Photoshop Express For Android: Edit and Share Right Away!

 

The cameras on our phones can never match up to the commendable quality of digital SLR cameras. They just cannot. However, every now and again we capture a superb image on our phones that’s worth saving. It could be a picture of friends, a landscape, or your favourite band on stage.

Color, quality adjustment, effects, and a little bit of cropping can work wonders too and why not have the ability to do it right there and then on your phone, ready to tweet or share on Facebook? Photoshop Express from Adobe is an application for just that.

 

Functionality

Upon firing up Photoshop Express for the first time you are ready to go every last photograph you have taken on your phone will load on the homescreen waiting to be edited and improved.

Once you have selected your masterpiece which you have decided could use a little tweak, a multitude of options await you in the editing screen. There are of course the basics, such as cropping, flipping and straightening, but even they are done well.

 

Cropping is extremely easy as you are able to move all four corners of the rectangle and then subsequently move the entire rectangle around. Once you are done just press Okay and thats that all in about five seconds.

 

Its in the more complex tasks that this application really flourishes where other applications fail miserably by ruining photos with poor quality and power. For instance, converting a color photo to greyscale: while it may seem like an easy enough task, many apps and even computer programs can mess it up beyond belief. Photoshop Express does an excellent job of analysing all the colors and shading in a photo, and converts it into a black and white picture that looks like it was taken that way in the first place.

 

 

This level of quality goes for all the colour editing features such as tint, contrast, brightness, exposure and saturation. Most of these are easily controlled, not by your average slider, but by simply moving your finger side to side on the screen until the level you want has been reached. This allows the picture to occupy most of the screen instead of being made smaller to accommodate toolbars, sliders and buttons.

 

 

The effects menu is what really made this app for me. The developers understand you are on your phone and trying to shove an entire Photoshop program on there would have been unreasonable. Instead, they have given us a list of predetermined "effects" which we can add to photos. You can see the screenshot above with examples such as "Pop", "Soft Black and White" and a personal favourite of mine, "Vignette Blur". That one senses objects in the photo which are close (such as someone face) and gives them a sharp focus, while simultaneously blurring the background.

 

 

Adobe have also included some borders. I like the basic ones but as you continue to scroll through them they get a little cheesy. Still, variety is the spice of life. No changes are permanent and the original files are not overwritten when you save either, which I liked. You can also undo and redo your work by pressing the appropriate arrows while editing.

Not Just Photoshop

Photoshop Express is not all about editing photos however they have included one or two other features that make the experience just that little bit more enjoyable.

 

I personally find it a much better way to view photos than using the normal method of going through your pictures menu. The homescreen of Photoshop Express displays more photos in tile format which makes for quicker browsing and you are brought closer to the editing process if you’re a regular snapper. The ability to view your pictures as a continuous slideshow is a nice touch.

The app can also be synced with an online Adobe Photoshop account where you can upload your photos to by pressing the "Upload" button on the homescreen. You can also select the "Online" tab as opposed to the "Phone" tab to display your online photos and edit them.

The application is also in touch with our social needs with the ability to upload edited photos to TwitPic and Facebook. This feature is not instantly obvious when using the app for the first time, which disappointed me until I came across the ability to enter and activate my social media accounts in the application’s "Settings" menu.

Design

I quite like the design of Photoshop Express its sleek and professional as you would expect from a seasoned veteran such as Adobe. The grey and blue color scheme work well together and all your photos are presented neatly.

 

 

The editing screen could have been their downfall here given the number and complexity of some of the options. Thankfully, they have pulled it off. Leaving the number of menus across the top of the screen reduces clutter and the subsequent drop-down menus look great.

Unlike in other applications and computer programs, selecting a function quickly opens a new screen where just that option’s slider’s and options are displayed. This screen allows you to make changes, save them or just hit Back to return to the main editing screen.

 

Across the bottom of the screen we have the exit button to go back to the homescreen, the undo and redo buttons, and the save button. You can also turn the phone on its side for a landscape view of your photo and the editing options as you can see in the picture above.

 

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