iPad Photo Fun – Snapseed

I’ve had a few requests to show my workflow/process as I play with my photo apps on my iPhone or iPad. So here you go.

One of my first favorites was Snapseed. (Which I believe is also available for Android users.) You take your photo as usual then open the app on your device and start messing around. I don’t spend time on games on my divides – well – Sudoku once in a very great while. The few games on my devices are there for children to play ONLY when we are waiting in a Dr’s examining room or somewhere that they aren’t involved in the main event andmust sit still and behave for more than 30 minutes. (I’m such a mean mom!)

Open the app then choose a photo from your library. You also have the option to take a photo right in the app but I find them to be much lower quality than those taken the regular way. The original photo is always still there, when you save your altered photo it saves as a new copy.

My “go-to” first process is to click Tune Image then numb up the Ambiance, then adjust the Contrast, Brightness, and Saturation a bit. Click Apply when you are happy with what you have. If you are playing and like a photo at any step simply save it then move on. If you apply a filter and don’t like it you can open the most recent saved version and mess with it from there.

Then the real fun begins. In this photo, sort of humdrum, I’ll play with Center Focus. I move the blue dot and expand the circle so that the flower is centered then mess with the inner and outer brightness and blur strength.

Now it’s time to get funky. The Grunge filter has about a thousand variations that you can slide through and you can also vary the strength of the Texture, Saturation, Contrast, etc. In this case I think I’m going to Crop the image so the petals aren’t quite so much centered. I always like a little more visual space on the side the subject seems to be “looking” towards.

 And just for fun, here are a few more workflows….

original photo of the Smithsonian Castle

Drama filter

Tune Image adjustments

Tilt-Shift filter

Frame