Windows Phone 8 adds news tools for on-device photo editing, expanding on the photo auto-fix feature that debuted in Windows Phone 7.5.
Windows Phone now feature an Edit app bar menu item when you’re viewing a photo. (In Windows Phone 7.5, there was an Auto-fix item.)
Tap this and then new Edit screen displays. Here, you have four commands in the app bar: Save (which is enabled when you make a change), Rotate, Crop, and Fix.
Save. This button will of course save the photo. Note that saving an edited photo will overwrite the original.
Rotate. Each time you tap this button, the photo rotates 90 degrees clockwise (to the right).
Crop. This option enables a crop mode. You can move the handles of the crop control arbitrarily until you have the custom crop you’re looking for. Or, tap the Aspect ratio button to pick between a wide range of aspect ratios, locking the crop tool to that ratio. Click the Done button when you’re ready to apply the crop.
Fix. This works like the Auto-fix button from Windows Phone 7.5. It adjusts the exposure levels and white balance of the photo when tapped. You can tap the button again—it renames to Undo fix—if you don’t like the change.
To reverse out of any changes, just tap the Back button. No changes are made to the actual photo file until you tap Save.
Windows Phone 8 also integrates with third-party photo editing apps, all of which will provide more advanced functionality. To access one of these editors instead of the built-in functions, choose Apps from the app bar menu when viewing a photo. You’ll be presented with a list of photo editing apps on your phone.
Note: You can only edit photos that are stored on your phone. To edit a photo in an online photo album, you will need to copy it to you device first. However, only the locally stored copy will be edited, not the cloud-based version.
