Fun With Photo Editing

I freely admit to being one of the least technologically savvy people on the planet.  It’s also no secret that things sometimes go pretty wrong for me with my phone.  So it really shouldn’t surprise me that I just discovered a feature on the phone, three years after I got it.

Better late than never, right?

My big, happy discovery over the long weekend has been that I can edit pictures on my phone.  It’s actually pretty simple to do, and once the changes are made, it saves the edited photos in a separate album.

It has rained incessantly for the vast majority of the weekend.  There are lots of flood advisories, and a neighboring county even had a voluntary evacuation in some areas.  So I’ve spent most of my time inside over the weekend.  That gave me lots of time to play with some of the editing features on the phone.  I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve had fun trying different things on different pictures.

I love how much you can change a picture just by adjusting the lighting or color.

Here’s the original picture I took of a tree in a park about two months ago:

This is the tree in documentary style:

To begin with, I thought documentary style was just another name for black and white, but it does actually look a little different when you choose the black and white option.  Here it is in black and white:

Next  I played around with the saturation.  This is the tree with the saturation maxed out.  I like how bright and vivid it makes the colors.  I think the grass is absolutely gorgeous in this version of the picture.

While I was experimenting with maxing things out, I decided to play around with the warmth.  I think it makes the picture look like it was possibly taken during the fall rather than the spring.  It just has a very autumn look to me.

Next I played around with the fill light.  I adjusted the light to make it light and bright.  I think this version of the picture definitely looks like it was taken during the spring.   I think it makes it look like it was taken earlier in the day, and on a brighter day.

I tried the option to have the picture as a negative too.  It's usually not one of my favorite options, but it's nice to know I can do it if I want to.

Last of all, I decided to try the picture out in sepia.  I usually really like the sepia finish.  I like how it makes pictures look old.  I liked it for the tree, but it wasn't one of my favorites.  I think this particular picture just loses something when it's not in color.

I think my favorite version of this picture is the one with the saturation maxed out.  I like the vivid colors, and I think for this particular picture it really adds something.  The version with the fill light adjusted is a close second.  Again, I think that has a fair amount to do with this actual picture.  It makes the tree look bright and airy; very springy.

Even though I don't think they were the best versions for this particular picture, I love having the sepia, documentary, and black and white options.  I want to do some experimenting with some of my pictures from Charleston, SC in those finishes.

The negative and the one with the warmth maxed out were my least favorite versions of this picture.  The negative finish isn't usually one of my favorites, so that wasn't a surprise.  I did think I would like the warmer version better than I do though.  I think my biggest issue is that it took a spring picture and made it look like a fall picture.  I prefer spring to fall, so it makes sense that I wouldn't like the fall version as much.

Do you have a favorite version of the picture?  What about a least favorite?