variety of different effects and filters to add to your image. The Photo Booth mode lets you apply finishing fixes (filters), add frames, and do basic edits including cropping, rotating, enhancing, and adjusting the brightness and contrast. You can save your work as well as share it to other social media apps. (Fair warning: shown above is the free app for Android, which has an ad bar across the bottom as well as occasional pop-up ads when moving from one option to another.)

InstaSize (available free for Android or $2.99 for ads free (upgrade within the app) and free for iPhone and iPad) is a useful one-trick pony of an app: it allows you to make any photograph into a square suitable for posting to Instagram. After taking or opening a picture, the InstaSize button will add a vertical or horizontal border to center your photograph within a square, or you can create a collage of multiple photographs within the square format. You can then use the Borders button to change the color or add a pattern to the border. You can also use the Layers option to add filters, stickers, overlays, and even text to your image. When finished, you can save or share directly to Instagram and other social media apps. If you are an avid Instagram-er and want to post images without cropping down to a square, it is a useful app to have. (Be sure to follow the links given for Apple, as there are many similarly-named apps.)

Instasize screen shot showing yellow border added to make a square

Summary: Post-Processing Apps

There are many, many post-processing apps available. Start with one of the basic workhorses: Snapseed or Photoshop Express. See what you can do, and see what you might still want to do that these apps might be missing. Then branch out into greater manipulation, collages, texts, etc. with PicsArt or Photo Studio.

If you need a quick collage, use Photo Grid. If you really like the idea of blending images together, then download Image Blender, and if you love your Instagram, then be sure to get InstaSize. You will be amazed at how much you can do with your photographs and your phone! (If you missed it, don't forget to check out the first post in this series Must Have Camera Apps for your Phone/Tablet.)

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Photography Article Must Have Photography Camera Apps for Your Android or iPhone Phone or Tablet|Photography Artist Statement

As the cameras on our phones grow to be better and better, increasingly photographers are finding that they're taking extra if no longer maximum in their pics on their phones in preference to their larger cameras. This first in our collection of Must Have Photography Apps will attention on digicam-based apps for taking pictures higher phone photographs. Later articles will cowl apps for post-processing and sharing photos. Major way to Steven, our nearby phone-images expert, for his guidance and suggestions. See extra of Steven's paintings right here http://imaginethis55.Tumblr.Com/ and http://crated.Com/imaginethis .

Camera Apps

There are many reasons to use a camera-based app instead of the default camera app that came with your phone or tablet. The main benefit to using these apps is that they each offer more options and control when you are shooting.

There are both execs and cons for applying outcomes at the same time as you are capturing rather than after. The largest pro is that you can virtually "see" the effect before you are taking the image. This is especially handy if you are the use of the cropping characteristic - you may compose your photo the usage of the element ratio that you want in preference to taking the picture first and hoping you have enough area to crop to the shape you wanted. The largest con is that you can't "undo" a clear out after you have taken the image. (If you're taking a shot with a bokeh clear out, as an example, you cannot get rid of that clear out to get a smooth version of the shot.) In general, I endorse taking pictures a "clean" model of your image first after which making use of filters and effects after.

Camera Zoom FX (available for Android phones and tablets, free version and $2.99 premium version) was named Favorite Android Camera App by LifeHacker last month. It has adjustable settings for shooting include focus mode, filters, white balance, a night photography mode, stability control*, timer*, voice activated shutter*, burst mode* (multiple shots in a row), and time lapse. (* are premium-only features.) There are also a variety of effects that you can add even before you take the picture, including frames, textures (most*), and bokeh*. You have the ability to choose an aspect ratio and "crop" your image even before shooting, and you can overlay several grid or horizon options for straight or rule of thirds or golden spiral* shooting.

Camera Zoom FX free version, showing Lomo "Cool Bluetone" and "Grungy White" frame results

You can also take your picture first and use Camera Zoom FX to method and add consequences for your photograph afterwards. You have access to all the capabilities noted above (frames, cropping, filters, and so on.) as well as a extensive variety of colours, distortion outcomes, collage alternatives, and simple picture correcting options which include brightness, comparison, and saturation. You can also down load additional "chocolates" through in-app purchasing. In addition, you may edit pix saved anywhere on your phone or pill, no longer simply those all for the app. Finally, there may be a percentage arrow that allows you to immediately percentage your picture thru a extensive range of social media and other apps.

My advice would be to down load the loose version first, spend a while gambling with it, after which improve if the top class functions appeal to you. (I even have the top rate model of this app, because the special taking pictures modes and alternatives are available in reachable.)

ProCapture (available for Android phones and tablets, free version and $3.99 version) is another flexible app that allows you to take photographs through the app. It has adjustable shooting modes including timer, burst mode, reduced noise, wide shot (stitches 3 images for a wide angle look), and panorama. You can also shoot with color effects added, adjust the white balance and choose a different exposure (plus or minus 2). The premium version includes touch to focus (Android 4.0+), higher resolution images, and eliminates the tiny pop-up adds in the bottom right corner of the free version. If you can ignore the ads, the free version is a good place to start with this app. (I have the free version only, as I have an older device so cannot use the 'touch to focus' option anyway.) You can share photographs directly from the app to other social media apps and accounts. Unlike Camera Zoom FX and Camera+, ProCapture does not offer other post-processing options. If you want to edit your photographs after you take them, you will need to use a dedicated processing app.

ProCapture loose model showing ad placement and prominence

Camera+ (available for iPhone for $2.99 and iPad for $4.99) is a top-rated camera app for Apple users. There are 16 different shooting modes available to help you plan your shot, as well as the option to add flash, digital zoom (6x), or superimpose a grid for straight lines or rule of thirds accuracy. You can also use touch exposure and focus to lock exposure and focus separately.

After taking your photograph, there also are many submit-processing alternatives available in "The Lab", like in Camera Zoom FX. You can modify white balance, add sharpening, rotate or straighten, crop, fix pink eye* (* iPad best), and upload many distinctive cool effects together with frames, vignettes, and other overlays. There also are numerous border designs to be had, and you could kind to your own captions. Finally, you can also proportion photographs immediately from the app via e mail or different social media apps.

Screen Shot of Camera (courtesy of Steven)

AutoStitch (available for free and $1.99 versions for Android phones, $1.99 for iPhone, $2.99 for iPad, not available for Android tablets) allows you to shoot better panorama photographs. While your phone likely comes with a built-in panorama mode, AutoStitch offers a wider variety of options, including the ability to shoot vertical and horizontal panoramas as well as to shoot a combination of the two for an extremely wide final view. Unlike panoramas with your default camera, AutoStitch saves the individual images as well as the stitched panorama. You can also upload photographs taken with another camera or phone and use AutoStitch to stitch them together. (The paid Android version provides larger file sizes up to 20 MB, advanced blending modes, and removes the watermark.)

Tips for sewing: you want your images to overlap as a minimum 30% if no longer 50%. (The Apple model of the app gives a touch viewing window of the preceding image to help you align them.) Subjects which might be nonetheless paintings the nice. Moving topics, like plant life blowing in the window, frequently create an impact known as "ghosting" where slightly different versions of the identical flower from a couple of photos will appear inside the final panorama. Take your photographs all of the way across your discipline of view earlier than shifting up or down to take the next set. You are an awful lot less probably to miss a shot than if you are sincerely panning all approximately and taking pictures.

Screen shot of AutoStitch (unfastened Android model) displaying a 21-shot panorama

What Do You Use?

Do you use the default camera app for your phone photographs? Do you have a favorite camera app that we missed? Let us know in the comments! And stay tuned for the next article in this series, when we investigate post-processing apps.

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Photography Article Must Have Apps to Assist Your Photography|Photography Artist Statement

This post is the 1/3 in an occasional collection on useful apps for photography. Part 1 protected Must Have Photography Apps and Part 2 protected Must Have Photography Processing Apps. This post will make bigger the verbal exchange by way of introducing apps which can help you on your pictures - regardless of whether or not you are shooting together with your smartphone, point-and-shoot digital camera, or DSLR.

The Photographers' Ephemeris

Desktop internet app proven. Mobile apps include the identical statistics throughout more than one displays.

The Photographer's Ephemeris (free for computers, $4.99 for Android, or $8.99 for iPhones and iPads). The Photographers' Ephemeris is a must have app for planning a photography shoot, and one that I have mentioned many times before. The Ephemeris allows you to plot your location on a map and see the angles and timing of sunrise, sunset, moon rise, and moon set. The app has also been recently updated with more features, including the timings for the astronomical, nautical, and civil start and end times for twilight.

The Ephemeris lets in you to plot both the timing and place of your shoot, relying on what you need to seize. If you need to shoot a sunset at the back of a famous landmark or the moon growing above a clean lake, you can determine precisely wherein (and while) to be to capture that actual occasion. Read more information in How to Shoot the Moon with the Photographers' Ephemeris.

Golden Hour and Blue Hour

Golden Hour apps (Exsate Golden Hourfree for Android or Golden Hour by Roger Moffat $1.99 for iPhones and iPads). These two apps provide some of the same information as the Photographers' Ephemeris but with a focus on the timing for the Golden Hour and the Blue Hour. Both apps contain off-line information, so you can use them in locations without reliable internet or cell access.

The Android app additionally combines the modern-day climate forecast for your place and summary guidelines approximately topics to shoot. There is a map view that you can use, however it's miles a chunk clunkier than the Ephemeris. This is a awesome one-stop keep for figuring out Golden Hour and Blue Hour timings. (Read more about Blue Hour Photography right here.)

Lighting

Soft Light or Soft Box fashion apps (Pocket Softboxfree with ads for Android , Softlight free with adds for Android, or SoftBox Pro $0.99 for iPhone or $2.99 for iPad). There are several different apps available that allow you to use your phone or tablet as a light source or soft box. If you are using a tablet, you can set small objects on it and use your tablet as a light box directly. These apps work best in darker situations or as an accent to other lighting.

Pocket Softbox for Android permits you to swipe around the screen to exchange the colour of the light - both the usage of the Kelvin scale or RGB colour wheel. There is a sliding scale at the lowest for brightness. You can also change the size of the mild to a massive circle to create exciting catchlights in the attention of your subject. There are a few loaded presets for the fundamental Kelvin white balances, however you can't actually type in a color temperature or hex code to get the colour you need, you could most effective locate the right shade with the aid of swiping. (Once located, however, a mild colour can be 'locked' or stored as a preset for later.)

Softlight for Android offers 4 sliding scales to modify the coloration, hue, and brightness of the mild emitted via the display screen. Again, there is no way to 'program' in a selected coloration. (The advertisements and scroll bars leave after you've got decided on your coloration options.)

Soft Box Pro for Apple affords 15 extraordinary colorations, 15 specific softbox shapes, and 15 distinct grids or styles to regulate the light. In-app purchases permit for added options, which includes an RGB shade wheel picker. Brightness can be adjusted throughout eight stops of mild.

My Shot Lists

My Shot Lists (free for iPhone and iPad; no Android version, alas) is an easy-to-use app that includes more than 50 different categories of shots that you can use to create your own shot lists. This app is geared towards travel photographers and includes examples and information about each type of shot as well. You can also add notes to the categories or to your own photos as you go. Read more aboutTravel Photography and Why to Make a Shot List here.

ISS Detector

ISS Satellite Detector (free for Android,$2.75 for the Pro Android version, and not available for Apple, though the free ISS Spotter has some of the same functionality) is a great app for astrophotography. This app alerts you to the position, timing, and brightness of iridium flares and passes of the International Space Station. (An iridium flare is a bright flash of light, often confused with a shooting star, created when the reflective surface of a satellite bounces light back down to Earth.) In app purchases (or the Pro version) allow you add information about satellites, comets, and other famous space objects, like the Hubble telescope. The app also syncs with local weather to offer predictions on viewing conditions. You can set alerts for objects, and the countdown plus compass insures you won't miss one! (Also an excellent way to impress your friends. Who doesn't want to watch the space station pass overhead?)

Summary: Apps to Aid Your Photography

Each of these apps can assist you in your photography, regardless of the type of camera you are using. Apps like the Photographer's Ephemeris, ISS Satellite Detector, and the Golden Hour apps will help you plan and prepare for your shot by figuring out where and when to shoot. My Shot List lets you plan and track your upcoming shoot and also serves as a great jumping off point for challenging yourself in your photography - give a new category or style a try. Finally, the lighting and softbox apps allow you to add light productively and creatively to your scene.

Did you leave out the primary two app posts? Check out Part 1: Photography Apps (apps for taking higher snap shots together with your phone) and Part 2: Photography Processing Apps. Have some other favorite app? Share your thoughts inside the comments below!

Boost Your Photography: Learn Your DSLR is now to be had from Amazon. Get the maximum out of your digital camera with sensible advice about the technical and creative components of DSLR photography so that it will have you ever taking stunning pics proper away.