Improving Mobile Phone Pictures With Paint.net

This 'Instructable' takes a look at how to improve the overall look of pictures taken on a mobile phone, smartphone or iPhone by using Paint.net.

This easy to follow guide will allow you to enhance photos from any device which will make it less important to select a high megapixels camera when you compare mobile phones.

Step 1: Opening the Photo in Paint.net

First transfer the picture from your mobile phone, smartphone or iPhone onto your computer or laptop via your USB cable or Bluetooth.

Open Paint.net (free software similar to PhotoShop), click on the open icon and select the desired picture.

I recommend saving the picture now with a new file name to preserve the original photo.

Step 2: Enrich the Colours

Enrich the colour of the image by clicking "Adjustments" from the menu bar. A new drop down menu appears and you should select "Hue/Saturation" from the list.

Next, you can change the values by moving the sliders. In our example I have set the Hue to 2, the Saturation to 119 and the Lightness to 2.

Do the same and have a play around to get the best result for your photo.

Step 3: Reducing Noise

Next we can remove any background noise that may be distorting the photo taken on your mobile phone. Click on "Effect" in the menu bar and a drop down box allows you to select first "Noise" and then "Reduce Noise".

In my example here I have set the radius to 200 and the strength to 0.60.

Step 4: Sharpening the Image

Now we can sharpen the image by again selecting "Effects" followed by "Photo" and "Sharpen". Play around with the figures that make items in the image stand out. I have adjusted the amount by 4 on the slider.

Step 5: The Result

Here we can see the result with my original image and the improved image next to each other.

This really displays the quality that can be achieved by following these steps.

A high megapixel camera is great but we have shown here that it shouldn't be the deciding factor when you compare mobile phones.