New Mind-Boggling Photo-Editing Technique

It's hard to believe that just a few years ago, I barely knew more than cropping as a my repertoire of photo-editing. Now, besides "lightening," sharpening, turning the photo into black and white, etc. I've discovered that you can change its shape.

I thought people in 52Frames were kidding when they said that I could change the perspective of a picture. I could make a distorted one into a perfect square or rectangle. Someone told me that I could do it with Snapseed, an app I have on my phone for editing. They were right. I did fix the photo with the Perspective Tool.

I'll show you what I mean with a photo that was really distorted. I turned this one...

into... this.  Until I did it, I  couldn't believe such a thing could be done.

It's like magic. Isn't it?

Could It Be Real?

Last night I took a picture of the Shiloh Tabernacle Synagogue from the vantage of my neighborhood. It was all lit up and gorgeous. Suddenly I had idea. As soon as I got home I used the double exposure tool on Snapseed. Yes, I pasted/superimposed the synagogue over the location where it's believed that the Mishkan, Tabernacle had stood in Shiloh from the time of Joshua until Eli, the High Priest.

It's far from perfect, but...

Amazing Results With Photo-editing, Snapseed

For the longest time, I totally avoided and looked down on "extreme" photo-editing. I was raised in the film photography world and was always warned by my parents that it was a waste of money to develop and print bad shots. I had one chance, and one chance only, to click and produce a perfect photo.

So, as you can imagine, it's rather traumatic to accept the digital photography reality in which people may take dozens or more shots of the same scene. Trying to choose the best, after three or four, my eyes go foggy and I just can't see what's better or worse. I'm not a visual perfectionist. The truth is that I'm just not a perfectionist at all!

Now I must admit that even though I highly doubt that I'll be taking more than a handful of photos of the same scene, I have not only discovered the fun and art of photo-editing, but sometimes I fear that I'm addicted.

This week's 52Frames challenge was to use our phone as a camera. To be honest, I've been using my phone pretty much every week for months. Its pictures are far superior to what my cheap camera can produce. That created a bit of a dilemma. I needed to submit a photograph that would be a superior one, davka, because of my phone.

Here is the photo I submitted:

"Flower"
I used two new techniques here. Negative color and a new application recommended by a framer. Thanks

This is the story:
I decided to use a photography option that my Samsung J7 offers. I photographed this pretty flower in the negative. It looked pretty unusual, but just not special enough.

I'm also in a small 52Frames group which is to help each other out with ideas. One of the members of that group suggested that I use Snapseed, a free photo-editing application. So, that's what I did. It lightened the photograph just enough to give more detail and contrast between the flower and the leaves. What do you think?