Start Your Own Project: #4 Photo Editing

Photography

Advice About Finding Editing Software

Since moving to the city I've started the Chicago Neighborhoods Project. I'm in the process of visiting and photographing architecture in all 77 community areas of the city.

I get asked about the best ways to edit photos. Since I work as cheap, quick, and simple as possible, I started by avoiding complicated programs like Adobe Photoshop and Gimp. I'm not planning on trying to publish my work in glossy magazines or get paid for advertising shoots. I'm not going to edit each photo to perfection.

I've never paid for photo editing software. All of the products I've tried have been available for free downloads online. Here are some considerations before you try out some of the photo editing apps.

Background

When I arrived to Chicago I was using Picasa. (I will review it in another post about programs I recommend.) I was downloading my photos to my new small laptop to edit them. I quickly ran out of memory. My husband set up cloud storage for me. When I went to continue editing my photos, I learned Picasa doesn't work on pictures stored in the cloud. So I started experimenting with some other programs.

When deciding what photo editing software to use, you're going to have to think about where you want to edit and store your photos.

The next remedy I tried was to directly edit my photos while still on my phone. If you have good eyes, or are working on a larger device like an iPad, you may never have to move your photos to another device. This can be particularly appealing for sites like Instagram, which only supports uploads from mobile devices. It also allows you to edit photos while away from home, such as waiting for a bus or at the dentist office.

New Computer

The photos I edited on my phone looked okay to me, until I saw them posted to other sites. They weren't okay. I realized I was going to need to work on a larger screen. Since price was a consideration, the cheapest solution was to get a bigger desktop computer with a much larger monitor. That's when I learned the new editing software app I'd come to like on my phone wasn't available for desktop computers.

Photo Editing Software

I've since experimented with several photo editing apps. Some of them aren't particularly useful to me, such as ways to collage photos together, create meme photos with texts, or add stickers to photos. Most of the apps promising to convert photos to drawings or paintings don't work well, although I've had the most success with Picasa. And many of the apps only offer basic features, then try to sell you on upgrades.

I recommend playing around with several apps to see what features you like.

The Current Solution

The photos for my Chicago Neighborhoods Project are now downloaded from my phone to my desktop and edited with Picasa. I have begun playing around with editing some of my non-project landscape photos with Snapseed on the phone, then finishing them on the desktop with Picasa.


A final Note: Support Software

I've mentioned some problems with moving and storing photos. Here are some strategies.

• iPhone iCloud: My phone ran out of memory storage within a couple weeks of serious photo-taking. Then it prompted me to buy more cloud capacity. I turned off the auto photo back up to iPhone iCloud, using it only for the rest of my phone's back up information. I deleted all the photos already stored. I found alternative cloud storage for my pictures on One Drive.
• One Drive: Our entire family is now linked through One Drive. It's downloaded on all our computers and mobile devices. We can now access each other's files. This is helpful for having an assistant (my daughter), or working collaboratively on group projects. When I shoot my photos, the originals are backed up automatically to One Drive whenever I have WiFi access again. When I need to upload to Instagram I put a set of finished photos on One Drive to upload back to my phone, then to Instagram. The extra step is a pain, but does allow me to post and tag to Instagram away from home. Finally, all of my final photos, writing and documents are stored on One Drive.
• Gramblr: I haven't tried Gramblr to upload pictures from my desktop directly to Instagram because I've read a lot of scary reviews about how it can break your hash tags or mess up your account. Besides, I would have to do a special step to crop my photos into squares before I could upload directly. Why bother? If I put my finished photos back on my iPhone through my One Drive, I can easily load and crop them at Instagram instead.
• Start Andy: There are "mobile emulators" you can download to your desktop to make it function like a mobile device. Start Andy is android compatible, for example. You would then be able to run the "mobile-only" photo editing apps from your desktop. It's a great idea but I haven't gotten it to work on my desktop.