All about Photoshop Express: tricks and tools to retouch your photos like a professional

One of the most forgotten applications for our mobile photos is Adobe Photoshop Express. It is free and remains forgotten by the push of Lightroom and other applications that sound much more popular among users. But surely many You are going to get surprises with the ‘little’ Photoshop for mobiles.

The first thing is to clarify the issue of price. Indeed, it is a free application, but if you want to have more options you can pay for the Premium version. The good thing is that if you have a Creative Cloud license, you get it by default.

Once the finicky subject of money has been clarified, we get to work with Photoshop Express that bets on the playful side of photography and that also allows, like Lightroom, to make professional editions just like the ones we can do on the computer. It is not as comfortable as doing it on a big screen, but it allows us to get out of many jams.

Get started with Photoshop Express

As always we go to preferences what we find inside Settings. This time we can do very little from a technical point of view.

Adobe Photoshop Express

• Price: Gratuitous
• Download: Android
• Download: iOS

The first thing is connect the application with our accounts on social networks if we need it It is very comfortable to go faster, of course. But if it is not your main app, it is best not to share so much data in places that we will forget.

The first steps

The most interesting thing is to go to sharing settings and select the following points:

• Save as a copy any file we reveal.
• Resize the copy to 1920 pixels.
• Set the JPEG Quality to Very High.

We cannot choose more things. By default, we can work with any image format, even the RAW format of the most advanced cameras and mobile phones, so we are not limited in this regard.

Start to work

Obviously, we have to give you permission to see all the photos on our mobile. In a moment we will have all our files available to start playing with them. Although from the company itself they highlight this playful aspect, it is true that we can do more serious things away from the fashions of the moment.

At the top of the screen we have the five options (I like to see them as separate modules) that Photoshop Express offers: Edit, Retouch, Mix, Collage and Capture. Each one has a specific function that can cause some confusion if you are not familiar with Adobe programs.

Photo retouched with Photoshop Express

Basically, it is an application that takes advantage of all the advantages of Adobe Sensei to improve our photos with the minimum of effort. In addition, it incorporates a series of filters (here called Looks) that modify the photograph to unsuspected limits.

All these modules have a button at the top right of the screen to save the result, open it with another application or even send it directly to the Creative Cloud to continue working on it in another program.

Edit

• In this section we find these preset filters divided by themes such as Enchantment, HDR, Black and white… we just have to choose them, regulate their Opacity and ready.
• Next we have Settings, which if you have ever used Adobe Lightroom will sound familiar to you. These are the same parameters that we find in the Reveal module of the program and in the application. And if you follow this workflow, you will see how easy it is to develop your photos without the help of filters and such.
• Correct It is used to remove objects. We just have to paint over what we want to remove and the application does its job. If we need more precision, we can always bet on the Advanced mode. And if we don’t like it, we have the icon at the bottom to take a step back.
• Cut It is one of the most interesting options, because it offers us the usual options, but we find ourselves ready with the proportions of social networks, which avoids headaches.
• Topics It is perfect to configure covers, memes or whatever we need with a click. The style is done, we change the text and that’s it.

Inside Edit

• overlays creates a new layer for us and allows us to superimpose different effects. From flashes of light to different types of texture.
• The other options Text, Stickers, Borders and Collage allow what their name indicates.
• And what never ceases to call my attention is Effect of PS. If you have the license for said program, the application connects with it and allows us to do much more advanced effects. In fact, it is the entrance to the classical Filter Gallery of the program, where you can make a mosaic with your photograph, or generate textures and brush strokes.

The save icon

And if you don’t want to complicate your life, you also have the Magic Wand icon (top right) to improve the photo automatically without having to do anything else.

Retouch

This section is dedicated to portrait retouching with a single touch. Again it can be a perfect solution for a quick job, without major complications. To show the photographs without great demands and trusting that everything falls within the canons.

Retouch insurmountable cases

It’s the perfect place to smooth skin with different intensities, do a virtual surgery in the Face section, or color the face with Makeup. And if you want to laugh, you can make a Cartoon.

Mixture

It is the module where we can combine different photographs to enter the world of Adobe Photoshop layers. Here we can make automatic selections of the objects of the photograph to combine them with other photographs.

A complicated selection, but a selection after all

If we want to select parts of the image we have the same automatic selection as in the mother program and if we dare (again the small screen of the mobile can wreak havoc) we have Cuarteado (bad translation) to do it by hand.

Collage

After so many years teaching, I know that one of the headaches for students is to create a collage of our photographs in a simple way. Well, here in Photoshop Express you have automatic templates to make those combinations.

A collage in an instant

You have to choose the photos, which should already be revealed, choose the collage template and that’s it. The best of all is that they are not closed and we can enlarge the photos, change the size of the cells and customize to unsuspected limits.

Capture

This last module is a mere curiosity, a toy camera that directly applies filters to our portraits. Surely at first we use it with great enthusiasm, but the passage of time will make a dent in this passing fashion and we will forget it because it is repetitive.

But as always, the creativity of each one can lead us to explore worlds unknown to others. So don’t stop testing it to try to create something new with today’s standards. You just have to choose the filter and shoot.

In conclusion

Adobe Photoshop Express is an application that is not heard much, it remains hidden by the thrust and versatility of Adobe Lightroom. But it has so many things to solve our life as an amateur photographer, who just wants to have fun with the camera, which makes it a very interesting application.

It does everything that many single applications allow, so it avoids having to fill the memory of our phone with small specific applications. It is true that it could improve, be a little more intuitive when it comes to finding certain functions. But it’s one of the apps I’ll keep on my phone for those times when everything can be a little more relaxed.

Of course, I think that the presentation on the screen should be a little lighter. As soon as you open it you find so many tutorials and practical tips that it seems more like a web page than an application. Except for these details, I think we have in our hands one of the best photographic leisure tools that we can find.