Quick Tips to take Better Photos with Your Smartphone!

Hi everyone, it is me Darla with a fun post today about taking better photos with your smartphones. With everyone on the move these days, lugging around your real camera is not always the easiest thing to do. Most often, we opt to take photos with the next best thing – our smartphones! I won’t lie – my husband has some of the most stunning photos I have ever seen and all were taken with his Motorola Droid and edited with some basic Android apps. The photo below is an example of one of these moments he caught between our girls that would have been lost had he not pulled out that droid!

My photos never look like this and so I took to the web to see if I could get a few pointers on how to take better photos with my Iphone. Here are some tips I found that I thought would be helpful to share:

1. Turn Off the Flash, Turn On HDR Mode – if your smartphone has an HDR mode setting, choose this when taking photos instead of using the flash. I have found the flash on your phone can make anyone look scary and unfortunately, if you don’t have the option to take another – you are left with a sad photo of your daughter being asked to homecoming like this:

2. Avoid using digital zoom – Simply put – it doesn’t work. In essence, all digital zoom does is enlarge the image rather than zoom in, and so it immediately becomes pixelated like the example below. If you can, it’s best to avoid using it, and instead simply move closer to your subject.

3. Use the grid option to compose your photos. – Capturing a good photo isn’t merely about knowing the right settings. Compose your photos as the pros do. Divide the frame into thirds–imagine a tic-tac-toe board–and put your subject on one of those lines, rather than in the middle of the screen.

4. Optimize the settings: If your camera has a white balance control, you’ll often get the best results leaving it on automatic. But if the colors come out wrong, try setting the balance to reflect the light around you, such as fluorescent, daylight, or sunset. Just be sure to reset it to automatic when you’re done, or future photos will look weird. If the camera offers an ISO setting, take that off Auto. When you’re outdoors in daylight, set the ISO to its lowest value to minimize the digital noise in your picture. In low-light situations, bump the ISO up as high as it will go.

5. Edit your own photos. One of the best reasons to carry a smartphone is for the scores of apps you can install to enhance every aspect of the phone, and photography is no different. Check out your phone’s app store for programs that can improve the way the camera works, as well for apps that can enhance the photos you take. I like to use a variety of editing tools on my Iphone and some of my favorites are Photogene, Snapseed, Instagram and Be Funky. There is also Photoshop Express for those who like to use a platform that has many of the same features you have on your computer.

6. Practice, practice, practice. Use your camera anywhere you can to test out different settings and maybe even different camera apps other than the stock on that come pre-installed on your phone. I am not sure I will take stunning ones like my husband does but I am going to make it a goal to try and master this so that I can be sure I avoid anymore scary photos like the one above. 🙂

Happy scrapping!

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