Editing Photos On Your Phone
The question gets asked a lot but almost never gets answered: How do you edit a photo without using your PC? This is a biggie for a lot of people who get dark photos from their camera and then have to go back to their PC to fix it up. Well, those days are over. There are two freeware apps that I want to briefly discuss that will let you edit photos directly on your phone and they’re actually pretty powerful and easy to use.
Let’s start with UltraG which is a full powered photo editor. Let me show you what the image started as (which I intentionally took in a dark setting with no flash just to show you how good this software is)
OK, the next two steps I took was to change the resolution to fit our screen size (and it does permit you to lock the aspect ration so you don’t get distorted images) and then I used an automatic adjustment called "Auto Light Power" that automatically brightens up the photo without oversaturating it. The resolution was done to decrease the size of the file (since I really don’t need a huge file) and a smaller file can be manipulated quicker but of course, there’s nothing stopping you from leaving the resolution alone. This is all for demonstration purposes, but it also gives you a great side by side so you can see how good it is at brightening up the photo.
Now let’s get to a few other automatic adjustments (each starting from the image that was brightened). Each of these are just examples and they can be manipulated as you desire (like the hue can be any shade you want or ‘monotone’ can be adjusted to be sepia, etc). In most of these I intentionally over did it to exaggerate the tweak so you can see what can be done but the app lets you pick gradients. So in photo order I increased the brightness, automatically corrected the contrast, modified the hue, switched to monotone, made the image a moziac, oversaturated it and then I used the brush to change the eye color manually after selecting the pipet to pick the color (the image name matches the action):
Again, these are all just sample and it’s literally just the tip of the iceberg. This app has a lot of available automatic adjustments far beyond what I showed in the photos and there are manual adjustments that you can tweak as well. As you use the adjustments there is a preview pane so you can see the impact it is having. But as you can see, you can entirely modify the original image to your liking. You’re not about to trade in PhotoShop for this but considering you’re on a phone it’s very impressive. The image at the very top of the posting is a sample of the applications interface and it doesn’t take long to get used to it.
The direct link for the UltraG download is here. Simply unzip the file and move the entire folder onto your phone (or you can unzip it on your phone). There is no installation. You just run UltraG.exe from the unzipped folder to start the app (and you can make a shortcut in Windows/Start Menu/Programs if you want a shortcut in your programs directory).
The one thing that UltraG is not good for is adding text to a photo (unless you just use the brush to manually do it). Well for those of you that remember the good ole days of Microsoft Paint why not relive those days on your phone with PDACraft Paint. It’s almost an exact porting and this works for simple edits including inserting text. Here’s a shot showing a few modifications all at once where I added text, drew a straight line in color, selected and moved a box, selected a box and filled it with a solid color and scribbled Mobility Digest using the pen. Next to it is a screenshot of the application.
Obviously, if you were really in the mood you could use this to make your own original artwork. This software lacks the advanced adjustment tools that UltraG has but PDACraft is a better drawing tool because it has some additional brush/pen/width options that UltraG lacks. PDACraft Paint is available for free here
Of course, if you just want a little app that’s nothing more than drawing with crayons on your phone we discussed that a while back but here’s the posting just to remind you.
Just remember when using these apps that the first thing you should do is save a new image so you don’t overwrite the original. UltraG’s ‘undo’ option does not work and ’save’ is the same as ’save as’ just so you know. Hey, it’s free and pretty good so I can live with that:) So don’t worry about those dark photos anymore and you can start editing on the go. Enjoy!
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Comments
David K ryusen – are you using the right version for our phones? I linked to the ARM version for PPC and that’s the one that should be used. I have it on the leaked ROM and it didn’t do anything like that. If you unzip the entire thing into it’s own folder you should just be able to run the .exe and it starts up like any other app…
ryusen David. I used the link you provided as, “The direct link for the UltraG download is here.” Unzipped it on my PC, copied the whole folder to the program files folder on my Fuze and ran the UltraG.exe using total commander.
David K I’m doing the same thing except I put the file into my storage card but that shouldn’t ahve an impact. My startup time is about 2 seconds and like I said there’s no ‘installation’ so it shouldn’t load differently one time over another…it’s very strange. Want to try a soft reset of your phone just to make sure it’s not conflicting with someting else and give it another go?
drjim FYI, I just unzipped on my PC, uploaded UG and clicked on the exe and it worked great.
The only downside I see is that when you select a photo, you see the filename, not a thumbnail so you have to identify the photo you want to tweak beforehand.
Oh, and I clicked on EZViewer to see what that was about and I lost my top bar and my phone locked up. But a soft reset returned all to normal. What is that appp supposed to do and do you have that problem?
ryusen David,
I rand it and i noticed the libs it was requesting permission for were different. So i decided to click through all the yeses and the app finally ran. I am testing it out on a random image right now. One other question. Is there a way to run the program from the programs tab on the TF3D?
drjim Hey ryusen,
To create a shortcut in your Programs or All Programs, go to the exe where you installed it and press and hold until you get a menu. Scroll down to Create Shortcut to Programs (or something like that) and click on it. A shortcut is automatically created in Programs and you should see it there now.
ryusen drjim. that worked, but i did have to install: http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-file-explorer-extension.html first.
Thanks everyone for the help. I’ll be giving it a try as i can have time to test.
drjim It’s weird that you had to install that app. Not sure you had to, but, FYI, you can use Total Commander for more complex file management.
Good luck…
drjim Lesson learned. ryusen, I followed your link for the File Explorer extension app and it looks great. I’ve already saved to install tonight. Definitely adds a lot to FE.
Thanks.
David K THanks Dr – good advice:) As far as EZViewer it is just a pic viewer and slide show app- nothing special. There is a menu if you tap the screen and you can exit the app that way. I didn’t get freezes when I used it but I don’t really see a point in using it either…
Don For what it’s worth, I had the same endless stream of “unknown publisher” messages when I ran UltraG the first time. I have it loaded on an expansion card. Don’t know if that makes a difference.
UltraG has run with no problem since that first time.
jimski Good find David. Saved the files to the Storage Card on my stock Fuze and received those warnings for the exe file and all the dll’s (lost count at 25) when I launced it the first time, but after that everything was fine. Guess a few of us have a switch turned on relating to showing those warnings. No big deal.
Now I have Photoshop Elements(well sort of)on my phone.
David K Question for you guys that had to ‘install’ a few files (or click yes through them) – do you have sdkcerts installed? it’s part of the TF3D TP2 cabs. I have it installed and I think Dr.Jim does too – I wonder if that’s the difference.
ryusen i haven’t touched any of the TP2 cabs, still not quite brave enough. My first suspicion might be some kind of security setting.
David K the SDKCerts is not really just a TF3D TP2 cab – it gives enhanced privileges for your phone and I really think that’s the difference between it working without any error message and it making you go through that process…
jimski Have not touched the TF3D TP2 cabs (tempted but nervous). I know I saw a tweak somewhere to turn off warnings, but I left it enabled so I can see what is being loaded on my device.
Jimmy what do i use to unblur an image? And I PaintCraft would be good if it looked in all the directories in the phone. I can’t get it to look on my SD card.
Tiffani This was a wonderfully helpful article! My phone pictures always come out too dark, so this is perfect! Thank you so much!
When i tried to run Ultra G on my phone, it loaded a seemingly endless stream of libs and asked me if i wanted to authorize each one. I eventually gave up. Maybe if it’s available in a cab installer later, i’ll give it another try.