My go-to post-production app in the iPhone darkroom is Snapseed. Almost anything I might want to do from tweaking, retouching, modifying colors, adding effects, to converting to black and white, and adding borders can be easily and powerfully done in Snapseed. Wherever in the world you find me, if I’m on my iPhone, you’ll likely find me working in Snapseed.
The first thing to do when you open the Snapseed app is to set the default resolution for saving your work. To do this, with an image open in Snapseed, tap the three dots icon at the upper right and choose Settings. In the Export & Share Options area, tap Image Sizing, then tap Do not resize.
By the way, if you have a small image that you want to make larger, you can use this option to “blow it up,” for example, by setting the long edge of the image to 4,000px.
Going back to the Export & Share Options area, tap Format And Quality to make sure that JPG 100% is selected.
It may seem odd to explain the end before the beginning, but let’s go over how to save an image in Snapseed as a copy.
Jumping ahead, to save an image from Snapseed, with the image open, tap Export.
From the Export menu, choose Save a copy to make sure that you do not overwrite the previous version.
When you open an image in Snapseed, you can choose either Looks or Tools. Looks are—by another word—presets. If a Look works for you, by tapping the Look a number of editing steps will be performed at once. I am quite fond of the black and white options under the Look menu. In particular, the Fine Art black and white Look is one of my favorites.
For more granular control, and for many more options, choose Tools rather than Looks. You’ll discover a plethora of Tools! Some of my favorites can be used to crop and change the perspective of an image. I am also partial to the HDR Scape, Glamour Glow, Retrolux, and Grunge Tools.
To be entirely consistent with the iPhone workflow explained on page 305, apply one Tool, and then save a copy back to the Photos app. In practice, I seldom am quite so disciplined—but keep in mind that if you want to have control over the impact of an individual Tool, you do need to save a copy with it.
Each of the Tools can be configured with many individual settings using iPhone touch controls.
The Black & White Tool is the most powerful and flexible way to do monochromatic conversions within Snapseed. To access this, in the Tools area tap the Black & White icon. With Black & White open, usually the first step is to choose a preset from the possibilities at the bottom of the screen.
With a preset selected, there are two icons for tweaking the effect:
When you are happy with the changes that you have made to your image tap the check mark.
Remember, your changes are not saved until you export the image. Exporting as a copy is highly recommended (see page 306).
There are more than 50 different Tools available in Snapseed and many of them are useful and powerful, and some are just plain fun. The best way to discover what each Tool does is trial and error.
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