the amateur's guide to editing iPhone photos

There she goes again. Writing tutorialesque like posts about things she has no business writing tutorialesque like posts about. No business.

It's true! I'm still learning the treacherous ropes of editing photos on my phone and I'm not an expert. And I know there are hundreds of better tutorials out there but ... what the wild? I'll throw mine in the haystack.

I use photos from my phone to use in blog posts FAR too often. I wish I had a third arm solely for the purpose of lugging my camera around along with some knowledge about how to properly use said camera but ... some dreams are better left untouched, I suppose. So, for now ... camera phone + paltry editing skillage it is. Hear me whisper-roar and making Perry proud.
 
Come along, this will be fun.
Promise.

BASIC TIPS:
+ clean your screen. All the time. It's really crazy how a little smudge can ruin picture after picture and I'll be honest and admit I just use my finger to wipe the phone clean but I'm sure a dust free cloth meant for cleaning glasses would be ideal. As much as I LOVE the LifeProof case because I can rest easy knowing that if Sebastian or Theo decide take my phone for a toilet dip (again) ... it will be fine for about an hour (crazy) but the front (aka selfie) camera lens is total crap because I don't know why but it's tough to keep it stuck to the phone and so dust builds up in .04 seconds flat and so ... limited selfies from Grace. It's awful. But I do take the case off every week or so and clean it really well so as not to deprive the masses of the vapid.

+ tap tap tap. An easy way to avoid getting super dark (and grainy) photos is to tap around on the screen and the phone will adjust the lighting accordingly. Tap faces to focus on faces. Obviously trying to get a great snap in a dark room is not going to work unless you use the flash (and I hate using the flash so I just don't) but our living room is pretty poorly lit and tapping around can shed some serious light on a photo. Editing can brighten photos up significantly ...

... but to avoid the grainy ... tap, tap, tap until the light is right.

+ take a million photos. I won't pretend to know anything about anything when it comes to composition but it helps to take several photos of the same situation ... especially when it comes to little kids and their reluctant smiles etc. I probably overdo this ...

this is actually two different photos and the only slightly noticeable difference is Sebastian's face tilt so I could've cooled my snappy jets here but ... it's easy to delete photos in batches so .... no foul here.

THAT'S ALL VERY NICE, GRACE. I THOUGHT THIS POST WAS ABOUT EDITING.

Right-o.

Afterlight.
I use Afterlight to edit my photos and I know there are some diehard vscocam and Snapseed fans but Afterlight comes the easiest to me and so ... I stick with it through good times and in bad.

My favorite actions are these:
      +clarify - I usually stick with 50% or less ... any more and it looks ... what's the technical term? weird. it looks weird.
      +brighten  - Again with the 50% but you can always do more ... brighter is usually better in my novice opinion.
      +contrast - not always necessary but a tiny bit of contrast can go a long way.
+ Russ - under guest filters is my favorite filter and I usually bring it down to about 40% but ... there are tons of filters. I might be stuck in a bit of a rut.
+ fade - sometimes I'll throw a little fade on a photo to soften it a bit but I think it can look a little bit like a dusty windshield so ... fade cautiously.
+ black & white - if you took a photo that you love but the lighting is pretty bleh ... you can always go the sneaky sneak black and white route ... I generally use the Ash filter (under original filters) and then clarify that puppy. It's magical ... just watch.
+ light leak - (this is the film strip icon) and leak #3 is my favorite ... but leak carefully lest you look like a big fake (and maybe I do) ...

And a few more just for fun ...

A QUICK NOTE ON INSTAGRAM:
+ it's all about the gram - not really but I read a post the other day and the author claimed to spend five (cinco!!) minutes editing every one of her photos that she posts to Instagram. That crazy. You can upload photos straight from Afterlight to Instagram which cuts down on time and you can use Afterlight's camera directly (but I don't because, like I confessed, I like to take millions!!).
+ fitting a photo (that you don't want to crop into a square) into a gram - Afterlight can do that but I tend to use the Squareready App because old dogs and new tricks. Using one of these apps will make the photo white and snazzy on the sides instead of black and not snazzy. Example here.
+ Squareready - can also make photo collages. I guess you didn't need to know that. But it can!

Question? Concern? Conundrum? Tell me and I'll address it. I promise.


And if you have any tips for me ... I'm all ears!