Red Eye in Shadow

This might be Pocket Ireland, but I take my Pixels everywhere! A couple months ago, I was in Rabat, Morocco, and took this shot of a black swan at the zoo.

Photographing black animals is one of the toughest challenges for a smartphone sensor. If you expose for the feathers, the background often blows out; if you expose for the water, the bird becomes a black silhouette.

The Fix: For this shot, I tapped on the swan's neck to lock focus and then dragged the exposure slider down slightly. This preserved the texture in those dark feathers. The real magic happened in Snapseed, where I used the Ambience tool to bring back just enough light to show the feather patterns without turning the bird grey.