iPhone Photo Tip #1

They say the best camera is the one you have with you--and smart phones are never far from most of our hands.   I love both--the iPhone camera and my Nikon.  I'm taking a class in each and have learned more than I ever learned in a photography class or from a book. Not only are the lectures easy to follow, but there's a Facebook group where members submit photographs and make suggestions.

All these years I've mostly used auto focus and the extent of my editing was cropping.  Now that I know many more options for both, I wish I had a second chance to do the portrait photos for Wonderful Old Women.

I decided to share tips I've learned here on my blog in part to simplify my own notes to self, in part to give you some pointers if you want them.

Today's Tip is--if you like editing your photos--is to download the free or nearly free app, Snapseed.  You can use this app for photos taken with any camera.

In the editing component of the class, the teacher demonstrates ways to dramatically improve photos with this simple app.  He first shows us a picture I think is already just fine, then in five minutes, he's turned it into a way better one.

With Snapseed, you can actually remove elements that are distracting (though I've not mastered this very well yet).  What I have gotten the hang of is the too (Tune Image) that allows you to add or decrease saturation and highlights--and many other countless changes to punch up your pictures.

There's an old truck on Austin Highway that always catches my eye, so I decided this morning to take a picture of it as my test run.  I added a few tiny strokes and now, even though it's no art gallery piece, it was a good practice run with cropping and highlighting and a few other minor tweaks.

Before Snapseed

After Snapseed