Coffee And Cameras: An Introduction and How to Edit Your Mobile Photography!

Grab your coffee, sit down and join me while I share some of my favorite mobile photography tips with you!  These tips will be specifically for you mobile photography, but can be applied to your regular camera as well.

I've been taking pictures for as long as I can remember, thanks to my Nana.  Like most of you, I began with film and then in college I finally bought my very first professional DSLR {Digital Single Lens Reflex} camera!  It was a Nikon since that is what I had been working with at the Penn State newspaper and it was only 4 megapixels!

It is funny to think back on how HUGE that camera was and how small my new iPhone 6 is with it's 8 megapixel camera!  In this new series, I want you to sit back and relax with your coffee while hopefully learning something new!

I LOVE photography and I LOVE sharing my photos with you on Instagram.  In this first article, I want to show you how I edit my photographs for sharing.  In truth, a LOT of the time, I am down on myself for the photos I take in camera.  I've gotten better at getting as much as I can right when I shoot, but it is not until I get home and begin the editing process that I truly begin to love my pictures.

{EDITING}

The very first app I go to for editing my photos on the phone is Afterlight {for Android and iPhone}.  I always take my photos with the phone's camera and then import them into Afterlight.  This way you can take as many photos as you like and pick your favorite to edit.

This is a photo, just as I shot it on the phone.  Again, as I looked at it, I wasn't in love with it.  I tried to center it as much as I could and I knew I wanted a lot of empty space at the top.  One of those two things was accomplished.

A little background on this shot.  I participate in the FMS Photo A Day Challenge on Instagram {click the link, it is quite fun!} and the prompt for this day's shot was "us."  I got all "cute" for an "us" photo and didn't like how they were turning out.  Then I realized I had this nice plain background behind us and both of our personalities represented in the doughnuts we were consuming!  This idea popped into my head and I got something, I think, unique and most importantly out of my personal creative box.  Don't be afraid to try something new and usual!

Photos are usually never bright enough for me, so I always do that first.  I mess around with both the exposure and brightness scales.  Please take these tips and use them to find YOUR style.  Mine is constantly evolving and I hope these tips will be a stepping stone to making your the photographer you were meant to be!

Here is the image brightened and cropped into a square.  For the most part I do square pictures, but sometime I get a really nice wide shot that I love and I use the borders in Afterlight to make the photo square and still share the entire scene.  I will share one of those at the end of this post.

Here are some of my favorite filters to use on Afterlight.  These are my go to filters almost every time.  For black and white shots I usually like, bright and light, COAL {under the original tab} gave that to me with a little bit of tweeking.

ELM {under the seasons tab} is probably the filter I use most often.

Followed second by ANTLER {seasons tab}.  Sometimes I want warm, sometimes I want cool.  Depends on my mood and the photo.

Last is Row {seasons tab}, but honestly, sometimes I click through every filter in the seasons tab {my favorites} and end up picking #nofilter.  Do what YOU feel is best for your photo.

And NOW the finished product!

I ended up choosing the filter Bright Fire under the Guest tab.  It has been one of my favorites lately and I love the brightness and warmth it gives the photograph.  Doughnuts deserve that don't you think?

Now to share a non-square photo!

If I would have squared up this photo it would have lost its effect.  My point was to show the contrast of a SoCal winter!  It is all about composition and what is pleasing to the eye...but that is another post entirely!

Did you find this post helpful?  Is there a certain topic you would like me to tackle in the future?!  Let me know in the comments below and don't forget to share if this post helped you!

I hope you enjoyed our very first Coffee And Cameras date!