Experimenting with a mobile workflow

The proliferation of smartphones and tablets has given birth to some really interesting possibilities in the photography space. Coupled with other technological advancements such as the Eye-Fi memory card, the potential for a truly mobile workflow has indeed been opened up further.

If you’re the type who isn’t quite satisfied with the quality of phone cameras, but wish for the speed and ease of snapping and uploading a photo instantly, then this might just be a solution for you.

A smartphone or tablet of your choice (Android, iOS, etc.), a digital camera with an SD card slot, an Eye-Fi memory card, and your pick of photo editing apps is all you need. Many phones/tablets have already integrated the capability to instantly share photos to major photo-sharing sites such as Facebook or Flickr, but if your favorite sharing website isn’t readily integrated into the OS, there’s probably an app somewhere out there for you.

On my Android devices, I’ve tried quite a few apps and find that PicSay Pro (get it from the market for US$ 3.99 at the time of this writing) is one of the better ones out there for photo editing. Of course, for each app I tried, there’s probably a hundred others just waiting to be discovered, so don’t just take my word for it.

One thing many apps lack, though, is the ability to do proper cropping. PicSay Pro is one of the few I’ve found that gives you this capability, but I have to say the results are not quite that good yet for some reason. Just look at the picture to the right. Granted, I didn’t edit this particular picture in PicSay Pro, but the results are about the same.

Note that when I say proper cropping, I mean not just cropping a pic to make it smaller and cut off unnecessary parts, but also to straighten a crooked picture.

But I digress. What I’m trying to get at with this post is that, it’s totally possible now to skip the PC or the laptop in your overall workflow. Sure, the results may not be up to par yet, but it works in a pinch. Just make sure to avoid having to straighten your photos.