Smartphones can be powerful photo editing tools, but many beginners make the same mistakes. Based on personal experience, I’ll share my top fixes for common photo editing mistakes on your smartphone. These tips are valid for images taken on your phone and DSLR pictures you may import.

1Overdoing Color Filters

When you’re new to photo editing, it’s very easy to think that color filters will solve all of your problems. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only will people know that you’ve edited your picture when you add an overcooked color filter, but your final result will also look sloppy.

Instead, I recommend applying minimal edits with color filters. Most editing tools let you change the intensity, and you can do the same withInstagram filters for your photos. Your pictures might look worse initially, but as you learn how to edit your pictures better, it’ll pay off in the long run.

Experimenting with color filters will also take some time, so the best way to overcome that awkward middle period is to remain persistent.

2Using Too Much Skin Smoothing

Skin smoothing tools can help remove blemishes and other unwanted effects that may occur when you take your photo. However, when pushed to the extreme, you’ll make your subject look more like a drawing than a picture. The same problem can occur when you try to smooth other parts of your picture.

You should look at these tools as, well, tools. It’s best not to over-rely on them and only use them for subtle enhancements. You probably don’t even need to use skin smoothing in most cases.

Aim to make people’s skin look as natural as possible in your pictures. If you need more assistance, consider checking out this guide onhow to smooth skin in Photoshop.

3Overdoing Definition

Overdoing the definition is one of the biggest mistakes that many people make when editing photos on their smartphones. I get it; smartphone photos sometimes lack detail and you want to make them more punchy. That’s fine, but you have to understand where the limit is.

To tackle this problem, I suggest slowly moving the definition or clarity. If your picture starts to look too fake, dial the sliders back a bit. This issue mainly affects photos of people and close-up objects, but it’s worth keeping this in mind regardless of your photography style.

4Not Enabling Lens Correction

Adobe Lightroom is one of the best apps for editing photos on your smartphone, and I recommend buying a subscription if you’re serious about making your pictures look better. One of the tool’s most underrated features is lens correction, and I especially recommend using this if you’re editing pictures taken on your phone.

Lens correction will make automatic adjustments to your image’s framing. For example, if the corners are distorted, tapping this button will bring everything back into check. We have a full guide onhow and when to use lens correction in Lightroomif you want more tips.

5Only Using Basic Sliders

While I recommend starting with basic sliders when editing your photos, you’re missing out on a lot of magic by only ever sticking to these. At some point in your photo editing journey, I recommend at least learning how to use some of the more advanced editing features in your preferred editing app.

For example, if you use Apple Photos, you can learn how to use the Black Point and Tint sliders for more accurate adjustments. In Lightroom, I suggest learning how to use noise reduction and tweaking your white balance.

You don’t need to always use these sliders, but it is worth learning how they work together for more impactful photos.

6Overdoing Background Blur

Bokeh and blurred backgrounds are certainly worth using in some cases, but you don’t always have to use these features. They might make sense in portraits, but even then, you should still use them sparingly. This also applies to changing the aperture ofpictures you take in Portrait Mode on your iPhone.

If you use background blur, make sure that people can still see what’s happening in the background. Most of the time, you don’t need to do anything more than that.

7Only Using Auto Edit

I’ve been editing photos since late 2019, and in the beginning, I only used the automatic adjustment features in my editing software. While this was partly because I wanted to learn how different sliders worked with each other, it was also because I was too scared to try anything else.

When I first began manually editing and retouching my pictures, the initial results were inconsistent. But while I sometimes pushed these edits too far, the mistakes I made have helped me become a pretty good photo editor.

While I’ve told you to avoid overdoing filters and whatnot, I do encourage you to experiment with the sliders in your preferred editing app. Doing that will enable you to learn more quickly and get better results.

8Not Cropping Your Photos

I spoke to a friend about composition the night before writing this article, and it made me think about how I could instantly improve the framing of my own images. My conclusion isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s still useful to know: thatcropping your photosis the quickest way to make them look more interesting.

You can crop your photos quickly within your smartphone’s camera roll, and you’ll probably also have the option to choose different preset frames. For example, if you want to post on Instagram, you should pick 4:5.

My general rule of thumb when cropping photos is to remove everything I don’t want. For example, trash cans and some street signs can go unless they really add something. Some editors also let you crop freely by removing the padlock.

9Leaving the Brightness and Exposure as Is

Many people don’t change the brightness or exposure when taking photos on their smartphones. However, I think these should be the first things you tweak.

you may easily change them in your smartphone’s native photo app, and it’s also possible to make these adjustments in more advanced photo editing apps. Besides making your pictures better, changing the brightness and exposure gives you a stronger foundation to edit the rest of your picture.

While photo editing is synonymous with computers, you can easily adjust your images on your smartphone without needing to transfer them to your PC. But whatever editing app you use, try to avoid these common pitfalls for top-notch photos.