Finding hobbies to do in college is quite enjoyable. You can find things to do among the likes of club basketball, tennis, soccer, reading club or Greek life. I think one thing that is often overlooked is the architecture on UK’s campus. Over the past two years, on the grounds of our beloved campus, I was able to find a niche to spend my time editing photos in between classes or on the weekend. Scrolling through the app store one happenstantial afternoon, I discovered a plethora of apps for photo editing. The ones that look the best for my aesthetics to edit photos were as follows: Darkroom, Lightroom, PicsArt.
I personally use Darkroom way more than any of the other apps. It is an app that allows filters to be used and overlaid on the original photo. This app was actually deemed one of the 2020 Apple Design Award winners among a few other developer apps. In a league of its own, with a user-friendly interface, it covers all the basic needs to get the saturation levels and light exposure to the variation of your liking. Another feature that is useful is the preset filters with recommended settings that get the photos to the aesthetic of your choice.
Lightroom, produced by Adobe and an app that I am not too familiar with, is a minimized version of their full-blown software from the Adobe Creative Cloud. In the mobile app, if you have Creative Cloud on your laptop or desktop, you are able to upload your own presets. This allows for seamless integration from phone to laptop if you know how to navigate the realms of Photoshop and Lightroom. Having an overall minimalist and user-friendly interface in Lightroom, the app allows you to manipulate the white balance of the photos so that color cast on an object is seen as the object is viewed in real life. White balance allows for color correction so you can create warmer or cooler looking photos.
Last in the arsenal of photo editors, is the app known as PicsArt, an ingeniously designed app that allows you to maneuver through blemish editing, freezing and adding stickers to the original image. On the home screen, you are welcomed by a community of fellow enthusiasts who share your passion for photography. You can experiment with preloaded photos to test out the features and see what designs you can come up with. One feature on the app allows the user to zoom in with an ultrafine window, thus allowing for blemish editing. Blemish editing allows users to smooth and clear up areas in the sky or on a person to clarify skin. Another blemish tool accompanied in the toolbox allows users to edit their eye color and play with visual effects. The freezing tools allow users to select panes in the photo to “freeze” so when they go to swirl, twirl, stretch, and minimize for special effects, the selected frozen panes won’t move. Finally, the app allows for stickers to be inserted to further enhance the photo with anything the user wants.
Using photo apps are essential if you want to up your game for your portfolio or social media site. You can use these apps to create an aesthetic you want to create. Allow your inner artist to flourish with these apps at your disposal.