Photos

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. 

When you have thousands of photos, there’s no way you’re going to look through them to try and spot the duplicates. There’s also the matter of exact versus similar duplicates—it would be a pain in the ass to try and sort that out manually. Well, a question in the iPhone Life Facebook group about this very topic sent me on a search for the best app for easily removing duplicate photos. And I do believe I’ve found it: Remo Duplicate Photos Remover on the iPhone is a free app that scans all of your photos, presenting you with a quick look at all of the duplicates. Then the app makes it easy for you to quickly remove the photos you don’t want to keep. Learn more on what this app does and why we love it below.

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. 

I have never used my Photos app to properly sort my pictures into albums, and I’m going to make an educated guess and say that this is true for most of us. We take a bunch of photos at an event or with friends, share the ones we love, and let the others take up space on our devices. When it comes time to find a photo, I’m always searching through the All Photos album, scanning for the one I need. But there is a better way! I found Slidebox because I was looking for an app that would let me easily create albums, sort photos into those albums, and delete the photos I don’t need to keep. To my absolute delight, Slidebox allows me to do this super easily by using swiping gestures to quickly sort through photos like you sort through potential connections on Tinder. Learn more on why I love this app and what it does below.

It is possible to delete an Apple ID; but first, you need to decide if that course of action is really necessary. Deactivating an Apple ID means that you'll lose access to the connected iCloud Mail and Drive Storage, as well as any iMessages associated with that account. All the purchases you made with the Apple ID you're deleting, including content from iTunes and iBooks as well as the App Store, not to mention your Apple Music Library and Playlists will also be gone. Let's go through some less extreme options for solving problems with your Apple ID, then learn how to deactivate and delete an Apple ID if you conclude that's the step you need to take.

I've been really enjoying the iOS Photos app lately, particularly the People Album. It's pretty amazing, and convenient, that the iOS Photos app can scan every face in every image, then identify people and sort the pictures into their own respective People albums. Sometimes though, the Photos app gets ithe identification wrong and puts a friend or family member's picture in the wrong People album. So what do we do when one of our photos has been misidentified and put in the wrong spot like this? Let's learn how to take photos that have been put in the wrong People album back out of that album on iPhone.

Mentioning iCloud is the quickest way to confuse people. I know plenty of people who won’t try to use iCloud services because the idea of it boggles their mind. But once you’ve set it up, you can seamlessly use it to upload photos to iCloud automatically, be able to access iCloud photos on your PC or Mac, and easily download your iCloud photos. We’re going to cover everything you need to know about photos and iCloud. We’ll start with how to upload photos to iCloud, which is also how to set up iCloud for storing photos. Then we’ll go over how to access iCloud photos on iPhone, PC, and a Mac. Lastly, I’ll show you how to download photos from iCloud. I’m going to avoid all unnecessary information here so that I can show you the easiest way to manage your photos with iCloud. Here’s how to upload photos to iCloud from iPhone, as well as how to download those photos from iCloud.

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.

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! 

One of the great features of our mobile devices is the ease with which we can share photos and videos. You can use your iPhone or iPad to send multiple photos via email or messaging. And if you want to send recent photos, you can easily select multiple pictures to send to someone. Here’s how to share multiple recent photos on iPhone.

Before iOS 11, you could take still photos during Facetime calls by tapping the small white shutter off to the left. But you weren’t able to capture movement. This is a more hidden new feature of iOS 11 that I think is really cool—you can now turn on a setting that allows you to take Live Photos while you’re on a Facetime call. Just like with other Live Photos, this means you’ll have a still image of your Facetime screen that when activated comes to life for a few seconds. Here’s how to take Live Photo during Facetime calls with iOS 11 on iPhone.

When you take a screenshot on an iPhone with iOS 11 or later, the screenshot appears in the lower left corner of the screen for a few seconds. If you want to markup the screenshot, you can tap on the fleeting image to instantly make your changes, add text or drawings, and more. If you accidentally took the screenshot, you can also immediately delete the image by tapping on it. We’ll cover how to markup screenshots with iOS 11 on iPhone below.

When you take a Live Photo, you’re not always aware of what’s being captured. Since Live Photos capture the couple seconds before and after a shot is taken, it’s easy to accidentally capture the blur of lowering your photo or worse, something you don’t want anyone to see. Before iOS 11, you could turn the Live Photo into a still or delete it. But with iOS 11 or later, you can now trim a Live Photo just like you would a video. Here’s how to trim a Live Photo with iOS 11 on iPhone.

WatchOS 4 for Apple Watch added a lot of quality features to the smartwatch, including new watch faces. My personal favorite addition is the new Kaleidoscope watch face that uses either a built-in photo or a photo of your choice to create a colorful image in one of three different styles. We’ll go over how to use the Kaleidoscope watch face and how to create your own Kaleidoscope Apple Watch face on iPhone.

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.

iPhone Life’s resident iPhoneographer and Managing Editor Rheanne Taylor has a favorite photo editing app that she uses constantly for her polishing her photos: Darkroom Photo Editor (free). But it’s not just her—avid photographers will tell you their all-time favorite filter from Darkroom at the drop of a hat, and a quick look at the app’s review will tell you much users love it. This app offers users a lot of control over their photos with a wide range of options. Access to the basic features of the app is free, but users say it’s well worth $3.99 to get all the premium tools or $5.99 for all the tools and filters. We’ll tell you more about the Darkroom app below, including what  it can do and why we love it.

How to Turn a Live Photo into a GIF or Video on iPhone (with Lively App)

1. Open the App Store on your iPhone and download the free app, Lively.
2. Open the app. Give the app permission to access your photos.
3. Tap on the Live Photo you want to turn into a gif or video.
4. At the top, GIF will be highlighted. This shows you what the Live Photo looks like as a gif. To save the gif, tap Export Gif at the bottom, then Save.
5. To turn the Live Photo into a video instead, tap Movie near the top. To save the video, tap Export Movie, then Save.