Photo Editing Tutorial on Android

First of all, this is not an advertorial post, this is more like a sharing post!

Many of you asked me what applications do I usually use to edit my photos on Instagram, and most importantly "what gadget do I use to take them?". The answer is on this post!

Currently, I am using Samsung Galaxy Camera to take most of the photos you see on my Instagram and so far, I pretty much like it, especially when I shoot outdoor, freakin' awesome!

Since Samsung is an Android based OS gadget, then say goodbye to all those fancy iPhone photo editors, because to be honest, Android doesn't have a lot of flattering photo editors, and that's why I always stick with two: Snapseed and Pixlr Express, and almost 80% of the photos you see on my Instagram are edited on Snapseed, so I'm going to focus on that. I also have an iPhone, and there are tons of photo editing apps in my iPhone, but the thing is I have to transfer the photo from one gadget to another and I find it irritating me, I am not that keen!

I love editing my photos, I can do it anytime, anywhere, even on my private toilet bowl session, and the best advantage of using Samsung Galaxy Camera is that I can share it directly. What's better than that? Having your own private leisure toilet bowl session and upload it to your favorite social medias.

Why I love Snapseed?
After trying many apps (which some are completely rubbish), I find "Snapseed" to be most user-friendly, most efficient, filled with awesome features and in a way, simple, clean and easy to use! Of course, photo editing on the gadgets won't give you the same quality if you're using the combination of DSLR camera and computer photo editing, but at least it makes your pictures a little more decent looking and that's the freaking point! I don't need to have out-of-the-world good photo, especially for an Instagram lunatic like me who updates 5-6 times/day, the thing is I just wanna share decent looking photos, not necessarily the best ones.

The photo above is the sample photo I took at Ikkudo Ichi Ramen and I'm going to give you a step-to-step tutorial on that! Trust me, the steps are simple.

1. Make sure you have a damn good photo base, then crop!
On everything you do in life, the base itself should be great to create awesome results. In photography, clear photo with good lighting. It's not a secret that daylight is the best light for food photography, and Thank God for the manual shooting mode in this Galaxy Camera! If you are aware from the first that you're going to upload this photo to Instagram, make sure the area that's going to be square-cropped is clean.

It's not so glamorous anymore when you knew the behind the scene...

Since Samsung Galaxy Camera has a very large landscape range (which is by the way gorgeous for landscape photography), no matter where I upload my photo later, I always captured them first on camera and not directly from the applications which have a camera feature. There are times when the lens catch anything that's unnecessary, especially when you're in a restaurant and you're on a limited-size table situation. If you know that you're going to upload this to Instagram, make sure the square area is clean.

2. Automatic mode to stabilize the colors, brightness and contrast

Most of the times, I always use the Automatic mode after I do the cropping to stabilize the color, brightness and the contrast. Frankly speaking, this mode doesn't always work properly, there are times when your photos get too blue or yellow, but you can custom everything with the scrolling bar.

3. White Balance

After I custom the photo with the "Automatic Mode" and I still doesn't completely satisfied with the color, I the use the "White Balance" mode to control the warmth of the photo. Just remember this simple rule:

1. "+" equals to warmer (yellowish tone)

2. "-" equals to cold (bluish tone),

meaning when I scroll the bar to the left, it will create this bluish tone like the photo below.

On the other hand, when I scroll the bar to the right, it will create the yellowish tone like this...

Since I thought the original photo was still a little bluish, I scroll the bar just a little to the right to make it more neutral looking.

3. Selective Adjust

I thought my photo was on a good lighting so I didn't add the brightness to the whole photo, but I thought I needed to live up the brightness on the food itself, and that's when this "Selective Adjust" feature really works! Thumbs up for Snapseed on this one! This feature allows you to do the brightness, contrast and saturation adjustments on certain area

4. Sharpening
The final step that I always do in Snapseed photo editing is sharpening the photo, especially on food photos, when the texture of the food is clearer, the more appetizing they are! And that's what I am trying to do with the sharpening mode. Please remember that Snapseed's sharpening mode is really intense, even on the +10 situation, the sharpening is so intense, that's why I always set it just around 1-10 (maximum).

FINAL RESULT!

TADA! Easy and really simple, right?!

This is pretty much the editing process that I did to most of  my *ahem* decent photos on Instagram.

Just remember that when you already have a good photo base, it will really help you on the editing process. Take a damn clear decent looking photo and shoot in Manual for the best result as you can set pretty much...everything, and after that, minimal editing will create maximum result :).

I hope this tutorial helps! I am going to make the photo editing tutorial on iPhone entry soon! (which I believe going to be longer and more interesting).

Make sure you check out my Basic Food Photography Tips.

Till the next post! Ciao!

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