Hi Folks:

Here we are, with the first week of March come and gone already and we have yet to do a ‘Photo of the Month’ post for February!  Egads!!  I do have something to share with you, but it has less to do with a particular photograph and more to do with the way it was processed.  The image below is one I captured using my cell phone camera – nothing new there – but it was also processed in the phone using ‘Photoshop Touch‘ software for Android phones.  There are iPhone/iPad versions of the software as well as a version for Android tablets, but since my Samsung phone is what I have and use, I figured it was worth the $5 to give it a try.

Normally I make images using my cell phone using as little processing as possible and then bring those flat-looking files into Lightroom on my computer to bring them up to what I want them to be… the reason being that one can use the processing power of a camera (or cell phone) or the processing power of a computer to post-process one’s images.  Having said that, last month I wrote a post about a free app that I’d tried from Nik Software called ‘Snapseed’.  The reason I tried out Snapseed  was because there are times I just want to share an image online without the whole process of bring it into and exporting it from Lightroom, and yet one should never allow one’s work out into the world ‘unprocessed’.  Well, Photoshop Touch is an entirely different level of processing, containing many of the essential tools one is used to working with in Photoshop.  To name a few there are layers, masking/ compositing, levels, tone curves, shadow/highlight adjustments, transform, warp, healing, even content aware.  And with a Creative Cloud membership one can upload projects from the phone (or tablet) to the Adobe Creative Cloud as .psdx files and then open them up in the full version of Photoshop on the computer.  Within certain limits one can open projects from the Creative Cloud in Photoshop Touch as well.

Editing an image on a 3″ screen bears its own limitations, of course, but after a little time playing with Photoshop Touch a little I was amazed at how much they’ve managed to cram into this little app.

Here’s the original image:

“Non-Denominational”

I titled it, ‘Non-Denominational’ because I thought it was amusing to see a BMW, a Porsche and an Audi sharing the same driveway.  Here’s the image after being processed using Photoshop Touch:

‘Non-Denominational’ – Photoshop Touch

I didn’t do too much to the image, but I did change the levels, increased the contrast, played with the shadows and highlights, reduced the noise and did some sharpening.  Although it’s not immediately obvious, I also added a little lens flare to where the sun is coming over the top of the house.  Not too bad for a cell phone image.

By comparison, here’s the original image after processing on my computer in Lightroom.  I didn’t set out to make the PS and the LR versions look the same; I only used the (different) tools in each program to process the image as I would under normal circumstances.

‘Non- Denominational’ – Lightroom

There are some differences between the Photoshop Touch version and the Lightroom version of course, and I’m sure that with a little effort I could bring the two more closely in line, but that’s not the point.  The point is that I was able to create a result similar to what I could achieve in Lightroom using only my cell phone.  Photoshop Touch does chew up some battery power, but that’s to be expected from an app such as this.  I’ve yet to see it on a tablet and I’m sure the bigger screen real estate would be handy.  I also purchased a pen stylus from a local office supply store and have used it pretty much all the time on my phone since then.  In fact Marcia was so jealous of mine that I had to go back the next day to buy her one as well.

Now go out and make some photographs!!

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. You can find more of our posts on photography and Lightroom tutorials here, and you can find links to over 200 other sites that have Lightroom tips, tutorials and videos here.