6 Mobile Apps for a Pro Photo Workflow on the Go

(And How Tinder Can Become an Essential Part of Your Photography Workflow).

The world is now truly mobile. Maybe you don’t notice it as much when you are commuting between your work and home computer, but at times when I’m on the road, it’s more noticeable than ever. If I want to share a photo, it’s easier to pull out an iPhone, edit it on the go and publish it to myriad of social networks.

When I want a higher resolution photo, then I can easily pull frames from DJI Phantom, or from Olympus or Fuji mirrorless cameras and have on my phone in seconds. At first all these technologies were cumbersome, but they are getting better and more effortless than ever.

So what’s the modern mobile workflow? I have tried and used almost every single photo-sharing or editing app that is out there — and I have more than a few screens of apps on my phone. However, there are few essential apps that I keep returning to weekly: 500px, Snapchat, Snapseed, VSCO, Tinder (bear with me for a moment), and Facebook.

First, our own 500px app. I’ve been using pre-release version for weeks(it has hit the app store recently, so go get it), and it’s easier to use and more elegant than the last one. My main interactions are commenting on photos of the people I follow, and the number of taps dropped from 3 to 1 in the new version. The other big change is the home feed, which is a mix of Flow and Following feeds, which we now combine into one, so now you get to see more photos from people you follow with occasional recommendations for other photographers. It’s essential for travel too — when I’m on the go, I use search to explore composition and angles of the places I’m about to visit.

Snapchat. It’s the been said that Snapchat is the app for teens, but I found that I like the impulsive nature of photo or video taking. Photographers can be strict with themselves and won’t share some ugly shots, so Snapchat helps me be free and open my mind. I sometimes browse other people’s stories, but main activity is silly photo taking to share with a select few. A few photographers have started using Snapchat as a way to connect with their audiences and offer retouching tips or behind-the-scenes footage of their shoots.

Snapseed is the king of advanced photo-editing. While both 500px and VSCO have robust editing tools, if you want to tweak your photo with pro tools, Snapseed is essential to your workflow. It sharpens, crops and adds contract beautifully, so I use it for my most “serious” mobile or DSLR shots transferred onto the phone. While on the road, I might use Snapseed to edit my DSLR or mirrorless photos, without transferring them to a laptop at all.

VSCO is obviously the default film-simulation app. I’m not active as a grid member, but I love the film look and cross-processing style that it gives. I rarely use it on my DSLR photos, but it’s one of the essential steps for me to edit my mobile photos. I found that I tend to over-process photos a bit and keep them mostly cold (most people tend to love warm tones), so I still need to pace myself a little while using the app.

You are probably wondering what Tinder has to do with mobile photo workflow. If you do, here’s the answer. First, Tinder has “Moments”, so you can share your selfies or what you are doing with others. I use it for recruiting, sending out targeted messages to cast models in local cities. With that, this is my mobile Model Mayhem, targeted to what looks I prefer. I suspect that not a lot of guys might use Moments, so I tend to create photos and texts that stand out and have a call to action (i.e. message or call me). The last three impromptu beauty photo sessions were all found on Tinder.

Lastly, the behemoth Facebook. I’m truly thrilled that Facebook keeps itself from falling out of fashion by constantly reinventing itself. Beyond biggest reach and engagement, Facebook filters are very subtle and work well with a large variety of photos, so I might even add a Facebook filter on already edited photo for more “pop”. If I shoot people, it recognizes and auto tags them, saving me time and helping get even higher engagement. Sometimes, I would even post photos on Facebook first!

What I left out in my workflow: Instagram, EyeEm, Priime, Google Photos and Flickr. I like those apps, and I use them occasionally, but my usage of them dropped dramatically — I rarely even open Instagram and feel that square format and filters have become generic (everyone is doing it), and boring (square was hip, but I prefer wider formats). Others, like Google Photos, work as a great backup utility, so I use it now once a month to check new photos into Google’s cloud.

So now I turn the attention to you and would like to ask three questions:

1) What apps do you use on a daily basis?

2) What have you stopped using?

3) What apps you wish you had?