Improve your photos with simple steps in Google Photos

We been traveling in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. Beauty has surrounded us and we’ve tried to capture it with photos using our smartphones. These are great cameras even in the most amateur of hands, and with just a couple of clicks with a photo editor, you might be surprised at the quality of the photo you can make.

If you’ve never used Google Photos to enhance your photos, then you need to learn how to get in to edit mode and to navigate amongst the different tools (see this video). If you already know that, then try the two features that made the difference in the photo above:

  1. Adjustments: Shadows – slide to increase light in the shadows
  2. Pop: Scroll to the right until you find More…, choose Pop and slide to increase
  3. Done and Save

The original photo above was a bit crooked. That is so easy to fix using the crop and rotate tool in Google Photos. Then, I wanted to get rid of the windshield bug splatter that messed up the tree, so I cropped it. Last, I applied the Palma filter to enhance the colors a bit. Three taps on the phone, or 3 clicks on the computer and you have a worthwhile photo. See this video.

This picture with Jim by a river is the easiest edit yet! It’s just a little dark – one click on the “Auto” filter on the computer, or the “Enhance” button on the phone and it’s a great photo.

Try it! You’ll like it. Just bring up a photo that you like but think could be better. Try the first button – Enhance, or Auto – and see how much better it looks. If there are dark areas, try selecting “Shadows” and move the slider to get more light. Last, try the Pop slider.

What do you think?