Capturing & Enhancing Pics taken from Mobile phones

gxsaurav · 23-01-2007, 08:32 PM

Well, i bought my first mobile phone with a cam in 2003, it was a K500i, at that time Camera phones were rare, & Nokia 6600 was dominating the market. Time has changed now

Mobile Phones with camera are widely available, even inside the budget range of 5K, everyone uses it these days, however hardly any one enhances them. I am making this tutorial for everyone who wants to enhance their photos taken from mobile phone.

1) Make sure there is enough light in the area. Sometimes even if u r inside a room with tube light, the light is not enough for a Mobile Phone's camera, in that case, turn on night mode & reduce the white balance.

2) Don't move the cam while taking picture. When u click for a photo, u hear the sound now that is not the exact time when the pic is taken, it takes like half a second more for the real frame to capture. So click on the button, but do not move the cam or the subject, till you see the final pic on the screen. This is because the shutter speed in Camera phones is never as fast as dedicated digital cameras. They cannot be made that fast

3) Do not take full 2 MP or 3 MP pics, unless u have enough light. Like either u are outside somewhere, in a park or market, as there is lots of sunlight. When inside somewhere like a room, take pics at 640X480 or 1.3 MP. The thing is the mobile cams change dark colors to Hotspots, also known as grains or noise. Take a photo in low lights & u will see yourself that maximum noise appears at black color spots

These were tips when taking pics, now to enhance them in computer, u need to learn a bit of Photoshop.

1) Start Photoshop, open the image. Now go to Image menu ->Adjustment->Auto color, for the simplest method.

Advanced method = Apply auto color correction like above. Now make the base locked layer, an open layer. In the layer palate the base layer is locked & named "background". Double click on it & make it a layer. Now drag this layer to the “New layer button” in the layer palate at the bottom, to make a new layer by the default name of “Layer 0 copy”.

Look just above there is a menu with normal as the default selection. If your images are underexposed, like a bit dark, then select the new layer & from the “normal” menu just above the layer palate, select “Screen” & then set the “fill” accordingly as desired.

Now click on the spall circle next to the new layer button, which is half black & half white, to open another menu & select “Curves”. Now click on the line to create set point & set them accordingly as u desire for the color. Usually a slight S shape will do.

Your color correction is complete

For noise reduction, i wrote a tutorial a long time ago.

iMav · 23-01-2007, 08:37 PM

thanx will surely try it ...

blueshift · 12-02-2007, 07:30 PM

Thank you gx_saurav.

infra_red_dude · 12-02-2007, 10:07 PM

good writeup saurav...

for ppl widout photoshop and noobies download this software, Noiseware:

http://www.imagenomic.com/setup/Nois...etupxp2501.exe

its the community edition and free for personal use. it can be used by advanced users also. lotsa tweaking possible!

ismart · 13-02-2007, 02:07 PM

Nice! Keep up the good work!

shashank4u · 13-02-2007, 02:15 PM

google's picasa is also gud in enhancing pics..
and has easy to use interface too..

13-02-2007, 06:45 PM

Picasa is a Photo Manager, not an image editor, Photoshop still prevails

I tried Noiseware, too good for a standalone application. Those who don't know & don't need photoshop should skip it, stick with ACDSee for color correction & Noiseware for noise reduction