Tag: Photoshop Express »

Instagram and Lightroom are great and all, but sometimes people need to get extra creative with their image editing. Like, Photoshop creative.

If you're one of these people, take a look at our pick for the best mobile Photoshop experience on iPad.

Adobe has released a highly-capable version of Photoshop for the iPad 2. Adobe Photoshop Touch brings more advanced image editing features than the free Adobe Photoshop Express, boasting features such as multiple image layers that are essential to powerful desktop image editors. Various image selection tools including Scribble Selection and Refine Edge, which helps to extract tricky parts of images, are here in a touch-friendly interface. The camera can be used to fill areas in layers. Google Image Search is integrated to help add images to projects. Facebook is integrated to share images directly to the service. As well, projects can be uploaded to Adobe Creative Cloud, allowing for files from Adobe Photoshop Touch to be opened directly in Photoshop CS5. The app is not designed for extrmeely high-resolution porjects, although the 1600x1600 resolution should be enough for most users. The app does require the iPad 2 specifically, leaving out iPad 1 users. The app has launched at a price point of $9.99 and is available now.

You are now ready to elevate your iPhone photos to the next level. After all, the internet is full of quick snapshots, party pics, and other miscellaneous photos that do not do iPhone photography justice. How do you take this budding art and make it a richer photographic experience? Start by following the most fundamental of all photography laws: The Rule of Thirds.

What is the rule of thirds you ask? Without diving into the science of how the human eye works, this rule is about simply breaking your photos into thirds, and then using those thirds to your advantage. Utilize this rule in two ways for richer photos. First, pretend there is a TIC-TAC-TOE board on whatever you are going to photograph. Now, place your subject in any of the four intersecting points of this grid. If you have multiple subjects, fret not, try to place each subject in one to two of the intersecting points. The second part of this rule applies to breaking your photo into thirds. Let us say you are going to shoot a sunset over a lake nestled in a forest. Place the lake in the bottom third, the tree line should consume the middle third, and the sky the top third.

Maybe you can’t get the rule of thirds right away in your shot, have no worries, as you can apply the rule of thirds in a bit of post processing. Apps like Filterstorm and Photoshop Express will throw up a grid when you go to rotate your images. Use this grid to help visualize where images to fit into this rule, and if some cropping is going to be necessary. It may not be a perfect solution, but it will help you end up with better photos.

There are times you may break this simple rule, but when in doubt, stick to the rule. There is a reason this rule has stood the test of time, equipment, and improving technology. The next time you are just going to snap a photo with your iPhone, apply this rule, and watch as your photos become much more interesting.

Apps discussed in this post: