Making The Most of Trail Camera Footage Through Photo Editing

We enjoy seeing the wildlife that coexist with us on our property. However the animals tend to be shy and not show themselves, with many species only coming out at night. We placed several trail cameras in the fields, woods, and streams hoping to see the creatures acting natural, without fear from our presence. Much to our delight, we captured an abundance of footage showing bobcats, deer, coyotes, turkeys, foxes, raccoons, groundhogs, opossums, skunks, birds, squirrels, herons, owls, vultures, mice, and many other creatures.

While I am very grateful to have this view into the wild, the images are often not the best quality. You get what you get. Many are blurry or fuzzy, with poor lighting. I wanted to enhance the images to make them more clear, and bring out the animals. I started playing around with editing the images using the Polish app on my android phone. Here is how I made the most of my trail camera footage.

Sometimes the best image is found in a video. My cameras are set to snap a photo first, then take a short video. I learned how to capture a frame from the video to create my still image. I had to do this part on my computer. Once I had selected all of my images and captured stills, I used a USB thumb drive to move the images to my phone so that I could use the Polish app for editing. Below is the original image for the cover photo of this article.

The first step was to crop the photo. This included cropping out the time/date stamp at the bottom of the photo. I then applied a “cartoon” effect. I selected the one that brought out the most color and highlighted the animal in the photo (if you use the app, this is usually Mars, Urbanity, or Capri). Then I made adjustments to brightness, saturation, contrast, warmth, shadow, and sharpness to further enhance the image. Here are some more before/after examples.

Nighttime images are a challenge because they are actually captured in black and white. I wanted to add color to the image, so that the animal would show up better. This can be done by applying the method above, as the cartoon effect adds color to the image, but the results are not always spectacular. It is possible to use the app to create a negative (adjust:glitch:negative) and then apply the cartoon effect. This helps, but the eyes often look creepy. Further editing may be required to fix that problem. I have not gone that far with editing the images.

It is fun to see what animals frequent the property and fun to turn the images into works of art. I think these images would make good puzzles! Here is a video of some of my best images, so far.

If you are interested in getting a trail camera to see what creatures live on your property but don't know where to begin, I've written a trail camera comparison article that can be found here. The specific camera information is a little outdated, but it contains information on how to use the camera as well as tips for where and how to place it.

There are many cameras available on Amazon with a variety of features for a variety of prices. I have had good luck with the the Campark and Toguard brands. They usually cost $50-120 and last for a year on average. But I have my cameras out 24/7/365 in all weather, so they may last longer if you bring them in or have them in a protected area.

I hope you've enjoyed these images and if I've inspired you to invest in a trail camera and make your own photographic art, I wish you many happy hours reviewing and editing footage!