Editing images
The appeal of mobile-phone photography lies largely in the ability it lends us to shoot an image, edit it and share it with the world within seconds, and the QX cameras are no different. Two-million-pixel, low-resolution images can be opened and edited in Instagram or other applications, then uploaded online or shared via email. However, the QX cameras can also transfer a 20-million-pixel, high-resolution image to the connected device, although this is not really any different from using any other Wi-Fi compatible camera. In fact, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 II, which has the same sensor and lens as the QX100, can transfer images via Wi-Fi.
Editing a full-sized image on a mobile phone isn’t ideal. While basic brightness and colour adjustments are fairly straightforward, and adding a gradient to help darken a sky isn’t too tricky, it is difficult to cut out objects and retouch an image.
Editing on a tablet is possible. In fact, most of the images shown in this feature were taken on the QX100 and edited using Adobe Photoshop Touch on a Sony Xperia Tablet S. By using a stylus with the tablet and zooming in on the full-resolution image, I could dodge and burn with some precision, and isolate areas to cut out. Photoshop Touch has a reasonably good set of tools for performing basic image edits, including layers and blending modes.
While images edited on a tablet lacked the finesse of those finished on a computer, they weren’t awful. In fact, for social events and holiday photos the QX100 and photo-editing applications could produce some excellent images.
Image: Some careful editing reveals just how capable the QX100 is, although images needed to be edited carefully and not pushed too far
