I often take photos of my work as I’m going along, and I noticed that my cell phone’s “auto-correct” feature makes good suggestions now and then!
It’s that little magic wand icon, and it’s really designed to compensate for lighting. Because we’re usually snapping photos in less than perfect conditions.
But sometimes the way it fixes my photo is a good idea! It’ll shift the color balance, or tone something down, or darken a shadow even more.
And I’ll go yeah, that IS better! And I go back and change my drawing or painting.
Other times, NOPE, I reject the phone’s suggestions.
Here’s an example – I did this small pastel sketch at the “Carmel on Canvas” plein air contest.
The “magic wand” pumped up some of the purples, blues and yellows.
Yeah, it’s kind of subtle – but when you’re looking on your phone, you can turn the revision off and on, back and forth, and see which changes the app suggested. It’s nice to be able to experiment without changing the piece.
Sometimes what you find is that you took an awful picture that doesn’t actually look like your artwork 😉 Your phone will auto-fix excessive sunlight, so be careful where you position yourself to take the photo.
I’ve noticed the same thing when artists have someone make prints for them – sometimes the printer will fix the balance in the artist’s work, pushing the darks a little darker and the lights lighter.
