I’ve been trying to get all the blog posts about my Portugal trip written up while it’s still relatively fresh in my mind. I’m almost finished now and I started writing up about my tour of the Algarve with Gwen McCauley of Algarve Experiences. Unfortunately it was a pretty cloudy, dull and intermittently wet day, so some of my photos weren’t that attractive. I try to avoid editing photos if they look OK, as it’s too time consuming to edit them all. I’ve heard a lot about Instagram and its photo filters but as I don’t have an iphone, I’ve never tried it. Flickr has a new editing link to Aviary; I noticed there were some effect options there, so I gave them a try.  The “before effects” photos have undergone my normal editing to brigthen them up a bit.  Here are three of my before and after effects photos for you to compare.

Looking toward Cabanas from the beach (after my standard editing)

Looking toward Cabanas from the beach (after photo effects)

Wind vane at Fuseta (after my standard editing)

Wind vane at Fuseta (after photo effects)

Cafe in Fuseta (after my standard editing)

Cafe in Fuseta (after photo effects)

I suppose that professional photographers have always done plenty of tricks with photos and now it’s become much faster and easier for us all to “doctor” photos. Which type of photos do you prefer to see on Europe a la Carte and other travel blogs, more realistic or prettified?