Photo Editing - Using Your Mobile Phone

This instructable will cover basic photo editing using applications available for download on mobile devices.

If you want to post a unique and beautiful photo for the world to see, it is first important to take a good picture that you will then enhance using editing tools that will be featured later.

Tips on taking a good photo:

• Set your camera on focus (on one subject)
• Play with perspectives, in order to find indirect lighting
• Use flash
• Use grind lines to centre the subject
• Shoot in the shade
• Take multiple different shots

It is very important to first think about how you want the photo to look. Keep in mind that, if you take bad photos, it will be harder to rescue them during editing. Certain features such as the brightness, contrast and saturation could always be tweaked, however, blurry photos, unfocused photos or extremely dark photos could not be changed.

If the photo you chose has a model as the main subject, it is not a surprise that the model might have certain imperfections, such as under-eye bags and acne. However this is not a problem since this could be removed using “Meitu”.

Open Meitu and use the acne tool to edit out any visible or unwanted blemishes. Use the medium size and manually using tapping motions, remove the pimples. (first photo)

Next, using the dark-circle tool correct the shadows under the eyes. Once again use the medium size to swipe away any unwanted colouring under or around the eyes. (as seen on the second picture)

Afterwards, using the smoothing tool, tap all over the face, using the largest size of brush. Doing this will create a more even-toned face, as well as, help soften out any visible wrinkles. By using tapping motions you will avoid the face having a “fake” look and rather gain a more soft, natural smoothing effect. (third picture)

Furthermore, use the brightening tool to highlight the eyes. This tool makes the colors of the eyes more vibrant and saturated. Having sharper features such as the eyes, attracts the viewer's’ attention and adds to the overall visually appealing look of the photograph. (forth picture)

Lastly, use the contour tool to draw in any wanted shadows or highlights. Using a larger brush size will help the added feature look natural. This tool could be used in order to accentuate certain features, such as the jaw or nose.

Pro Tip: after contouring or highlighting, go over the face with the eraser set to the largest size. Use tapping motions to blend in the added features to the natural skin tone.

Light in pictures plays a key role, however majority of the time, the light in the picture looks odd or just simply not how you wanted it to look. But this is not a problem since apps such VSCO could help tweak and fix the problems.

If the picture is too bright or too dark use the Exposition tool to adjust the lighting. In VSCO this could be simply done by moving the round cursor to the left to make the photo darker or to the right to brighten it up.

Pro tip: if the picture with a person as the main subject is taken outside in the Sun, making the exposition darker will make the subject “pop”.

The Contrast and Saturation tools adds saturation to the photo. It makes the darker features of the photograph either darker or lighter. These tools help when wanting to make the photo look sharper or on the other hand more foggy. The saturation tool also helps when wanting to warm up certain part of the photo. This tool could be used to accentuate the colours or make them more grey.

VSCO provides a sharper tool, which could be used to make the photo look less foggy and rather more intense. This tool makes the photo look of higher quality.

In addition to this, VSCO provides 3 different tools that allow the user to change the tones or colors in the photograph. The tone tool could be used to lighten up the shadows. The balance of white and skin tone tools could be used to add color that wasn’t in the picture before. The balance of white tool allows the user to make the picture pink or blue toned, by adjusting the light parts of the photo.

If you want to spice up your photo, using an application such as PicsArt really comes in handy. This app allows users to add unique filters and even change the background.

Currently, “portrait” photographs have been very trendy, however it is very hard to get a full body shot with this function already on your phone. In PicsArt you are able to do so.

Go into effects and click on blur. Pick out the type of blurring you would like and select it. After, go into the eraser tool and carefully outline the main subject. Using the eraser tool, remove any unwanted blurring. After doing so, adjust the intensity of the blurring and you are done!

PicsArt has many other effects available so don't be afraid to play around.

Creatic lets you add vintage filters, as well as grains, dust and vignette.

Pro tip: Adding a vignette will accentuate the main subject of the photo and will add dimension.

Snapseed similar to VSCO lets you correct light and enhance the saturation of the photograph.

Additionally, Snapseed enables you to edit things such as brightness, saturation, contrast, curves and shadows.