Snapseed

How to crop, straighten and unskew photos on iPad and iPhone

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Crop photos
It’s not better, but it offers a different perspective.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You’ve always been able to crop photos on your iPhone and iPad. It’s easy to “zoom” into your images, cutting out cruft and distraction at the edges of the frame to focus on what’s important. But now, in iOS 13 and iPadOS, you can do more than crop and chop. Now you also can skew images — aka correct perspective errors — all inside the Photos app’s edit mode.

You can do all kinds of things with this new Photos tool. If you snapped a picture of a painting in the gallery, and didn’t hold your iPhone parallel to the wall, you can fix that. Or you can get more radical, perhaps by “fixing” an image of a skyscraper to stop it from disappearing to a point in the distance. The good news is that these perspective tools are fun and easy to use. Let’s check them out.

How to shoot stunning black-and-white photos on iPhone

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This wasn't taken on an iPhone, but it could have been.
This wasn't taken on an iPhone, but it could have been.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Black-and-white photos aren’t just regular photos with the color taken out. Or rather, they are exactly that, but they are also more than that. A B&W portrait can seem to say more about the subject than a colorful version, for instance. B&W is also ideal for showing more graphic images. Take a color photo of scaffolding and it looks super-dull. Take the same photo in B&W, jack up the contrast, and it becomes a stark grid — way more interesting to look at.

There’s much more to taking a B&W photo than just removing the color. For instance, did you know that a color filter will have a startling effect on a B&W photo? Let’s take a look at some of the tricks to capturing and editing stunning black-and-white images.

Tweak your photos to perfection with Snapseed [50 Essential iOS Apps #4]

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tune image editing tools in Snapseed
Snapseed's editing tools are accessed with a flick of your thumb
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

50 Essential iOS Apps: Snapseed Photo Editing app The iPhone’s camera is arguably one of the best cameras most people will use for capturing life moments. Sometimes, though, those photos don’t turn out quite as perfect as you hope. The iOS Camera and Photos apps have some basic editing tools, but if you’re looking for more fine-tuned tweaks, Snapseed is a powerful, free photo editor for iOS that helps revive and tweak your shots.

How to shoot amazing black-and-white photos on your iPhone

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IPhone tiger black and white

Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Often, our eye is drawn to something because of its color. But sometimes we’re attracted by a pattern, or perhaps color even detracts from an image (like a row of cars in front of a beatific white building). At those times, we should shoot black-and-white images, which emphasize pattern, texture and shape.

The iPhone — with its giant screen, its great camera and its huge library of photo apps — is fantastic for shooting B&W pictures. Let’s take a look at how to shoot amazing black-and-white photos with your iPhone.

10 apps for enhancing iPhone photos

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A good photo editing app can add mood and alter colors to clarify your vision of your dog or any of your photos.
A good photo editing app can add mood and alter colors to clarify your vision of your dog or any of your photos.
Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac

One of my favorite observations by a now-forgotten sage explained the difference between writing and photography like this: A bad sentence can be massaged, but nothing helps a bad photo.

So true. However, I’ve experienced for myself how a good photo-editing app can salvage sloppy composition or bad exposure — and even teach you something along the way. So if you resolve to become a better photographer in 2017, you might want to add some tools to put a finer finish on your iPhone photos.

10 awesome iOS photo editing apps you need to try

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Cult of Mac
Want to create some amazing photo effects? Here's the apps to help you achieve them.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

There are hundreds upon hundreds of different photo editing apps for iOS in the App Store. So, how would you know which ones are worth trying out? Well, I thought I’d help you out by running through my personal top ten photo editing apps.

Check out my video rundown below.

How to capture long exposures and light trails with your iPhone

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A decent tripod and a few great apps can help you capture stunning light trails, motion blur, and low light photos.
A decent tripod and a few great apps can help you capture stunning light trails, motion blur, and low-light photos.
Photo: Ally Kazmucha/The App Factor

app-factor-logo-thumbnailLong-exposure photography lets you capture light trails, motion blur and better low-light shots. While the iPhone’s built-in Camera app doesn’t let you control shutter speed and light sensitivity, lots of apps do. Slow Shutter Cam is my favorite — here’s how I’ve used it to capture long exposures with nothing but my iPhone 6 and a tripod.

Best manual camera apps for iPhone

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iphone-sunset-unsplash-photo-750x500
For when the stock Camera app just doesn't cut it.
Photo: Unsplash.com

app-factor-logo-thumbnail Manual camera apps for iPhone offer better control over settings like exposure, focus, ISO and shutter speed. If you’ve ever shot photos in an environment where the light wasn’t ideal or had a rough time balancing shadows and light, you would benefit from a manual camera app.

While these kinds of apps aren’t always necessary, a great one is a good tool to have in your app arsenal. These are currently the best manual camera apps for iPhone.

Teen’s iPhone photos put vibrant face on homeless population

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"I met a lady and her children who travel to heavily populated areas of St. Louis to play music for tips to buy food each night. The children's broken bikes and few cherished possesions carefully tucked in the run down van they call "home," Tullis says.

Nic Tullis has a summer project that doesn’t involve surfing or working at a frozen-yogurt shop.

The 18-year-old is at the tail end of a Kickstarter campaign to to raise $2,500 that will keep him out photographing with his iPhone 4s. His “Homeless But Not Hopeless” project aims to bring awareness about the homeless population of St. Louis, Missouri, which spiked 12 percent after the economic tsunami hit.

Tullis takes photos of homeless people that show how they live along with normal shots that show off St. Louis. The funding for the project would rent a gallery space to auction off prints as a fundraiser; proceeds would go to two local organizations that help people get back on their feet.

iPhone or Canon? A veteran photographer debates digital versus analog

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"I’m tall and shy -- so I can’t be inconspicuous. That means a lot of my traditional portraits are shot from the side or the back," Marcolina says. In this 2009 shot, he was able to compose it carefully, because the subjects weren't facing him, and it expresses his "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" no-cropping philosophy for analog photography.

During his 25-year career as a photographer, Dan Marcolina has captured moments of everyday despair and delight, from beaches and backyards to bus stations and wedding celebrations.

His work exhibits the ease of an inside joke or a knowing wink; the images are visual juxtapositions that live up to a high point of praise from Richard Avedon, who once commented that Marcolina makes images that aren’t “trying to be beautiful.”

Epic husky photos will cure your cuteness overload

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Bella is one dog you won't get tired of seeing in your Instagram feed. Photos: Cheryl Senter
Bella is one dog you won't get tired of seeing in your Instagram feed. Photos: Cheryl Senter

I have a personal Instagram filter that protects my eyes from all the cute pet pictures. But now and then, a dog or cat slips through. One pretty pooch in particular — an Alaskan husky with arresting, ice-blue eyes — has me looking forward to her daily adventures in rural New Hampshire.

Stare into the eyes of Bella, and you’ll get a glimpse into the heart of her owner, photojournalist Cheryl Senter.

“There is total love in every image that I take of her,” Senter told Cult of Mac.

Snapseed For iOS Gets New HDR Scape Filter And Shadows Slider

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HDRscapeSnapseed

 

While Google was busy spilling all the new details of its new Google+ photo editing features this morning, the company also announced that Snapseed will be getting some sweet new features of its own. True to Google’s word, Snapseed 1.6 just hit the App Store is includes a new HDR scape filter that brings a stunning look to photos.

Snapseed users will find the HDR Scape filter next to the old Drama filter that provided similar HDR filters for photos, however HDR Scape’s results are a great deal more impressive. To adjust the strength of the filter users simply swipe left to right. Google also added a Shadows slider in the Tune Image section that will brighten dark areas naturally.

Here’s a look at HDR Scape in action:

Photoristic Tries To Be A Pro Version Of Snapseed

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photoristic

Did you ever find yourself using the amazing Snapseed and thinking to yourself, “man, I love this app more than a man should love a piece of photo-editing software, but I sure wish it could do more. Like, what if it could save my edits as presets?”

Well, you lucky, app-loving deviant, you: your wish has been answered. No, not by Snapseed, which Google will surely kill off soon enough anyway, but by a brand new app called Photoristic.

I’m Ditching The iPad For Work And Going Back To The Mac [Opinion]

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wpid-Photo-24-Sep-2012-1439.jpg

As I never tire of telling people, I do all my work using an iPad. Research, communication, writing and photo editing – all of these are now second nature for me on both the iPad mini and the full-sized iPad 3. I love the portability, I love the stripped-down “workflow” which lets me get stuff done way faster than I can on the Mac, mostly due to lack of OS X’s inherent distractions.

In fact, I am so happy with the iPad as a work machine that I thought that I’d never buy another Mac. I figured that, by the time my iMac died, iOS would have caught up with most of the “truck” tasks I still need to do: keeping a big photo library, running a BitTorrent client.

So why am I writing this post on a brand-new MacBook Air? One thing: My arm is fucking killing me.

Five Apps To Take Your iPad Art From Boring To Beautiful

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procreate

If your iPad doodles are a little primitive, there are a few apps that can get you canvasing the art greats from Caravaggio to Picasso and creating some deft original strokes of your own.

So says Sumit Vishwakarma in a talk for Macworld/iWorld 2013, adding that if you’re willing to forgo one cinnamon latte at Starbuck’s, that money spent in apps will take your work to the next level.

Vishwakarma is an iPad art advocate whose work has been featured at the first Mobile Art Festival in Los Angeles, the Apple flagship store in San Francisco, and the Mobile Creativity & Innovation Symposium. He also teaches free workshops to promote iPad art and animation to kids, teens and adults.

Here are his top picks:

Our Editor’s Picks For 2012’s Best Mac Apps [Feature]

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bestmacappsof2012

Nearing the end of 2012, Cult of Mac has peered through the clouds of 2012 to take a look back at the best Mac Apps of 2012. While most of the popular Mac Apps continued to evolve and refine their features, a number of newcomers have sprouted up with new features and even better designs. There were some terrific releases this year that were are well worth your money, but here are the 10 best Mac Apps of 2012.

How An Apple Fanatic Turns DIY Nude iPhone Photos Into Art

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A work by Igor Capibaribe made with iPhone self-portraits.
A work by Igor Capibaribe made with iPhone self-portraits.

The iPhone camera has sparked a revolution in self-portraits – both above and below the belt. One Apple fanatic in San Francisco has turned the habit of iPhone users to say cheese into inspiration for a new kind of portrait.

Igor Capibaribe takes the nude iPhone photos people send him and turns them into one-of-a-kind art works.

The final effect is so far away from DIY nudie shots that the photos here don’t really do them justice. If you’re in San Francisco, you can check them out on this weekend at his studio. (October 26th from 6-9 pm, October 27 and 28 from 11 am – 6pm, Studio 3A 2150 Folsom Street. You can also see more on his site.)

Which iOS App Do You Use To Snap Photos Before Uploading To Instagram? [Let’s Talk]

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Photo Aug 16, 10 14 27 AM

Instagram just released a big new update for their popular photo sharing service. It’s simple. It’s got filters. It’s got a big map with geo-tagged pictures. It’s great. But does anyone use the Instagram app to snap pictures the pictures they actually upload, or do they use something else first?

There are a lot of great camera apps on the iPhone, other than the default app, that take pictures – Camera+, Instagram, Picfx, Snapseed, Hipstamatic, Pixlr-o-matic, and way too many more to list.  I use Instagram a lot, but thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever taken a photo from inside the Instagram app and then uploaded it. I always use another app first and then import it into Instagram. Am I the only one? What’s your process for taking picture with your iPhone and getting them onto Instagram? Come tell us what you do with your photos before uploading to Instagram.

Click here to go to the Cult of Mac forums and tell us what apps you use along with Instagram

Back To School: Every App & Gadget You Need To Survive College [Buyer’s Superguide]

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Going back to school? Then let us help.

You lucky thing. The summer’s over, or nearly over, and you’re already planning on heading back to school. Just like last year, you will begin this year fresh and full of energy and enthusiasm, only to be ground down by the man. Luckily, we’re here to help with advice on the best apps and gear to get you through the year and into next year’s summer vacation with the least effort possible.

So sit back, relax and take a look at the Cult of Mac back to school/college superguide.

All These Incredible Olympic Photos Were Taken With An iPhone 4S [Gallery]

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Women's 200m backstroke semi-final 2, SW012

If you’re a professional photographer going to the London to cover the Olympics, you’d probably want to take a huge DSLR and a couple thousand dollars worth of extra lenses to get the best pictures possible, right? Wrong.

Dan Chung is covering the Olympics for The Guardian, only instead of using his fancy pants DSLR, Chung is capturing the entire event using only his iPhone 4S and some binoculars. He edits the photos using Snapseed before uploading them to the web, and the results are pretty impressive. Take a look for yourself.