Android photo apps

JonathanRyan

JonathanRyan

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Jonathan
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I'm off for a short holiday (!) and want to leave my camera at home (!!). I have a Google Pixel 6 which has quite a nice camera but I wondered if there was anything better for snaps on a city break and an editor I would enjoy using in an evening.

Must be Android, don't mind paying but don't want a subscription or adverts. Most of the "free" apps in the store turn out not to be free at all - I'd much rather something that said "10 quid and it's all yours". Oh and I don't have an Adobe sub so although Lightroom on a phone is surprisingly nice, it would probably be an expensive solution.
 
I'll second the Snapseed recommendation. It's the best free editor I have found for using on my phone. If you just need it for this trip, you could try the lightroom mobile free trial though.
 
Oooooo.

Why does Snapseed have such a silly name? It's really very good indeed.
 
A few more things about Snapseed.

1. It can process many types of raw file as well as jpegs.

2. It only saves or exports PNGs or jpegs so it's best to go into Settings and set your export size to 100% if you think you're likely to reimport a photo you already exported.

3. There's a book that teaches how to use Snapseed. It's by Jo Bradford and it's called "Smart Phone Smart Photo Editing".

Smart Phone Smart Photo Editing: A complete workflow for editing on any phone or tablet using Snapseed: Amazon.co.uk: Bradford, Jo: 9781800650534: Books

Buy Smart Phone Smart Photo Editing: A complete workflow for editing on any phone or tablet using Snapseed by Bradford, Jo (ISBN: 9781800650534) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk
 
garryknight said:
A few more things about Snapseed.

1. It can process many types of raw file as well as jpegs.

2. It only saves or exports PNGs or jpegs so it's best to go into Settings and set your export size to 100% if you think you're likely to reimport a photo you already exported.

3. There's a book that teaches how to use Snapseed. It's by Jo Bradford and it's called "Smart Phone Smart Photo Editing".

Smart Phone Smart Photo Editing: A complete workflow for editing on any phone or tablet using Snapseed: Amazon.co.uk: Bradford, Jo: 9781800650534: Books

Buy Smart Phone Smart Photo Editing: A complete workflow for editing on any phone or tablet using Snapseed by Bradford, Jo (ISBN: 9781800650534) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk
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Thanks - I'll definitely check the book out if Snapseed goes well on this trip.

One thing that baffles me....scanning QR codes to develop pics is really clever but....isn't it also really dumb? I can't find a way to scan them from a webpage or saved image on my phone. Do I *really* have to display the QR on another device so I can scan it with the camera?
 
You don't have to scan a QR code to develop photos. The only time I've ever used it is to copy my own presets from my iPad to my iPhone.

But after a quick internet search, it seems that you can scan codes from internet pages and they'll set up new presets on your phone.

And a preset is just a combination of edits ands settings that you can do yourself using the tools menu. Once you've done that, if you like the effect you can save it as a preset to use again.

If I were you I'd search YouTube for a Snapseed for Beginners tutorial.
 
garryknight said:
If I were you I'd search YouTube for a Snapseed for Beginners tutorial.
Click to expand...
Thanks - will do :)

Predictably I didn't spend as much time editing pictures as, say, drinking Belgian beers.... but when I did, Snapseed was pretty amazing. I loaded up a Pro Cam X but actually neevr got roudn to using it. The Pixel 6 is really quite nice especially when it's dark. This was in a print museum which was kept pretty dark to preserve the priceless books.

PXL_20230418_102219042.NIGHT (Medium).jpg
 
Slight off topic but I don't think it's worth starting a new thread for this. I have a Pixel 7 Pro and rarely use the camera. Trouble is, I can't find a way of disabling the fake bokeh effect. Even avoiding portrait mode it still seems to decide what ought to be in focus, what blurred, and apply a really ghastly blur as it sees fit.

I can't believe it's a hardware feature, so does anyone know of a decent app that simply records what the camera captures without trying to emulate a larger sensor format? The extended DOF used to be one of the advantages of small sensors!

Sorry for the ignorance, I haven't used smartphones much for photography.
 
alexcarnes said:
Slight off topic but I don't think it's worth starting a new thread for this. I have a Pixel 7 Pro and rarely use the camera. Trouble is, I can't find a way of disabling the fake bokeh effect. Even avoiding portrait mode it still seems to decide what ought to be in focus, what blurred, and apply a really ghastly blur as it sees fit.

I can't believe it's a hardware feature, so does anyone know of a decent app that simply records what the camera captures without trying to emulate a larger sensor format? The extended DOF used to be one of the advantages of small sensors!

Sorry for the ignorance, I haven't used smartphones much for photography.
Click to expand...

Try Manual Camera. Should give you a basic image.
 
If you are on the Adobe digital subscription for LR etc you can get their phone app as well. I've also found the built in editing tools pretty decent, do you also have these in the Pixel 6?
 
gman said:
If you are on the Adobe digital subscription for LR etc you can get their phone app as well. I've also found the built in editing tools pretty decent, do you also have these in the Pixel 6?
Click to expand...
Yes, I installed the Lightroom app on my phone a few days ago and I'm just starting to have a play with it. It's mostly very good.

I wish the camera app had a live histogram and I'm starting to think that some of the weird processing I don't like is in fact a hardware issue. According to the specs the main rear camera is 50MP but it yields a 12MP raw file regardless of the camera app. I suspect the designer has baked in some processing that tries to emulate the DOF of a larger sensor format and I don't much like it.

I'll use the phone for casual stuff but I think I'm going to pull the trigger on a Ricoh GR IIIx for my pocket rocket!
 
All the phone cameras with high pixel counts use binning to get down to a small number of pixels. It may be baked into firmware and therefore you can't extract a true raw file.
 
ancient_mariner said:
All the phone cameras with high pixel counts use binning to get down to a small number of pixels. It may be baked into firmware and therefore you can't extract a true raw file.
Click to expand...
I don't object to binning, it's whatever else is going on. The DOF is obviously shallower than you'd expect for a focal length of a few millimetres, I just presumed the processing would have been a feature of the camera app. Sadly it appears not!
 
alexcarnes said:
Slight off topic but I don't think it's worth starting a new thread for this. I have a Pixel 7 Pro and rarely use the camera. Trouble is, I can't find a way of disabling the fake bokeh effect. Even avoiding portrait mode it still seems to decide what ought to be in focus, what blurred, and apply a really ghastly blur as it sees fit.

I can't believe it's a hardware feature, so does anyone know of a decent app that simply records what the camera captures without trying to emulate a larger sensor format? The extended DOF used to be one of the advantages of small sensors!

Sorry for the ignorance, I haven't used smartphones much for photography.
Click to expand...

Was just re-reading this properly and that doesn't seem right as I've got the Pixel 7 Pro and the DOF seems natural to me. It's only if I go into the editing tools and apply portrait blur that it can look a bit iffy when the slider is turned up too far. Sometimes I do have to tap the screen to tell it what to focus on but in most cases it gets it right.

From what I've read Google does tend to lean more towards software and AI to improve quality, whereas the likes of Samsung will focus more on the hardware. Although, I'm sure I also read somewhere that it's suspected the camera sensor in the Pixel is actual the same as Samsung, so it all becomes a little confusing.

I think it's a Quad Bayer sensor, hence not a true 50MP. (linky) as suggested above.
 
gman said:
Was just re-reading this properly and that doesn't seem right as I've got the Pixel 7 Pro and the DOF seems natural to me. It's only if I go into the editing tools and apply portrait blur that it can look a bit iffy when the slider is turned up too far. Sometimes I do have to tap the screen to tell it what to focus on but in most cases it gets it right.

From what I've read Google does tend to lean more towards software and AI to improve quality, whereas the likes of Samsung will focus more on the hardware. Although, I'm sure I also read somewhere that it's suspected the camera sensor in the Pixel is actual the same as Samsung, so it all becomes a little confusing.

I think it's a Quad Bayer sensor, hence not a true 50MP. (linky) as suggested above.
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What's the real focal length of the main camera? It's only going to be a few mm isn't it. Even at 18mm with cameras such as the old Ricoh GR at 16MP, they were virtually hyperfocal at every aperture. With these phone cameras everything should be in focus whether you want it to be or not... unless there's some weird processing going on.

I haven't done a real deep dive into it but it doesn't look right to me. Granted it's perfectly good enough for making photos of your lunch to put on Instabook!
 
alexcarnes said:
What's the real focal length of the main camera? It's only going to be a few mm isn't it. Even at 18mm with cameras such as the old Ricoh GR at 16MP, they were virtually hyperfocal at every aperture. With these phone cameras everything should be in focus whether you want it to be or not... unless there's some weird processing going on.

I haven't done a real deep dive into it but it doesn't look right to me. Granted it's perfectly good enough for making photos of your lunch to put on Instabook!
Click to expand...

Aye I've just done a wee test with my arm quite close and the living room windows about 5 metres behind and whilst most of the hairs on my arm are sharp, some are blurry and that shouldn't be happening as they are the same distance away. So it does indeed look like software trickery, although rather good it seems.

If I change the angle of my arm so I'm photographing the length of it then it's a little more obvious.

Not sure what the answer is, other than playing around with 3rd party apps? I've got a feeling it's baked into the firmware though.
 
It's really annoying because it doesn't always seem to place the DOF like a real camera, it makes choices about what subject matter should be sharp and which blurred.

No one else seems to be complaining though so obviously I'm extremely fussy or just weird!
 
alexcarnes said:
It's really annoying because it doesn't always seem to place the DOF like a real camera, it makes choices about what subject matter should be sharp and which blurred.

No one else seems to be complaining though so obviously I'm extremely fussy or just weird!
Click to expand...

I've had the "HD Camera" app for a while but rarely use it, but had a quick play. When selecting Pro Mode at the bottom you can adjust an "F" value, presumably F-Stop? However, when increasing the value towards infinity it doesn't seem to increase the DOF but instead appears to shift the point of focus instead.
 
gman said:
I've had the "HD Camera" app for a while but rarely use it, but had a quick play. When selecting Pro Mode at the bottom you can adjust an "F" value, presumably F-Stop? However, when increasing the value towards infinity it doesn't seem to increase the DOF but instead appears to shift the point of focus instead.
Click to expand...
Yeah it's manual focus (distance), I had to Google it!

That's the clincher though really, there's no way you'd get such shallow DOF with a 5mm lens or whatever it is. Everything would be in focus whether you like it or not!
 
alexcarnes said:
Yeah it's manual focus (distance), I had to Google it!

That's the clincher though really, there's no way you'd get such shallow DOF with a 5mm lens or whatever it is. Everything would be in focus whether you like it or not!
Click to expand...

I think it must be hard coded in. To be fair I think it does a pretty good job, but as the aperture is fixed then I can't imagine any workarounds either. It would have been good to give us the choice though.
 
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