taking photos and doing rotation + crop = quite bad experience

[Radek27 0]

Hi,

I didn't use evernote for some time nad now I was working with new version and it's quite bad experience. Whole app is redesigned and, unfortunately for worse. I take notes mainly with photos and very little text. While I was taking photos and working with them it got quite complicated. I am wondering if they even tried this kind of work. Here is my workflow and my struggle with evernote.

1 - when I got to camera I always have to switch on photo, for some reason app can't remember I always use "photo" selection.

2 - it's almost impossible to take landscape photo of something laing on table from the top. Evernote camera always switches from landscape to portrait direction. Iphone camera doesn't do it, it keeps landscape orientation. There is option to rotate and crop photo before saving which is helpful and works well, but quite often I have no time to do that. Once you save photos there in unfortunately no way how to get into this kind easy way rotating photos and you are stuck with annotation. 

3 - Annotation of photos, what evernote call manipulation with photos is quite the think. I never saw such a bad editor. If I need just rotate image, it's mostly ok. First you have to hit very small icon on bottom of screen directly on edge of screen, not sure why when there is so much empty space on screen that you could put buttons for rotate and crop directly on top of screen. But you have to press first rotate and then crop button, if you press first crop and then rotate something weird happens and I have to cancel edit and start again. Ok, so I press rotate and crop (now I have landscape photo in portrait mode) and for some reason photo appears very small (about 5% of screen) and it's so small that I can't see anything. I figured out that I can turn phone to landscape and photo is bigger (takes about 1/3 of screen). I have no idea why is it so small if in iPhone photo it's 2 to 3 times bigger. Can you please take more inspiration from iPhone Photos app, everything works well there.

4 - after I rotate and crop image I have to close image and go to another. If I am in landscape mode I have change to portrait, because in landscape I cant see anything, select another image and if it's landscape, I have to again change to landscape. In iPhone Photos  I don't have to turn phone all the time because photos are on screen much bigger.

I have to say that it really got much more difficult to take photo notes, then in previous app.

Radek

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,832]

I assume you are on a subscription. If on a subscription, you can customize the buttons behind the + button to activate the camera or scanner. If you use the Camera button, it will start in camera mode. If you use the Scan button, it will start in automatic, = scanning mode.

The editing options in the camera mode are limited - it is not a replacement for the camera app, and it is not a replacement for a full scanning app. It is basic, and it works for some quick scans.

The editing tools are made for some quick annotations. They were taken from the Skitch app, and they are exactly the same, and exactly as bad as in the former versions. Nothing cutting edge, just simple stuff.

If you want advanced tools, export the picture, and use apps better suited for detail work. Remember you are using a note app that allows to grab some pictures.

[gazumped 12,073]

One thing I dislike the mobile camera feature for is its lack of a serious distortion fix.  I tend to take images of objects and documents that I can't scan,  but getting the best lighting on the page often means I'll be at a serious angle to the document which will be visibly narrower at one end than the other.  I use Adobe Scan or (MS)Office lens which can correct for perspective and scan to PDF files for OCR. - My point being that Evernote can't cater for every specialist use;  you need to find a way to deal with your task and make best use of Evernote. 

Personally I'd take pictures with a good camera/ editing app like Lightroom and share them to Evernote,  and use a speech to text app to capture relevant thoughts.  But you know what needs to be done and what services you have available - best of luck finding a resolution!

[Radek27 0]

11 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

The editing tools are made for some quick annotations. They were taken from the Skitch app, and they are exactly the same, and exactly as bad as in the former versions. Nothing cutting edge, just simple stuff.

If you want advanced tools, export the picture, and use apps better suited for detail work. Remember you are using a note app that allows to grab some pictures.

I think that I should have include screen shots in first post, because it seems that each of us is talking about different thinks. Anyway here they are.

I don't need anything special, I just need crop and rotate. But it should work efficiently and fast.

Here is screenshot how does cropping part looks on iPhone. Photo is around 3000px on long side. It quite a bad design for cropping. Please consider that while it may look big on computer screen, but iPhone screen is much smaller and often surrounding light conditions are much worse then in office. On iPhone screen it's practically unusable, please try it. And correction is quite simple, just make photo bigger. Screen is much bigger, so why there is such a big space around it when cropping? I can't extend crop area beyond what you see on screenshot.

 

14 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

I assume you are on a subscription. If on a subscription, you can customize the buttons behind the + button to activate the camera or scanner. If you use the Camera button, it will start in camera mode. If you use the Scan button, it will start in automatic, = scanning mode.

I press this button and always get auto mode. You mention that I can customise starting in photo mode, can you please write how to do it? I spent about 10min looking for that setting, but could not find it. 

Quote

2 - it's almost impossible to take landscape photo of something laing on table from the top. Evernote camera always switches from landscape to portrait direction. Iphone camera doesn't do it, it keeps landscape orientation. There is option to rotate and crop photo before saving which is helpful and works well, but quite often I have no time to do that. Once you save photos there in unfortunately no way how to get into this kind easy way rotating photos and you are stuck with annotation.

I just want to take this kind of photos in landscape, which is no problem in iPhone camera, but it's impossible in Evernote, because it always switches to portrait. You can see orientation on flash icon.

I don't need removing distortion or some other fancy stuff, just take photo in landscape. Example photo of knife on table.

If I press first crop icon and then rotate and then try change crop area, I can't change crop beyond borders which you see on photo (actually I can go to sides but not top or bottom). Thats maximum. So I have to cancel edit and start again. I have to first press rotate and then crop. Correct function would be after pressing crop, rotate would be gray, so I can't press it or I should be able to change crop area on whole photo. 

 

Radek

 

[PinkElephant 8,832]

You find it in the app settings. It will change the "+" button on the apps screen, not the one when you are already inside of a note.