Today we'll talk about applications for Android that will help budding or established photographers in their creative business.
Modern telephones have long ceased to be a simple means of communication. Many people simply cannot live without their gadget, and when they forget it somewhere, they feel uncomfortable. The smartphone has become a real assistant, because the Google Play application store contains a huge number of useful and not very applications that can make life easier for people of different professions. , including photographers. Modern flagships allow you to take high-quality photos, immediately process and publish them, but that's not all.
I invite you, dear readers, to familiarize yourself with a small selection of applications that will help both photography enthusiasts and professionals.
Google photos
Let's start with the most pressing question for any user who takes more than five photos a day. Sooner or later, everyone is faced with the need to clear the built-in memory of the smartphone from unnecessary or not very important photos, because one card from a modern phone weighs about 5 MB, and when there are more than a hundred, then the bill goes to gigabytes.
We have already written about Google Photos on our website more than once, but it would be wrong not to mention it in the collection. Good Corporation provides its users with unlimited cloud storage for photos and videos. This is a handy tool for storing photos that you want to keep as a keepsake or it is a pity to delete. Those who are unfamiliar with this service and feel the catch – it is not. There is only one condition – all files go through a rather gentle compression process. Yes, you will not be allowed to store the original RAW files, but it is possible to save media files in their original quality, this will already be used by the space in Google Drive. It is worth noting that the compressed files do not differ much from the source files, the average user will not notice the difference at all.
The Google Photos app in the background syncs images and videos from your mobile device. This process is flexible: you can enable photo uploading only via Wi-Fi or only on a charge, so that the application does not waste battery power during the day. The program will help you find photos that are already uploaded to the cloud and offer to delete them in order to free up space on your smartphone.
It should be noted that the search for images among the entire feed is excellent. The algorithms of the application determine with almost 100% accuracy what is in the photo, and allow you to search for the desired one by keywords, be it 'tree', 'dog' or 'snow'.
Price: Free
Flickr
Flickr was originally conceived as a photo hosting service for an online game in 2004, but later developed into a full-fledged photography service. In terms of audience scale, it was only surpassed by Instagram.
Flickr is often compared to Google Photos, but the latter is more suitable as an archive of all your photos. Flickr is a kind of social network where you can share your photos with other users from all over the world. It is also a great source of inspiration, as thousands of unique photographs are published there every day. That is why I included it in the collection.
Each user is provided with 1 TB of storage for photos for free, previously the conditions were much worse – only 100 MB per month. You can also praise the mobile application for Android, it is made convenient, simple and concise.
Price: Free
Sun Surveyor
I think it's no secret to anyone that the right light is the best way to display volume in a photo, but not everyone has the opportunity to purchase professional lighting devices, so enthusiasts are forced to use a natural light source – the sun. But even experienced photographers do not neglect this, because sunlight gives a more vibrant picture than expensive artificial lighting.
The Sun Survey app allows you to track all phases of the celestial luminaries from sunrise to sunset. Moreover, it gives as many as five types of displaying the position of natural light sources: 3D compass, Map, Live View, Summary and Street View. For this, the application uses a gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, GPS, etc. Therefore, the user has the opportunity to guess the best time and place for shooting.
The application is executed perfectly. Of the minuses, I can only note the high cost.
Price: 599 rubles
Photo Mate R3
Modern flagships allow you to save images directly from the matrix, bypassing processing algorithms. Raw RAW files allow you to fix any software errors – overexposures, a miss with white balance, incorrect colors, etc. Google Play has a huge number of photo editors, but most of them only work with JPG files. Finding a decent RAW source editor is very, very difficult.
Photo Mate R3 allows you to flexibly adjust all possible parameters of the source, from white balance to correcting lens aberrations. The latest version has updated the rendering engine, added the ability to quickly view changes, automatically add a watermark and much more. Note that processing photos with the Photo Mate R3 application on a smartphone is not very convenient due to the small display. I recommend working on a tablet with a diagonal of 7 inches or more. Also, a fairly high performance is required from the device.
Photo Mate R3 is as close as possible in functionality to the popular desktop editor Adobe Lightroom, which, by the way, has a version for Android and iOS. But mobile Lightroom can only work with RAW files in the Smart Preview format (a proprietary format from Adobe). Photo Mate R3 allows you to process RAW files from most cameras, see the supported formats here.
The application is expensive, but it should be borne in mind that this is a complete working tool. The developer provides 2 days of trial access for testing.
Price: 601 rubles
Let's summarize
I tried to find one application for each step of the photography process, from idea to storing the final image. I propose in the comments to discuss how a smartphone or tablet can help in this creative endeavor, and share what you think about it.