Learn Photo Processing

Post Processing, or Editing photos on an iPhone is quick and satisfying. It is best done soon after taking a photo, otherwise you may not get around to doing it.

It is also a great way to learn the principles of Post Processing that you can use on an iPad or computer using software such as Photoshop and Affinity Photo.

Learn these principles on your phone now before venturing into these applications.

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To process on your iPhone

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Basic Adjustments

 

As soon as you take your photo an Edit image appears at the bottom left of the Camera screen.

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1. Click on the image

2. Click the Auto button and you'll notice an immediate improvement in your photo.

3. Move the slider adjustment left or right and the exposure, colour and sharpness will change. Choose your preferred setting and tap Done.

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Adjustments for IOS (Mac) and Android

 

You can make further adjustments with the other buttons on the Editing Screen.

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Adjusting Light

 

Exposure 

Tap Exposure and swipe left or right to adjust the overall lightness/darkness of the image. You can reset it by shifting the slider back to the dot in the middle.

Brilliance

Tap the next button to adjust the lighter tones in the image. Brilliance alters the brightness of an image a little more dynamically than Exposure. It brightens up the image whilst adding subtle contrast to refine the subject.

Highlights

Tap the next button to adjust the lightest parts of the photo. They may be washed out or "clipped". By sliding left they will lose their overexposure and more detail will appear. Slide right if they are dull.

Shadows

Tap the Shadows button and you can adjust the darkest areas of the image and more detail will appear.

Contrast

If your photo looks dull, because of a lack of light when you took it, increase the contrast which is the difference between light and dark areas. This will give it more "pop". Conversely you can flatten the image if there was too much contrast when the photo was taken, such as on a sunny day, by swiping left.

Brightness

Brightness adjusts how light or dark an image is, and is similar to Exposure. However, making an image darker using the Brightness tool, will produce a more colour saturated dark image with higher contrast than using the Exposure tool. 

Black Point

Black Point determines the darkest shade in the image – increase to make all the deep shadows in the image completely black, or decrease to soften them to a more charcoal shade.

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Histogram 

Histograms represent the light and dark pixels in a graphical form.

 

Adjusting Colour

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Saturation

Saturation allows you to increase or decrease color intensity. Swipe right carefully as it can create unnatural colours. Swipe left to convert you image to black and white.

Vibrance

Vibrance is preferable over Saturation, but tends to brighten the colors more realistically and less intensely than Saturation. Turning Vibrance right down to -100 won’t make your image black and white, but can offer some beautiful muted tones that give a vintage feel to your photos.

Warmth

Warmth lets you push the colors in an image towards the warmer end of the spectrum (yellows and oranges), or the colder end (blues). This is also a great tool for neutralizing colors that appear too warm or cool in the first place. Greater to create cold impression in winter. 

Tint

Tint lets you shift the color balance in your image towards a purple or green hue, which is often best used to correct skin tone in a portrait.

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Adjusting Sharpness

 

Cropping an image can leave it a little blurry, and photos taken in low light or scanned from film cameras, can often appear quite grainy. There are a few tools to help combat this.

Sharpness helps when you have a blurry image — it can bring your photo into focus, but over-tweaking can result in a grainy image.

Definition sharpens the edges in an image, whilst adding contrast to create depth. This doesn’t tend to make your image as grainy as Sharpness can.

Noise Reduction takes away the fuzzy, grainy texture that you see in old photos, from shooting in low light, or heavily cropping an image. This tool often makes the image more blurry as you increase, so is best used in conjunction with Definition or Contrast to add some clarity back.