Fav Photo Editing Apps for Makers

As I am sure you all know 99.99% (totally made up statistic) of Instagram posts are edited in some fashion. Whether it be a major edit where the image looks nothing like the original or a mild edit to bump up color saturation. Now before we delve in to this post I must make a disclaimer: I am NOT a pro at photography or editing, am I better then I used to be..absolutely. 

Lightroom CC

My go to app is lightroom CC. The mobile version is free and easy to use. I used to primarily use snapseed (which I still do and will explain when later on in this post) until I found lightroom CC.
The main features I use in this app are the light features (exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites & blacks). I also really like the effects section (textures, clarity and dehaze).

This app is something you need to play around with a bit to figure out which setting work for you and your style. Once you do it almost becomes second nature and if your really lazy you can just create a preset (basically a filter), save it and just apply that to all your photos.

Fotofuze

This app is brilliant if you use white backgrounds for your product photos. It does not work 100% of the time, but it works like 95% of the time. The only issue is with fuzzy items (ie faux fur pom poms)
This app basically removes the background from your photo and replaces it with a crisp clear white one!

Snapseed

As previously mentioned this used to be my go to app prior to discovering lightroom CC. I still do use it however. It has a great tool for brightening up sections of a photo called selective. I use this for photos where I want a lighter background but cannot use fotofuze (ie a photo of a  hat that has a giant fluffy pom). This is also  great app for adding text to a photo. My new fav way to use this app is after editing a photo in Lightroom I will import it to snapseed and use the dodge and burn brush and saturation brush to help remove any color, or shadows from my background. It takes a bit of finesse to get used to this tool but once you do I promise it is worth it. 

A color story

Bet you cannot guess what this app helps with lol. Did you guess boosting color..you got it! Now I just recently started using this app, but I really like it. It has a lot of similar settings to lightroom CC actually, but sometimes I find it does a better job! Not all the features on this app are free, but a lot of the ones I would use regularly are. I actually have opted to edit a few photos in this app over lightroom CC recently !

How did I learn to use all these apps or even hear about them? YouTube! When in doubt got to YouTube, there are literally thousands of video tutorials out there on YouTube for free.  Go and take advantage of them.

Photo taking and editing is something I have struggled with. Especially being a maker you want the photo to be clear but still representative of the actual item you are trying to sell. That is why most of these apps I don't do anything crazy with, I just make sure the photo is crisp, clear and the colors are on point. I have also learned that it helps to start with a good quality photo, ideally one a plain background. It also helps to take photos in natural light, I take mine in front of a window. 

I hope at-least one of these apps is new to you and that you can implement it into your editing routine.

-KGC