We are officially halfway through 2023 and It’s finally getting warmer and summer is around the corner.
This month I’m here to help make your summer campaigns easier by finding out what the best mobile photo editing apps are.
Polar
Polar is relatively easy to use, you import your camera roll into the app, choose the image you want and edit away. It offers auto adjustments but a particularly interesting feature is that you can create your own profile and save certain effects and grades which you can reuse. There is a ‘discover’ tab where you can explore other peoples grades and use them on your own images. There is a premium version meaning some features and some peoples filters, are only available if you are a premium member.
Photoshop Express
Similar to Polar, Photoshop express has a free version and a premium version. It also has an explore page where you can view Images others have edited, see their step by step process and copy the edits onto your own image. Photoshop Express has a number of built in ‘Quick actions’ which can help you get started on an edit. It has a similar process to the editing of an image, importing your camera roll and choosing a photo, but it seems easier to remove objects and combine photos etc. It has plenty of step by step tutorials to take you through any editing process.
Both Polar and Photoshop Express offer sliders where you can adjust settings, they are split into sections like Transform, resizing, adjust which is for the colour grade, retouch which is for removing objects etc. and a few more. The adjust section particularly is where all of them run into issues, there are many sections for different alterations: light, colour, HSL, Toning, effects ect. But unless you have an understanding of what it is you want to change about your image and exactly what setting will help you achieve your desired result, you end up playing a guessing game.
Huji
If you want to get that retro film camera look without spending hours editing or spending hundreds of pounds on a film camera, Huji is the perfect solution. It is a mobile film camera and while you still have to wait a little while for the images to develop in the app, they often contain that retro light leak, are slightly blurry around the edges and are sometimes grainy. Now this look isn’t for everyone. It’s certainly stylistic and shouldn’t be used all the time but if it does fit with your brand identity, this look might make your insta grid pop with a very easy, retro ‘polaroid’ every now and again.
Overall I think Photoshop Express is the most user friendly and most capable mobile photo editing app, there’s so much you can do with it and even if you have no knowledge of editing it will take you through the process step by step and help you to understand what you are doing and why you are doing it.
Editing is something I love and being professionally trained to colour grade as much as these apps are useful, sometimes a little bit of professional help or guidance will help you with your editing needs. I personally use a combination of the full version of Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom to edit my images as they give a high quality professional finish.
Get in touch by emailing me at contact@mollymcguinness.co.uk.
I look forward to hearing from you and seeing how I can help elevate your brand or business.
Next month I will be discussing how to promote your business over the summer.
If you have any suggestions for future blog posts or need any quick advice, please feel free to contact me with your suggestions or questions.
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