Here are step-by-step instructions for two of the examples I showed in yesterday’s post. Rather than a complete overview of the app, this shows how the Artistic/Urbanize options can transform your photos in a  few easy steps.

The original butterfly photo had been edited in Photoshop including a texture layer to achieve this current look.

The right sidebar shows all of the editing menus that can be selected in the Enlight app. Tapping on an option shows submenus. I selected Artistic > Urban.

The Urban Menu opens to a variety of presets that can be used. After selecting one ( I chose Paisley), swiping left or right changes the degree of the transformation.

I chose to keep a lot of color in the image, so used Paisley at 7.  I wanted the butterfly to retain its original bright orange so I tapped on the Mask option on the bottom right of my screen. Masking can be used to cover or reveal parts of an image. In this instance, I wanted to reveal the original colors in the butterfly that had been “covered” by the Paisley preset. (Think of it as a layer or mask that was hiding the original image. To reveal the butterfly, I chose the Wipe or “erase” tool. Because I wanted to bring back all of the color, I first set the strength to 100.

Just as in the previous menu, the numbers or strength of an action can be changed by swiping from right to left. After tapping on Wipe to select it ( notice the icon turns blue now)  I “painted” with my finger to erase the preset layer and show the orange and blacks underneath. The first time I wasn’t careful enough and parts of the plant were also erased.

I fixed this by selecting the “Apply” or brush icon and carefully painted over those areas to reapply the Paisley preset. When I was satisfied with the result, I tapped the checkmark at the top to return to the main menu. Since I was finished with the image, I then tapped the icon with the arrow, and then chose to Save Photo. I also could have opted to “Save the Session” so that I could continue editing at another time or emailed, posted on Facebook, etc.

The poodle photo was taken with my iPhone 4s a few years ago and while I liked the expression of the poodles, I didn’t like the busy and dark background. I thought a new “artistic” background might help, so again I went to Artistic > Urban to find a texture to overlay on the original image.

After some experimentation, I settled on Volkswagen at 55 because I thought the turquoise and brown would go well with the poodles original color. ( I could have changed the colors by accessing the Tools menu in the middle of the screen at the bottom, but I wanted to edit the photo in as few steps as possible. We’ll save the potentials of the Tools Menu for another day.) I also liked the effect with the texture of the furniture and the design made by the window blinds. I didn’t like that the poodles had faded away, but I knew that I could fix that with a Mask.

I followed the same process that I did for the butterflies by setting the strength to 100, then with the Wipe tool I carefully erased the Volkswagen preset to reveal the poodles again. This took a little more patience as I erased and brushed again over the finer areas of fur. By pinching and zooming I enlarged the screen to see these areas better. A stylus would have helped with smaller areas, but I continued to “finger” paint and not worry so much about the details.

I clicked the Check Mark  at the top right of the screen to return to the menu and decided I wanted to brighten the image a bit. To do this quickly and easily, I tapped on Image > Adjust then chose the HDR Preset at 94. ( HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and I knew it would brighten the image as well as bring out the detail.)

Satisfied with my editing for now, I saved the image as I did with the previous example.

There is so much more that can be achieved with Enlight! Next time I’ll show how I merged two photos using the Mixer tool to achieve this image:

Have fun exploring and experimenting with your photos!

(Future Posts:  Saving and organizing back-up digital files for important docs, Impressions of the Apple Watch, Travels in Alaska)