I used to always find myself taking thousands upon thousands of pictures whilst on trips but never finding the time to take them off my cameras, let alone transferring them across to my phone. It’s not uncommon for me to go through my hard drives and find images that I didn’t know I had, just because getting them off my camera was such a pain. Then there’s the issue of what programs you should use to edit these images before you share them on the gram or your Facebook page – haha. Sound familiar?
On my trip to Vietnam in August I made the bold decision of just bringing my Sony RX100V and chose to leave my bulky equipment back home. Why? Size was an obvious factor but the Wi-Fi transferring capability was the other key feature that made the decision easy.
I want to highlight how easy it is to use the Wi-Fi function of the Sony RX100V and this will pretty much work for a majority of the Sony cameras, not just the RX100 range. All you need to do is download the free PlayMemories app and connect it to your camera. Search for the SSID and enter the password to connect. If you have an iPhone then wi-fi is your only option but if you have an Android then both Wi-Fi and NFC are available for you.
You can customise different settings, like how large you want your images to be when they’re saved to your phone. Given the quality of the images that Sony has, I recommend selecting a smaller size if it’s only going to be used for social sharing and larger if you plan on blowing them up in print. Also note that if you do choose the 2MB option, then your phone will receive a compressed JPEG image of the original JPEG – essentially a compression on compression sort of deal.
Ok so you’ve transferred these images onto your phone – what do you do with them now? Well, I thought I’d share with you all the key applications I use to edit images on my phone. I don’t think you need them all but I thought I’d share exactly how I use my applications to create the images for both my Instagram and blog. I am no Photoshop whizz and find Photoshop confusing at the best of times, so hopefully these will make your editing life a lot easier!
BEST PHOTO EDITING APPS FOR YOUR PHONE
SNAPSEED
This is probably the main application I use to edit almost ALL of my photos and the great thing about it is editing in both JPEG and RAW formats – the Sony RX100V is capable of shooting in both. I mentioned in an earlier post that I like to have the camera set to shoot both formats, just in case I want to be able to manipulate images in more detail later on.
It’s an all-purpose photo editing application that can do the following:
- Crop, rotate, straighten and perspective correction
- Ability to adjust exposure, saturation, colour, sharpness and clarity
- Provides brush tools to allow for selective editing (a personal favourite and something I use for almost every photo)
- Healing capabilities to remove unwanted elements within images
- Add basic text to images (though limited in choices)
COLOR STORY
I like to use this application to set the base colour scheme for all my photos. I don’t tend to use it for fine-tuning images like adjusting contrast, brightness etc. but rather picking a filter that adjusts the overall colour, tone and lighting to what I would like the final image to look like.
Once I’ve picked my filter I tend to export and move the image into Snapseed for fine-tuning, though you can do most things in here without switching over. You’re also able to save the exact editing steps you’ve made in case you want to re-apply it to a series of images from the same batch if you do choose to fine-tune in Color Story.
The main downside of this application is you have to purchase the filter packs you like, but thankfully they don’t cost an arm or a leg. You can easily go overboard with the filters but thankfully you can adjust how much of that particular filter you want applied to your image, which makes it a little more user-friendly.
The Sony RX100V has been incredibly reliable when it comes to taking vibrant shots but sometimes when the colours are too rich (I know, there’s such thing as too much colour sometimes – even for me) you may need certain filters to soften the overall feel of the image. This is where Color Story comes in – there are various packs that you can purchase for less than $3 and some will be more vibrant and others more muted.
An application with an arsenal of filters to get you started on the perfect Instagram grid (at a price):
- 100+ filters (purchased in packs/stories)
- Adjusting tools including clarity, contrast, brightness, saturation etc.
- Ability to add fancy light flares, leaks and colour fogs to your images if you don’t know how to create these from your camera
- Save steps and create your own personalised filter
FACETUNE
Now here’s a controversial app that gets a bad rep from all the girls out there, giving themselves digital plastic surgery by over airbrushing skin and shrinking themselves skinnier than what they truly are. Alas, have faith; this particular tool is very useful when used correctly.
The Sony RX100V has an incredibly useful face detection tool meaning you’ll find yourself more often than not in focus, which makes editing in these applications incredibly easy. It also means that you don’t have to go overboard with trying to overdo the details within the app that often results in pixilation. The level of detail that the camera captures can also be a little too clear sometimes when you have a fresh zit on your face that no amount of concealer will mask – enter Facetune.
For me, I have a few unfortunate scars on my body that I’m rather self-conscious about; so I work a little smoothing magic on the app to return myself to a scar-free state that I am constantly working towards. My other favourite feature to use is the details function to bring out the sharpness in certain areas of my images. Even though this was an app designed to edit portraitures, I’ve used it for shots even when I am a pinprick in comparison to the rest of the image.
Airbrushing for dummies on mobile phones:
- Retouching capabilities for portraits and allows for localised fingertip brushing of all effects
- Ability to whiten teeth, augment face and other elements within the photo, removing red-eyes and blurring backgrounds for a professional look
- Saves images in original resolution
- The details function allows you to really highlight certain elements of your image that need to stand out
TOUCH/RETOUCH 
As the name suggests, the app is great for removing the unwanted photo-bomber or five in the backdrop of your photos or perhaps there is a black spot on an otherwise perfectly white canvas that you just can’t stand to look at. This app is incredibly easy to use and sometimes you may have to try a few times to remove objects but you’ll find it easy to move back and forth.
The wizard for removing undesirable additions in your photographs:
- Brush/lasso functions that let you highlight objects you want removed and the app will automatically remove this and blend surrounding pixels
- Remove people, dust spots, unwanted lines and much more for a cleaner shot
- Use this to also remove obvious scars and blemishes if you don’t want to use Facetune
ENLIGHT
This app was shown to me by a fellow blogger who taught me how to use the clone tool to remove inconsistencies in your image when Touch/Retouch fails to blend the pixels around the removed object properly. It has a lot of basic and advanced tools such as allowing you to apply effects only to selected elements of the image whilst leaving the rest untouched through the Mask tool.
A versatile photo editor for iPhones with both basic tools to edit images as well as other artistic tools:
- Adjust exposure, color, details as well as crop, rotate and straighten images
- Cloning capabilities as well as intelligent photo correction
- Utilise drawing tools, texts, borders and frames
- Masking tool allows for seamless blending of effects used
Did you find this useful? If you did make sure you subscribe to receive updates of all my posts to come and of course SHARE SHARE SHARE! xo
Make sure you check out my other posts including Colours of Hong Kong, Colours of Marrakech and Colours of Italy.
This post has been created in collaboration with Sony however I am a human being and all opinions expressed are my own.
