TAKE 5: FREE PHOTO APPS
MIKE HARRIS picks five free and easy-touse apps that will enhance your workflow
We’ve hand-picked free and easy apps to enhance your phone’s photo workflow
Apps have dramatically changed photography workflows. You can edit, transfer and upload RAW images without ever touching a laptop or computer. Some photography apps are so complex they even rival their full-fat computer software counterparts, but often it’s the simplest apps that we find ourselves returning to time and again.
These five apps aren’t particularly complex, nor will they push your smart device to its limits. Several of them have precious few features, and that’s what makes them so useful. These are the apps you instinctively pull from your pocket and quickly refer to before going about your photography business. They’re the software equivalent of an L-bracket or tripod spikes: understated but infinitely useful. The five apps listed here are available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play, so it doesn’t matter whether you own an iOS or Android device. Best of all, each app is free to download and use.
1. Long Exposure Calculator
You can spend time calculating in your head what shutter speed you need when working with a neutral density filter, or you can simply open Long Exposure Calculator, input the strength of the filter you’re using and your base shutter speed, and you’re good to go.
2. Pocket Bubble Level
It doesn’t get much simpler than this. Bubble Level features one bull’s eye and two tubular levels. It’s extremely useful if your tripod or head doesn’t have a bubble level or if you’re aligning props. The app is free to download, but for 99p you can remove the adverts.
3. My Tide Times
It’s important to know tide times in order to capture seascapes successfully and safely. This app maps out tidal spots across 40 countries and contains a plethora of info, including times and depths for low and high tide, and even predicts conditions in advance.
4. Clear Outside
This weather app is built for astronomers, but its seven-day forecast is useful for outside photography, and astrophotography in particular. Information includes cloud cover, sun and moon rise/set times, and times for civil/nautical/astronomical twilight.
5. Snapseed
Snapseed is owned by Google. It’s a free, nofrills editing app that’s delightfully simple to use. It comes with a variety of Looks, which instantly transform an image (much like a filter) and has all the tools required to perform a base edit including highlights, shadows and contrast. It also has some more advanced features, such as double exposure, healing and selection tools.