In this article, I will show you how I edit a photo of a child with a balloon figure and transform it into an image for your social media sites.
Let’s start with the basic equipment I use.
- A Galaxy S22
- Basic photo editing software that comes with the Samson Galaxy S22
- Other free phone apps, which I’ll list in the article.
Over the past 5-years, I have been taking pictures with my cell phone, and many of these pictures, in retrospect, are garbage, and I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did early on.
Stage the picture, as you’ll be much happier with the final results.
My mistake was allowing the subject, to pose or stage the scene. Several years ago, I hired a professional photographer for a family portrait, and he set the scene. He told us how to stand, where to look, and make sure the lighting was correct. Years later, I was working on an event, and the photographer and PR agent for the event asked if they could take a picture. Sure I said, every entertainer wants a professional photographer taking the picture. To my surprise, he stages the scene.
“Why are you staging the scene,” I asked. The photographer looked at me and said, “I want to ensure the client gets excellent pictures. ” Milisa, the PR agent, agreed that you waste too much time trying to capture a good photo when you can spend a minute or two and stage the picture and get the results you need for marketing.
Here’s the picture they took that afternoon.
I Change The Way I Take Pictures
Image creators on TikTok, Instagram, and even Facebook reels all stay the same, but are you following their advice? I am.
The argument was landscape vs. portrait pictures in the ’90s and early 2000s. In 2022, this is a moot point. Both formats, vertical and horizontal, are now socially acceptable.
Content creators specializing in video and photography tell us to flip the cell phone 180 degrees if holding the camera vertically. Flipping the cell phone reduces the headspace and provides more space near the bottom, allowing for more editing space in the picture.
I have learned that the extra space obtained by flipping the camera allows me to horizontally or vertically align the picture. Aligning the background is a technique I learned from a sports photographer and have used when taking pictures of my son’s sporting events.
In the example below, I use my Canon EOS RP camera. Notice the background on the left. The fence goes downhill. By rotating the image, the fence in the background is horizontal, not slanted. I cropped the picture to capture the action in the photo.
A quick explanation—Objects in the background may not be vertically or horizontally straight and can become a distraction to a viewer. As you noticed in the example below, the glass tiles slope to the left in the picture. By flipping the cell phone 180 degrees, I gain cropping space, allowing me to rotate the image to ensure the background objects are correctly aligned.
Filters Are My Friends
In the Spring of 2022, I bought a Canon EOS RP mirrorless camera. The camera takes beautiful pictures, but I opted not to use the auto setting but to learn how to use the manual mode.
I then turned to my cell phone to see if I could emulate this experience. I can, but it is not easy, so I opted to do the following.
- Use the automatic cell phone settings.
- Use a filter to improve the image.
- Manually adjust the filter setting to create a better picture
- Use addon cell phone apps to enhance the image, just like professional photographers use Lightbox to enhance professional photos.
Here is the raw and final image from my phone.
How I Create This Picture
IMPORTANT – Duplicate this image, as you’ll want to keep the original or need to re-edit the picture in the future.
I use the cell phone’s automatic setting to take a picture. Using my phone editing software, I choose the 1st filter, which enhances the colors. Next, I select the crop image feature and make any horizontal or vertical adjustments. I did not need to make any adjustments to this photo. At this point, I zoomed in on the girl with the unicorn filling up the square and cropped the image as a one-by-one square.
I Understand My Camera Options.
The Samson Galaxy S22 has features to spot, remove and convert a picture to portrait mode. Spot removal allows me to remove an object or individuals who might be a distraction to the viewer.
The portrait mode allows me to blur or soften the background making the girl with the unicorn the focal point.
After saving the image, I found an App on Google Play called YouCam Perfect that allowed me to brighten the subject’s eyes. Adding light to the eyes, referred to as ring light or halo glow, brings life to the eyes of the subject. Enhancing the eyes with light is common in TV, movies, and photography.
Apps I Use In Google Play Store
- Add Watermarks
- AirBrush
- Background Edit
- Canva
- Lightleap
- Prisma
- Layout
- PhotoLayers
- CapCut
- VM
- YouCam Perfect
I hope this article was helpful to you and if you have an app/software to enhance photos, please share it with me and those reading this article.
Lastly, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram, as this is the first place I post new pictures.