tips and tools to edit your photos like a pro

One of the most forgotten applications for our mobile photos is Adobe Photoshop Express. It’s free and remains overlooked by the push of Lightroom and other apps that sound much more popular with users. But surely a lot You are going to have surprises with the “little” Photoshop for mobiles.

The first thing is to clarify the issue of price. Indeed, it is a free application, but if you want to have more options you can pay for the Premium version. The good thing is that if you have a Creative Cloud license, you get it by default.

Once the delicate subject of money has been clarified, we get to work with Photoshop Express which focuses on the playful side of photography and which also allows, like Lightroom, to make professional editions like those that can be made on a computer. It’s not as comfortable as doing it on the big screen, but it gets us out of a lot of jams.

Get started with Photoshop Express

As always, we go to preferences what we find inside Settings. This time we can’t do much from a technical point of view.

The first thing is connect the app with our social media accounts if we need it It is very comfortable to go faster, of course. But if it is not your main application, it is better not to share so much data in places that we will forget.

The most interesting thing is to go to sharing settings and select the following points:

• Save as a copy any file we reveal.
• Resize the copy to 1920 pixels.
• Set the JPEG quality to Very High.

We can’t choose more things. By default we can work with any image format, even the RAW format of the most advanced cameras and mobiles, so we are not limited in this regard.

To start to work

Obviously we have to give you permission to see all the photos on our mobile. In a moment we will have all our files available to start playing with them. Although the company itself puts forward this playful aspect, it is true that we can do more serious things far from the fashions of the moment.

At the top of the screen we have the five options (I like to think of them as separate modules) that Photoshop Express offers: Edit, retouch, mix, paste and capture. Each has a specific function which can be confusing if you are unfamiliar with Adobe programs.

Basically, it is an application that takes advantage of all the advantages of Adobe Sensei to improve our photos with minimal effort. In addition, it incorporates a series of filters (called Looks here) that modify the photograph to unsuspected limits.

All these modules have a button at the top right of the screen to save the result, open it with another application or send it directly to the Creative Cloud to continue working on it in another program.

Edit

• In this section we find these predefined filters divided by themes such as Enchantment, HDR, Black and white… we just have to choose them, adjust their Opacity and ready.
• Then, we have Settings, which, if you’ve used Adobe Lightroom before, will look familiar. These are the same settings found in the Reveal module of the program and in the application. And if you follow this workflow, you will see how easy it is to develop your photos without the help of filters and the like.
• To correct It is used to delete objects. We only have to paint what we want to remove and the application does its job. If we need more precision, we can always bet on the Advanced mode. And if we don’t like it, we have the icon at the bottom to take a step back.
• cut This is one of the most interesting options, since it gives us the usual options, but we find ourselves ready with the proportions of social networks, which avoids headaches.
• themes It is perfect for configuring covers, memes or whatever we need with a click. The style is done, we change the text and that’s it.

• overlays creates a new layer for us and allows us to layer different effects. From flashes of light to different types of texture.
• The other Text, Stickers, Borders, and Collage options do what their name says.
• And what keeps catching my attention is PS Effect. If you have the license of said program, the application connects to it and allows us to do much more advanced effects. In fact, this is the entrance to the classic Filter gallery of the program, where you can make a mosaic with your photo, or generate textures and brushstrokes.

And if you don’t want to complicate your life, you also have the Magic Wand icon (top right) to improve the photo automatically without having to do anything else.

Touching up

This section is dedicated to portrait retouching with just one touch. Again, this can be a perfect solution for a quick job without major complications. Show the photographs without great demands and with the confidence that everything falls within the canons.

It is the ideal place for soft skin with different intensities, do virtual surgery in the Face section or color the face with makeup. And if you want to laugh, you can make a cartoon.

Mixed

This is the module where we can combine different photographs to enter the world of Adobe Photoshop layers. Here we can make automatic selections of objects from the photograph to combine them with other photographs.

If we want to select parts of the image, we have the same automatic selection as in the mother program and if we dare (again, the small screen of the mobile can cause havoc), we have Cuarteado (bad translation) for do it by hand.

Bonding

After so many years of teaching, I know that one of the headaches for students is to create a collage of our photographs in an easy way. Well, here in Photoshop Express you have auto templates to create those combinations.

You have to choose the photos, which should already be revealed, choose the collage template and that’s it. The best thing is that they are not closed and you can enlarge the photos, change the size of the cells and customize them to unsuspected limits.

Capture

This last module is a simple curiosity, a toy camera that directly applies filters to our portraits. Certainly, at first, we use it with great enthusiasm, but the passage of time will make a dent in this passing fashion and we will forget it because it is repetitive.

But as always, everyone’s creativity can lead us to explore worlds unknown to others. So don’t stop testing it to try to create something new with today’s standards. You just have to choose the filter and shoot.

In conclusion

Adobe Photoshop Express is an application that is not very vocal, it remains hidden by the push and versatility of Adobe Lightroom. But it has so many things to solve in our life as an amateur photographer, who just wants to have fun with the camera, which makes it a very interesting application.

It does everything that many unique applications allow, which avoids having to fill our phone’s memory with small specific applications. It is true that it could improve, be a little more intuitive when it comes to finding certain functions. But it’s one of the apps I’ll keep on my phone for times when everything can be a little more relaxed.

Of course, I think the screen presentation should be a little lighter. As soon as you open it, you find so many tutorials and how-tos that it looks more like a webpage than an app. Apart from these details, I think we have in our hands one of the best photographic hobby tools we can find.