How to Edit ANY Photo from your CAMERA on your Smartphone (Without wifi!)
Today I show you how you can bring your images from your DSLR or Mirrorless camera, and bring them right to your phone and edit them, even if your camera doesn't have wifi!
In the last tutorial, I walked you through how to take better photos with your smartphone and edit them on your smartphone, using the app snapseed.
In this tutorial, we're taking it a step further. This tutorial assumes that you may have a camera at your disposal. A lot of modern cameras these days have some wifi features, but let's assume your camera doesn't have any of those wireless features, like the Canon T3i (as seen in video), a great entry level camera, but lacks any wireless feature.
There's a device that can take the images from the memory card of your camera, straight to your phone, pretty much skipping your computer. It's traditionally called an OTG SD Card Reader (they sometimes go by other names). Thankfully they're very affordable ranging from 5 to 10 dollars, and they're available for both Android, and iOS devices.
OTG Card Reader Options:
MicroUSB (Seen in the video)
USB C Option 1
USB C Option 2
iOS Option 1
iOS Option 2
How it typically works is one end plugs directly into your phone, one into your computer, and there are slots on the side to receive SD and MicroSD cards. In this tutorial we wont be needing the computer, so no need to focus on that.
Take your SD card filled with your images (Jpeg, as Snapseed doesn't support all types of RAW files from other cameras 😓), and plug it in the reader. While the card is still in the reader, plug it into your phone (n.b. for iOS Users, for most cases, there is a companion app for your specific reader that must be used so you can add the files to your camera roll. ). Open up the reader and take the images you want off the card and unto your phone! It's that easy!
From here, it's just a matter of editing the image to your taste in whichever app you prefer, in this tutorial we used the free app Snapseed, In the video tutorial, there's a quick edit of the images, if you're curious (Here's a tutorial on how to use it). Once you're done editing, you can share to the social media platform of your choice!
Here's the results from my shoot in the video!
Snapseed (Totally Free!)
Android (Play store): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.niksoftware.snapseed&hl=en
iOS (App Store): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snapseed/id439438619?mt=8
Also, The Canon T3i is a great budget entry level camera, that I would recommend to those interested in getting their first camera and learning photography. It's a few years old, so it's a very affordable price used and refurbished on Amazon.
How To Shoot and Edit Portraits with JUST your Smartphone
I show you how to take better pictures with just your smartphone, Android or iPhone, using some EASY TECHNIQUES and editing using the FREE app, Snapseed!
A lot of folks may believe they have a decent camera in their smartphone, but probably don't really consider the applications in which they can maximize their camera to be creative or actually create pretty decent photos!
In the video below, I carry you through my method of how I can shoot and edit a quick portrait using just my phone.
The app I use in the video is Snapseed, a free photo editor owned by google for both andriod and iOS, that contains some powerful editing tools to make some dope images, it updates regularly and continues to impress me with how much better it gets over time.
Snapseed (Totally Free!)
Android (Play store): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.niksoftware.snapseed&hl=en
iOS (App Store): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snapseed/id439438619?mt=8
Before I get into Snapseed and the editing features, I'd like to speak on the actual process of taking the photos first. As I mentioned in the video, most modern day smartphones (from about 2014-2015 ) contain pretty decent cameras inside them that can capture great photos with just a little know how and understanding..
The same principles that make 'a good photo' in a big camera like a decent camera. Principles like understanding lighting - How much light is available, which direction the light is pointing, what's the quality of the light (Harsh - bright with drastic shadows, or soft - gentle, with smooth and light shadows), Composition - How the photo is arranged, where you place the subject, how much negative space there is, the perspective you use (High or low), we cant forget, Subject (Matter) - Meaning your subject (the model) How you pose them, what's their facial expression like etc. And all these principles work together to create what will probably give you a 'good photo'.
Another feature your phone might have access to, is shooting RAW, this can probably be found in your phone's camera settings. A RAW Photo, is a type of photo file, that contains much more digital information than the standard photo your camera takes (what's know as a JPEG), You can't post a RAW file to instagram, it's designed to be edited, and gives you much more room than a Jpeg, to change exposure (image brightness), contrast and colours - and when you're finished, you make a Jpeg that can be posted to instagram. A RAW photo generally will result in a better photo, so if you can shoot RAW on your Portrait shoot, do it!
Back to Snapseed!
This what Snapseed looks like when you open the app, hit Open to begin and it will take you into your gallery to select an image. (this may look different dependent depending on if you're on Android or iOS)
Press the pencil icon in the bottom right corner to open the tools panels. There are a bunch of tools here, but in this tutorial i'll be focusing on Tune image, and the Curves panels today.
All of snapseed's editing interface is very intuitively touch based. To bring up the controls, touch and hold the screen and you will see all these options come up. To tweak them, you slide to the left or right to increase or decrease the effect in intensity. I advise you play around with all these sliders individually to get a feel of how each of them works.
Brightness: Affects how light or dark the photo is
Contrast: Affects the intensity of the whites and the blacks in the photo
Saturation: Affects the intensity of the colours in the photo
Ambiance: Affects a mixture of Brightness, sharpness, and colour to change the "mood" of the photo
Highlights: Hightlights are the brightest part of your photo, this slider can make just that section brighter, or darker
Shadows: Opposite of Highlights as it relates to shadows with one exception. The area of the photo referred to as shadows is the darker points all up until the darkest point (meaning a range of maybe 50% percent darkness to about 90% Darkness, but not 100%)
Warmth: Increasing this adds a yellow hue to the image, while decreasing it adds a blue hue
When your done tweaking here, just click the check mark and you'll be back in the tools panel, from here we're gonna move to the curves panel.
Curves is a powerful way to fine tune the look of your photo. It starts as a line, the top of the line controls the brightest parts of your image, and the end of the line controls the darkest parts. You can touch and drag any part of the line and move it to affect that specific tonal range in your image. A very common curve used is called the S-curve, where close to the top is pushed up (making the brights brighter), and close to the end down (Making the darks Darker).
Within the curves panel, you have RGB (Which affects all the image), Red, Green, Blue (each of those curves affect the respective colour) and Luminance (which is only the brightness, doesnt affect colour). Here I'm gonna mess around with the colours. If you look at the images side by side, you can see what kind of difference stylistically tweaking the colours make.. (the effects are better illustrated in the video), but essentially I added some red to the highlights, and I made the shadows a blue tint.
Hitting the little layer tab up top will show you some useful options while editing, Undo and Redo are pretty useful for maybe when you want to step back, and revert removes all the edits. Apply Last Edits is great for if your editing more than one image that has pretty much the same lighting and setup, as it can apply the same edits you used for your last photo to your new one. I'll get to view edits in a second- but the last 3 are pretty clutch. In sanpseed you can save your edits to something called a Look, it's like your own custom preset, that you can use later. It saves whatever edits you have applied currently when you hit save look, and stores it in My looks, so you can use it later. Very awesome feature if you ask me. QR Look, is a fun way to share your looks via QR code, you can also get looks from others by scanning it.
This is what happens when you open View Edits, it shows you all the edits you did, and what's great is you can select any of these tabs and go back into that specific tool to change anything. So maybe after the curves you wanted to brighten the image more? just go back into tune image and edit it. That simple
Once your done, hit the save button up top, and you'll be presented with 4 options, 3 of which are pretty similar. Share, allows you to post this or share it right to an app, like Instagram or whatsapp, I may use this feature to send my image into VSCOcam for some more editing (Tutorial on that soon!). Save, simply saves a copy of your photo as is, to wherever snapseed saves images on your phone (may differ between iOS and Android). Export, saves a copy as well but you can chose things like size and quality, it's good in case you may want to email the photo, or you dont want the file size being too huge. Then you have Export as, which saves a full resolution file, to a folder on your phone of your choosing (I think this may be android only), I personally like this feature because it helps me stay organized.
And that's it! your done! I really encourage you to play around and stimulate your creativity in Snapseed, we only really just brushed the surface of what it's capable of, and the snapseed team does really good work in making it even more and more powerful. It's totally free, so there's no excused to try! This can also be a great gateway into one day moving into some desktop apps if you're a beginner.
Here's the gallery with the shoot I did with just my phone (ZTE Axon 7)
Shooting with Olivia
Manifesting a portrait session with the lovely Olivia from the Dubeez!
Wanted to shoot Olivia for the longest while! She lives in the Netherlands and is the bassist for Reggae band "The Dubeez". They played a festival that Protoje & The Indiggnation also played. I saw her backstage and told her we need to shoot, she told me sure. I kinda envisioned that it would be my next time in the Netherlands, but luck worked out that she came to Jamaica with her band to work on their album, around the same time I came off tour.
So we got to shooting! Really love how the images came out, better than I had imagined
Thanks to Nickii Kane and Habibi (Travis) for handling lighting for me. Check out the images below!
Also! Check out the Vlog which has some footage from the BTS of this very shoot! (subscribe if you can 👀) | More importantly! Currently accepting bookings for shoots in Jamaica till April 8th 2017! so hit me up!
A quick gaze into London
A curious angle of photographic storying of my stay in London for a week
Previous visits to the UK were always short. A flying turnover of usually 36 hours (or less), with Protoje thus far, its just been one show and on to the next one.
Leaving Jamaica Friday afternoon, to reach London Heathrow on Saturday, I was looking at just a few hours shy of a week in the UK.Working with Protoje to coordinate a huge feature on "Later...With Jools", and some live radio shows in London.
Despite the quick hustle of events crammed in the short time,
I still found some time to engage my photographic eye to gain an impression of my stay. Not a whole lot of images- but some select images that I felt painted my perspective of curiosity in my first extended stay in the United Kingdom
Record store run by some Jamaicans a few minutes from paddington.. passed through here to do an editorial shoot.
For those who watched the "Later with Jools", it was filmed in the warehouse above. Not in London, but about an Hour and a half away in Kent
Some of the dopest set design I've seen in my short lil' life (real life that is)
I was told I couldn't take photos during the live show, which I kind of understand, but still stole a shot of Jools Holland (the man in suit)
Post show vibe.
London.
Outside one (of the seemingly many) BBC buildings
Top Gear fans, Rejoice!
Peering down from the 8th floor of the 2nd BBC building- There's a main building for the television broadcast, and a building mostly for radio (from my understanding, I could be wrong)
BBC 1xtra live lounge
Loved the lighting in here. It was pretty dope to be in this room after watching so many live lounges on youtube.
To watch the actual video click here
Protoje w/ A.Dot from BBC1xtra
Inside the Maida Vale BBC building, to do another live show with Annie Mac
Strategic ration share.
Found this studio very interesting as it reminds me a whole lot of Tuff Gong's recording studio.
A photo I took inside Tuff gong space as a reference
Last few hours in London
Youthful energy in "Ova" - A portrait study
Portrait study of the faces in the 'OVA' freestyle video.
Recently, Protoje and I released a freestyle video we shot all the way back in February up Skyline (premiered on FADER along with details for the upcoming North American Tour)
This video features a bunch of Young, vibrant, up and coming musicians from Jamaica, all in one place.. I couldn't let something that rare go without some form of Documentation.
So I set up an inpromptu little shoot with Jamaica as the background... pretty fitting. One day probably these faces will be one of your favourite artists (directors, producers, musicians, etc. etc.)
9 Mile Music Festival
Familiar faces with Protoje at 9 Mile Music Festival
First stop on the Winter Greens Tour, was the 9 Mile Music Festival out in Miami. A pretty full crowd. A lot of familiar faces.
A fairly Unique sight there was Yaadcore on stage with Protoje
I think the patrons were pretty fortunate to see Kabaka, Proto, and Chronixx all one stage. Something not even Jamaicans see all the time.
All in all it was a good vibes, thanks to everyone who came out to 9Mile Music Festival
For the full gallery, check below, or click here
Rebel Salute 2016: Beyond the Stage
A leisurely study into some of the activities beyond the stage at Rebel Salute 2016. Gallery Inside
This year I attended the second day (and night into morning) of Rebel Salute's 2016 staging. This was my first time at Rebel Salute ever, after having repeated shows like Reggae Sumfest, and Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival. Working with my dad, he was contracted to reach the location early, specifically to capture images of the setup for a client, but was invited to stay for the actual show.
Rebel Salute Stage
what was very special about this visit was I wasn't really there to cover the stage performances, I had a lot of free time and was essentially just a patron most of the time there. This gave me the opportunity to really experience the fullness of Rebel Salute.
I had a specific interest in the vendors there- what I found particularly interesting was the authenticity of the various persons on the grounds at their stalls hustling. Moreso, Rebel Salute being an event based on rastafari values, most stalls were of goods that were owned by rastas, or fit inside their lifestyle values - Vegan foods, Marijuana based edibles, hemp based clothing, and natural handmade goods.
Everything on this table incorporates marijuana in the ingredients.. Cakes, Coffee Drops, Ointments, Even herb bag-juice
As I mentioned.. Herb Bag-juice
the photos I brought home reflect more of a study of the hustling that goes on at Rebel Salute, something that was very fun to immerse myself in and study. I hope you enjoy the images!
Throwback Feature: "Who Knows" Music Video BTS
A short recap of the photography and video BTS (some unseen before) from the Who Knows video shoot. Gallery Inside
One of the earliest works I did with Protoje, before creative directing for him, was a BTS feature for the music video for the first single off Ancient Future; "Who Knows". Working with Nickii Kane for the first time we were tasked with covering both a photography and video aspect of what was going on over the 2-Day shoot process.
At the time, I was still just learning how powerful social media was, so a lot of these images didn't see the light of day (at Least on my channels). I happened across them while doing some backing up of old data, and while the images are only JPEG (cringes), I still think aesthetically, and historically they are worth seeing, So I edited them over.
"Who Knows" was Directed by Storm Saulter, and has made crazy waves internationally, especially in the UK where it was playlisted on BBC
Protoje and Chronixx reminiscing on old memories during an on the spot interview
I should also mention I was particularly favourable of the wardrobe and styling of the video
You can watch "Who Knows" here
Gallery after the jump