Camera

One of my very favorite iPhone features is a simple one, the camera! It's convenient and fun to have a camera in my pocket all the time, and to be able edit my photos right on my iPhone for the best results. Recently I learned that it's possible to use compatible third-party camera and photo-editing apps as an extension, right from my Photos app. And while many of the best photo-editing apps cost money, there are lots of free photo-editor apps with Photos extensions to choose from as well. Let's get started learning how to enable a third-part photo-editor app extension, so you can have as much fun with iPhone photography as I am. 

Great news, everybody; iOS 12 has been announced at WWDC 2018, and it's bringing performance improvements across the board. These benefits will extend not just to the latest iPhone models, but also to every older iPhone that can be updated to the new operating system as well. This means that things are about to get a lot quicker and smoother for the iPhone 5s and later. From animations, to app launch, to Camera, to keyboard display, if you need your iPhone to perform better, the release of iOS 12 is just the boost your device needs. Let's get started talking about the latest iPhone update, and how it's going to make your iPhone faster! 

Sometimes you get the perfect shot on your iPhone, but you'd like to crop the photo so the focus is on the main subject. If you're wondering how to crop a picture on iPhone, there's a quick and easy way to accomplish this without adjusting the crop box manually. 

Portrait Mode is a feature on the iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X that gives photos a professional look by blurring the background (known as the bokeh effect). While Portrait Mode on the iPhone is a software version of what DSLR camera lenses can do, it works pretty well most of the time—especially on the iPhone X. But perhaps you took a photo in Portrait Mode that didn’t turn out so well. You can turn off Portrait Mode after taking the photo since it is just a software feature. Here’s how to turn off Portrait Mode after taking a photo on the iPhone.

When looking at the Lock screen on your iPhone X, you’ll see two icons on either side near the bottom: a camera and a flashlight. Having quick access to the Camera app and Flashlight on your iPhone X is a great feature that utilizes some of your extra screen space. But how do you open the Camera app or turn on the flashlight from Lock screen? Your instinct may be to tap each icon, but you’ll need to make it a 3D Touch. Here’s how to access the flashlight and camera from the Lock screen on your iPhone X.

The camera roll on my iPhone is jam packed with pictures of my dogs—there's just something about those fuzzy faces that demands to be adored and photographed so that the pictures can be adored as well. Then of course there's the sharing; #instadog #socute #sorryyouguysicantrestrainmyself. I've been known to take dog photos with Instagram, share them to Facebook, then text and private message them to friends and family that really must see the latest iteration of canine cuteness right away. Therefore it is with great delight that I announce the discovery of my new favorite app, BarkCam, the "Instagram for Dogs." 

Instagram. If it seems to you that everyone and their dog has an Instagram account these days, you're not far off base (yes, people literally have Instagram accounts for their dogs.) The latest Instagram statistics indicate that the social media app has over 500 million monthly and 800 million daily active users, and that number just keeps growing. With new features popping up every few months, Instagrammers won't lose interest any time soon, either. What started as a simple photo sharing app with a selection of filters and editing tools soon added a video feature, then a live video feature, and now includes even more editing options, face filters for still photos and videos, direct messaging, the ability to follow hashtags, and much more. A major frustration for Instagram users, though, has been the inability to download the Instagram app on their iPads. After all, it would be great to edit photos and see friend's videos on a larger screen, be able to switch back and forth between a movie on the iPad and taking an Instagram break to check notifications, and just have another option for using the app. Despite the lack of an official Instagram app for iPad, there are ways to work around this missing offering. Let's get started learning how to get Instagram for iPad! 

Typically when Apple releases a new iPhone, the changes are indisputably upgrades. There’s nothing controversial about adding a better camera and faster processor while keeping the price the same. When Apple decided to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, it was the first time that the changes felt more like a trade-off than an upgrade. When Apple released the iPhone X, I was left with a similar feeling. Apple upgraded the camera, designed an edge-to-edge display, and added Face ID, but removed the Home button and with it the popular Touch ID sensor. To further complicate the equation, Apple raised the price to $1,000. When I watched Apple announce the iPhone X, I was left with more questions than answers. Would I miss the Home button and Touch ID? Would the iPhone’s unusual notch at the top of the display bother me? How reliable would Face ID be? Most importantly, I wondered if the iPhone X was worth the extravagant price tag. After two months of using the iPhone X, I’m ready to weigh in with a definitive hands-on review.

iOS 11 makes scanning documents in the Notes app pretty darn easy. The new feature is very helpful for storing paper items electronically, allowing you to access printed information from anywhere and even send or share it as needed. Here’s how to scan documents into Notes with iOS 11 on iPhone.

The front camera on iPhone X is capable of a lot of incredible things, including improving your selfie game with front-facing Portrait Mode and Portrait Lighting. You're likely familiar with how to take a selfie on iPhone, but Selfie Portrait Mode and Lighting makes taking good selfies super easy. With the Portrait Lighting, you can change the lighting before ever taking a photo. You have various lighting options to choose from, depending on the effect you want and your location. And the background of the photos are blurred for that professional Bokeh look. For iPhone X users, front-facing Portrait Mode and Lighting is essential to learn for taking great selfies. You can use this Portrait Lighting when taking regular photos (not selfies) on iPhone X and iPhone 8, and you can use Portrait Mode on those devices as well as the iPhone 7 Plus. But Selfie Portrait Mode and Lightning is reserved to the iPhone X for now. Here’s how to use Selfie Portrait Mode & Portrait Lighting on iPhone X.

Before iOS 11, you needed a third-party app to be able to scan QR codes on iPhone. No longer! You can finally use the stock Camera app on iPhone to scan QR codes, and it’s pretty easy to do so. QR codes usually appear as encoded black and white squares that when scanned present more information on a topic in the form on a web-page, contact information, video, or just about anything. Here’s how to scan a QR code with your Camera app on iPhone with iOS 11.

With iOS 11, Apple added new Live Photos features, including the ability to turn your Live Photo into a long-exposure photo, mimicking the effect of a long-duration shutter speed in a traditional camera. Long exposure is most often used for pictures where the photographer wants to see motion blurs or light trails, or to better capture low-light scenes. Surely you’ve seen those beautiful photos with stars forming circles in the sky or a river with water that looks like smoke—those are photos that used long exposure photography. With previous iOS versions, iPhone users needed a long-exposure app to capture the long-exposure effect, but not any more! I’m no photographer; but fortunately, iOS 11 allows me to make any Live Photo look almost as good as a real long-exposure picture. Here’s how to use the Live Photo Long-Exposure Effect on the iPhone.

This is a tip I just discovered for iPhone. You can shoot video and take a still photo while you’re recording. There have been many times when I was shooting video and wanted to take a quick snapshot. Luckily, doing so on iPhone is super easy. Here’s how to take a still photo while shooting video on iPhone.

If you're an avid iphoneographer, there are certain camera settings you may want to be standard in your Camera app on iPhone. In the past, Live Photo was the only setting that stuck. But with iOS 11, you can preserve a few different camera settings so that you need not enable your preferred settings every time you go to take a picture. Here’s how to preserve camera settings with iOS 11 on iPhone.

I’ve heard it said over and over again that the best camera is the one you have with you. Honestly, I couldn’t agree more. I have an amazing DSLR and yet I find that the majority of my pictures are taken with my iPhone. Unfortunately, our iPhones still struggle in a lot of ways that more advanced cameras don’t. One of those ways is the iPhone’s intolerance for low-light situations. If you’re sick of blurry, unclear images, then here are a few tips and tricks that have really helped me out. Here’s how to shoot clearer, better photos on your iPhone.

With older iPhones we had to know how to delete photos from our iPhones in order to free up space and make room for apps, music, and more pictures. Now the iPhone is designed with plenty of storage space so that’s not always an issue. More often than not we need to know how to delete all the photos from our iPhone or remove photos from our iPhone to protect our privacy. But sometimes, people want to delete all the photos from their iPhone along with their other personal information because they want to give the phone away to a friend or family member. In that case, the information they really need is how to wipe an iPhone. For that reason, this post will cover how to delete all photos on an iPhone, and how to erase and restore an iPhone to factory settings as well.

Live Photos on iPhone are three-second moving pictures that first appeared with the iPhone 6s. If you’re not sure how to take a Live Photo, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is. I leave my Live Photo feature on for my iPhone 8 Plus camera; that way, all of my photos are moving pictures. My dog Buddy passed away earlier this year, and I was really grateful to have all of the Live Photos of him. There’s a lot you can do with your iPhone moving pictures. We’ll cover how to take Live Photos, how to make your own live wallpaper with Live Photos, how to turn your Live Photo into a gif, how to use the new, improved iOS 11 Live Photo features, and much more. This is our complete guide to taking Live Photos; here’s everything you need to know about taking Live Photos on iPhone.

How to Turn on iPhone Camera Grid:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Photos & Camera (or just Camera if using iOS 11 or later).
3. Find Grid and toggle it on.
4. Return to the Camera app; you’ll see a faint grid over the capture frame.

The iPhone’s camera grid helps you create a balanced composition that adheres to this rule of thirds by displaying a faint grid over the capture frame. You can easily turn off your iPhone's camera grid using this tip in the future. 

QR codes, they're becoming ubiquitous! You’ve probably seen quick response codes on packaging, signs, and in magazine ads telling you to scan the code with your iPhone for more information, extra discounts, or other perks. With so many QR codes to scan, it's a good thing the Camera app on iPhone now has QR code scanning ability. So, how to scan a QR code with your iPhone? We'll go over how to use your iPhone's Camera, and how you can use a QR scanner app as well. There are a lot of QR code reader and scanner apps available, so let's go through my picks for the best QR reader apps on iPhone, as well as how to scan QR code with the Camera on your iPhone.

Having a difficult time remembering where that picture from your spontaneous trip to the beach was taken? Or at what time you captured that beautiful sunset? The great thing about geotagging on iPhone is that you’ll never be left wondering when or where a particular photo was taken again—but for many, that might not be such a good thing. If revealing your location is a concern, you can easily turn this feature off. Here’s how to keep your camera from tracking your location on iPhone.