Master Mobile Photo Editing: Pro Tips Using Google Snapseed
This is my 2nd baby in the photo below, he’s 3 months here. With my first born I mostly used my big camera (DSLR), but the second time around I’m shooting mostly with an iPhone and the results are AMAZING (I use iPhone 11+).
Sometimes I feel guilty for not using my pro camera, but hey ‘done is better than perfect’. This month’s I focus on editing using the free phone app ‘Google Snapseed‘. I’ve got some tips below on how I edited the photo above or you can watch a more detailed video with voice instructions just at the end of this post. The four photos that follow are are my favourite at home ‘iPhone’ snaps this month. Some show flat-lay from above, a portrait and a landscape image, the phone can be very versatile.
About ‘Google Snapseed’
The ‘MAIN MENU‘ – The menu offers LOTS of different options for editing your photos and knowing which to choose can be a little overwhelming. So today I’ll share 5 tools I’ll use to edit the photo of my babe (above). I’ll be using :
Rotate, Crop, Curves, ‘Tune image’ (sub menu ‘warmth’) and Structure.
Overall what I’m looking to achieve to straighten my image… this is a HUGE one for me – nothing drives me crazy more than wonky lines in photographs! Next lighten and add a little sharpness/contrast and colour correct the image. My editing style is as close to real as possible or maybe 10% better than real life so the adjustments you’ll see are very minimal. Less is often more. Examples below show, left - ‘curves’ -used to lighten and darken an image + right 'free transform’ - used to straighten the image.
How to navigate the app – You can see the before and after of you image by tapping on the screen and taking your finger away, I did this whilst after using each tool to make sure I didn’t take the edit too far. Then when you’re happy click the ‘tick’ button bottom right to approve the edit you just did. You can go back a step or more by clicking the ‘box with a back arrow’ in the main menu at the top. For a more detailed edit, see the video below.
