APPS / PHOTO SPECIAL ................Tools and Apps to Help You Edit Like a Pro

APPS PHOTO SPECIAL Tools and Apps to Help You Edit Like a Pro  If you see a photograph that makes you go wow, chances are that it’s been edited. Somehow, the word ‘edited’ has acquired a negative connotation but a little enhancement is actually required in most cases. shows you how you can make a plain photograph look better with minimal effort  The Basics of Photo Editing     Every camera is configured a little differently — the way the sensor,  lens, image processor and software algorithms combine to produce results is what makes the final image what it is. A trained eye can also notice subtle differences in the results obtained from different cameras of the same type. Add in the variables of the photographer himself/herself, the lighting conditions and the subjects and you start to realise why a little bit of enhancement goes a long way in creating a better image. Most colour images should benefit from a lit bit of the following tweaks. THE CORRECT CROP Use the crop function to bring the subject more into focus or to cut out any unwanted elements in the frame. This is where extra megapixels come in handy, so that you can leave out certain bits of the image and still be left with something high res. If the horizon is slanted, this is a good time to straighten it. SATURATION & SHARPNESS A boost of colour will instantly make an image ‘pop’ but be careful not to add too much. This tool is especially useful if you have an expanse of sky/clouds, water or trees/foliage in the frame. If you have a tool that allows it, you can also saturate a certain colour while leaving the others intact for an interesting effect. RETOUCH LEVELS & EXPOSURE If the lighting conditions were too complex at the time of taking the photograph (a subject with a bright backlight, multiple areas of dark and light), you can attempt to correct the anomalies using levels and exposure tools. The aim is to bring out details in the shadows without making everything too washed out. IN-CAMERA HDR & FAUX HDR HDR or high dynamic range, when done right, can bright out details in the darker areas of the subject while maintaining the brightness of the lighter areas. Try enabling the HDR function if your camera has one. If not, you can apply a faux HDR effect using a free online tool called iPiccy (mentioned in online photo editors). CONVERT TO BLACK & WHITE You can add a lot of drama by just discarding the colour of a photograph. While there are lots of complex ways you can do this, you can easily do this in-camera (many cameras now have a built in B&W option). If you want to save both versions of the image, just use the desaturate function while photo editing for a quick result. Lightroom For iPad Any professional photographer knows about Lightroom, Adobe’s industry standard photo editing tool. With Lightroom for iPad, Adobe has introduced much of the same functionality on a portable device (including the ability to edit RAW camera files, with a caveat — you actually import the RAW files into the desktop version of Lightroom, and the changes you make on the iPad will automatically reflect in the photo stored on the computer). Lightroom mobile for the iPad requires an iPad 2 or later running iOS 7 and a subscription to one of Adobe’s Creative Cloud plans (see more at https:// creative.adobe.com/plans). In other words, while Lightroom for the iPad itself is free, you do need to pay for an Adobe Creative Cloud plan, the price of which includes use of the desktop version of Lightroom. Best Photo Editing Apps For Android and iOS In our opinion, Snapseed is the closest you can get to a professional grade image editing tool for free on your portable device. Its fast, offers tons of built in effects/filters, precise control over the levels of adjustment and scales easily from the novice to the photography enthusiast. Snapseed uses a control scheme that is ideal for touchscreen devices — when you first load up a photograph, you need to select from a range of effects shown as thumbnails. Then, you slide a finger up or down to select a filter and slide left or right to decrease or increase the intensity of the effect. Then, you can tap & hold an image to show a before-after (after applying the effect). It works incredibly well and in most cases, you can edit images faster than you do on a computer. Some of our other favourite (and free) photo editing apps include Aviary (iOS and Android), Photoshop Express (Android, iOS, Windows), Pixlr Express and Pixlr-o-matic (both by the same developer, Autodesk, available for Android & iOS). Online Photo Editors     iPiccy (http://ipiccy.com) and Pixlr   (http://pixlr.com) are great places to  start for free, online image editing.     Pixlr offers an advanced tool called ‘Editor’ and a more basic tool for quick editing called Pixlr Express (apart from their great free app called Pixlr-o-matic). Pixlr Editor is our tool of choice because it offers the maximum functionality right inside your browser window. Pic Monkey (www.picmonkey.com) is another tool that we like. They offer a browser-based editing tool with some great built in effects (apart from the basic enhancements like crop, saturation, contrast and so on). You can upload an image from your computer or directly get something that’s already saved in your Dropbox, Facebook or Flickr account. The free version is ad supported but you can remove them (plus get loads of additional effects) by paying for the monthly/yearly subscription. Other online image editors that we recommend are FotoFlexer (http://fotoflexer.com) and Google’s own image editor (which works only in Google Chrome when you sign into Google Photos). GIMP: A FREE OFFLINE EDITOR If you prefer to stay offline and download a free program for photo editing, there’s nothing better than GIMP (www.gimp.org). GIMP is an open source image editor that is compatible with Windows, MAC & Linux. It offers powerful features that you would normally find in expensive image editing programs like Photoshop but with the added advantage of being completely customisable. For instance, you can change the way GIMP looks and behaves by altering the widgets (themes, icon sizes) and you can expand its functionality by downloading additional plugins from the community. Hitesh Raj Bhagat

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