Editing Phone Photos

I will start by saying, I LOVE taking pictures with my big camera and editing those, it's my passion.   I love all of my different lenses, I love the control I have when taking those photos, and I am very particular about editing those camera photos.  

BUT, sometimes I don't have my big camera---and my phone is very convenient, so I also use it often.  The only downfall is sometimes they don't look bright enough to me, or the color is a bit off, etc.  Now, I am not one to wants to mess around with lots of editing the pictures I take with my phone, so I will share with you the simple edits I apply to most of the photos I take on my phone.  

"Before" and "After" my simple edits

The very first thing I do (when necessary) is crop and straighten my photo in the "on phone" photo editor.  

Next, I use the PicTapGo app.  I only use the basic free app, I do not pay for the "extras".  Once you get the app, it's pretty simple to use.  I typically use 3-4 filters and pretty much ignore the rest.  

I make sure my phone brightness is turned all the way up while I am editing.

First, I usually have to brighten up the photo by using the "lights on" filter.  It's the very first filter.  I adjust the slider until the brightness looks good.  Sometimes, if a photo is super dark, I have to apply this filter twice.

Original Photo

After the "Lights On" Filter

If my photo color cast is either really warm or really cool, I change the white balance.  The white balance is correct when the white parts of my photo look pure white instead of either bluish or yellowish.  If they look yellow, I apply the "cool it down" filter.  If they look blue, I apply the "warm it up" filter.  I also sometimes have to use this filter two times, and I adjust the slider to the amount that looks good to me.

After the "Cool it Down" Filter

*Occasionally, I try the "autocolor" filter.  I find that usually that messes the whole photo up and I have to hit "undo", but sometimes it works well.

Finally, I use the "auto contrast" filter, and adjust the slider.  Usually I move it pretty far down, so it's just a touch of added contrast.  This filter makes the blacks pop in the photo.

After the "Auto Contrast" Filter

When I'm finished editing, I save the photo to the camera roll.  The nice part about this app is that if I have 4 pictures in a row in the same place (same lighting conditions), I only have to edit one picture and I can "batch edit" the rest by selecting "batch" at the bottom of the screen.  This applies the same filters to all of the photos I choose from the camera roll.

Here is the final "before and after" photo.  

"Before" and "After" my quick edits

I hope this helps you with some quick edits to your phone pictures to really help them shine!!!

BONUS TIP:  These edits also work when taking photos of your completed scrapbook layouts!