I need guidance on an aspect of photo editing using android app. When I edit photos to brighten them, I never understand what is the absolute level of the brightness of the photo. Because some photos look reasonably bright when the display light is full and the same look dark when display brightness is medium. How can I know how bright is my photo originally? So that I can avoid making them overly bright.
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Hi @GhazalaShah ,
Thank you for your question. It is really interesting topic and I am sure a good discussion will start.
I am not a professional photographer and nothing popped up while Searching the Community. So, I would like to involve @TravellerG in this topic. He has written some really useful posts here on Connect, that is why I am sure he could answer your question.
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Insha Allah, I shall humby try to definitely answer him, in a few minutes,
Thanks for refering me.
Regards, dear @MashaPS
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Hi @GhazalaShah ,
You are right and this is a well known problem; don’t worry, we will solve it.
The End result, you want is that your viewer should see your photos, correctly… Is it not?
We will find the solution… OK?; but, before that you may kindly understand the situation:
- This situation is that we are discussing bout a relative parameter = means, after your brightness correction of your photo, when your viewer views, if his display is kept at low brightness, the viewer will see your photo as dull… Do you agree?
[The situation is like, looking at an excellent print of a photo, in a dark room… you follow?]
- So, what we need to do is, to look at your photo whether it has any over bright or over dark areas; ie. Your photo, with the medium brightness of your mobile display, should have average Brightness, Contrast and Colour. (No blur, no shake, etc. too).
- Such a photo is worth for sharing; the viewer, if he feels that the photo is dim, when he brightens his display, your photo will be correctly visible. Hope you got, it.
- Now, how to get the Brightness, Contract and Colour, under your control?
I would recommend a Simple, but powerful [free] android editor, ‘Photoshop Express’ [this is not complicated to use, as the desktop, pro version].
In this you can adjust your Excess brightness and Darkness, which will give a well bright photo.
Hope this will be a solution for your problem.
PS:
Dear @MashaPS , is third party apps, tutorials (Eg: Photoshop Express) are allowed here, which may help many?
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Hi @GhazalaShah and @TravellerG
As the brightness in this case is depending of the setting of your phone, so you don’t really know if the photo need to be corrected, you can use a simple trick:
Upload your picture in Google Photos. Google Photos automatically detect the brightness and, if needed, suggest you a change.
This is fine in most of the situation even if an overexposed or underexposed photo can be a choice of the photographer, for putting in evidence specific elements that, of course, a software cannot decide for you.
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Hi @GhazalaShah,
Thanks for raising up the question. It is an obstacle that is indeed that can be approached with different techniques.
From what @TravellerG have mentioned, I can assure you that his instructions is really helpful.
In my humble experience, the first step that I would take is to take two samples when I have doubts of a lighting, whether in the background or in broader surroundings. Other things is natural lighting, I would refrain from lamps and such, just to try to use more of the daylight.
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Hi @TravellerG ,
Thank you for jumping into this challenge so fast and with desire.
Yes, in this case it is not violating our rules such an app to be included.
Thank you @ErmesT , for suggesting Google Photos. @GhazalaShah , in the Edit photos article from Google Help Center you can take a look in the tips shared there, too.
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Thanks @TravellerG 
each & every point you mentioned was familiar. Following excerpt from your kind write up includes a solace as well as solution for me:
- Your photo, with the medium brightness of your mobile display, should have average Brightness, Contrast and Colour. (No blur, no shake, etc. too)
- Such a photo is worth for sharing. Thanks a lot for understanding & guidance
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Beautiful & professional explaination & solution Ermest. I was referring to photos taken in auto mode from an Android phone camera (S9 plus in my case). From this camera I seldom get any over exposures; under exposures are very common however. Almost every photo (I feel) needs a correction by brightening
I don’t understand why I have not been able to be friends with Google Photos. One day I tried very hard but the photo editor of galery pulled me back to Samsung gallery 
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@sonnyNg Thanks for your kind attention 
. Your idea is helpful. However as you can understand, local guides for maps are taking photos randomly and most of the times hurriedly, being unable to pay attention to finer details of quality. Taking double shots may not always be feasible. And the shots taken under same (auto) settings will be almost the similar If feasible, changing ISO settings by switching to Pro mode can greatly improve the results.
Previously with my simpler phone camera I used take a lot of pics in pro mode when it was dark, but with Samsung Galaxy S9 plus Pro mode seems bit difficult to handle in hurry. Additionally, I need to put on near vision glasses for settings every time…so…
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Thanks @MashaPS . I will take help from the tips you referred to . Some snacks for you 
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Dear friend, @GhazalaShah , I am really happy, that I could help you…
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I too use the same phone and hence, suggest you that, the photos can be published as it is. To me, the vivid colors with sober lighting (medium brightness) will be more effective.
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‘@sonnyN’ has referred to take 2 copies, at the time of editing; not during shooting.
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Appreciate your good command on English Language.
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You said:
“I was referring to photos taken in auto mode from an Android phone camera (S9 plus in my case). From this camera I seldom get any over exposures; under exposures are very common however. Almost every photo (I feel) needs a correction by brightening up…”
Personally, I don’t think you need to be concerned, dear friend; this camera produces excellent results, even at very low lights, with beautiful algorithm to reduce the grains (even at very poor lighting) - direct outputs are well accepted, be assured.
Thanks
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Dear @GhazalaShah
I think your question is very subjective and I would like to answer it a little differently.
- Composition (looking through your phone as a viewfinder)
- In-phone post-processing
- Offline post-processing (on a PC/Mac etc)
When we try to compose a picture using our smartphones a lot of variables come into play.
Consider your smartphone as a mirrorless DSLR with takes a composite input rather than a separate lens kit, separate pixel array meter (for RGB) and processor (like we have in DSLRs). Its a complicated process but to break it down, what our smartphone does is to try and estimate the scene (colors : tones and range) and feeds a composite value to the smartphone and its there where your phone registers what you looking at.
So, if you are using your phone screen (which all of us eventually do) to compose a scene, the brightness on your phone plays a major part to sort of understand how the end product will look like.
For Example, try to capture a shot (landscape & portraits) in a broad day light and then the same scene at night (setting your phone’s brightness to 10%, 20% … 100%).
Well the brightness here will not effect the end product but infact it will help us understand how the smartphone camera actually struggles to register all the information.
So, I normally say its by intuition and by practice which changes every time your subject changes (based on lightning conditions) and the phones ofcourse.
Gone are the days when the best shot was thought of the one with little or no post-processing (that’s pro work and that was using old cameras and DSLRs)
So, that takes us to the inevitable truth of post-processing our pictures whenever we are using smartphones.
When we are trying to post-process within the phone again the screen brightness plays a very vital role otherwise the end product will look either too bright or completely washed out. There are other variables to consider here as well.
For example, Apple’s iPhone, Google Pixel, Huawei (with Leica camera) are known to retain the true color tones of the images (I am not an advocate of any particular brand)so your images look pretty natural when viewed both on your phones or on your computer (Needless to say that again, the display on your computer or laptop will change everything and for pros its Candela per square meter cd/m2 that defines the intensity of light on the display)
In contrast, Samsung phones with their AMOLEDs displays are known to over-saturate everything (deep contrast ratios, brighter highlights and brightness bumped up) so the image pops out on the screen. But, if you transfer on the PC/Laptop they look completely different.
There are no hard and fast rules of post-processing on phones but I have realized that whenever I do photo re-touching on my phone (to adjust brightness and contrasts) I do a little trick that pretty much works everytime on every device.
- Set phone brightness to 20-30% and then adjust your pictures brightness & contrast
- Set phone brightness to 40-50% and then adjust your pictures brightness & contrast
I normally end up getting two photos and this might sound counter-intuitive, but think about that post which you want to stick to perhaps your instagram or localguidesconnect post for a long time and you always want it to stand out, yeah?
This technique is just about averaging out the end product and to pick the one that works best for you. Too bright and it would not work on any display, too dull and it would certainly not catch any attention. So, these images help me everytime to find a middle ground.
Finally, post-processing in offline mode (using your PC/Laptop) is to get the best results.
No matter you are shooting with a DSLR or your phone, its better to get them transferred to your PC/MAC and then process it.
What we need is not simply a Brightness / Contrast ratio, but infact we need to tweak the following to get the best result (Again, based on my workflows, I work in the following order)
- Adjust Contrast (bumping up contrast will merge shadows)
- Adjust Shadows (adjusting shadow may add grain/noise)
- Adjust Brightness (too bright and you loose all the details and picture gets noisy)
- Adjust Highlights (The overall appeal of the image. think of this option as the optimization for screen. If you handle this one right, it will have a very promising result on digital screens.)
- Adjust Blacks & Whites.
Points [3-5] are somehow connected and you need to play with every single image to get the right results.
I would like to mention some tools that are specifically designed to do this job, where you can experience a Before/After look (without even exporting the picture)
- For Smartphones
- Snapseed
- Adobe Photoshop Express
- For PC/MAC
- Adobe LightRoom
- RawTherapee
I hope that helps
-cheers
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Hi dear @sonnyNg ,
Good suggestion, friend.
Tip: During EDIT operation, most of the softwares saves a copy only, leaving the original as it is.
Thanks.
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Hi friend, @OmerAli ,
Wow… What a professional explanation ?, Appreciate it…
But, your narration style looks very close to @PaulPavlinovich , may be it is my feeling…
anyway, thanks for your Technical Note / tutorial; I will keep a copy for future reference.
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Thanks for your reply, my dear frind @ErmesT ; but, in personal experience, Google Photos is an excellent Cloud (may be the most relaible, too) - I have not experienced any auto adjustment - if there is a setting, kindly expain, when time permits - it will help many of us.
Thanks.
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Thanks @TravellerG
I wish I could hit those notes, @PaulPavlinovich is a pro and he’s amazing 
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You are so kind, dear friend @OmerAli .
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Thanks @TravellerG for your details information.
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you are welcome, dear friend, @MdAtikuzzamanLimon , thanks for taking time to reply me,
Regards
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