Photos

I love taking photos and my Instagram account shows it. The Layout app from Instagram helps me combine multiple photos into one collage. So if I have pictures from a party or a walk around the park, I can put several of them together into one frame. Layout makes it easy to customize, share, and save my creatively arranged photos.

There are lots of picture apps and photo apps available for the iPhone and iPad, and lots of them are even free, but one of my favorite photography apps for my iPhone is Apple's Photos app. Not only are Apple's native Camera and Photos app free, but they keep on improving with every new operating system. With iOS 12, for example, we can now use multiple search terms to find the photo we're looking for in the Photos app. This feature is a real time saver, and I'll show you how to use it right now so you can search your pictures faster and more accurately than ever before. 

Apple's Photos app lets you do location-based searches. Now, instead of trying scrolling through vacation pictures looking for the photos you took in a specific place, you can just search for that area, and all the pictures from that location will pop right up! Let's get started learning how to use this Photos search feature right now. 

Adding a picture to a text message in Apple's Messages app used to be quick and easy; you just tapped the little camera icon to the left of the text field, chose an image, or multiple images, to attach, and sent your text as usual. With iOS 12, the familiar process for sending photos in Messages has changed: The camera icon is still there, but it only offers the option to take a new image to send and no access to your Photos app. Don't worry though, while access to your photo library has moved, it's still very simple to send images from the Photos app on your iPhone; let's learn the new way right now!

iOS 12 has added tons of helpful and fun new features to your iPhone's software, one of my favorite new ones is the ability to add cool effects and Animojis (and Memojis!) while taking a picture or video in the Messages app.

If you have an iPhone X, iPhone XS, or an iPhone 7 Plus or 8 Plus with 2x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom, you can easily select the exact amount of zoom you'd like to use with each shot with the zoom slider. This is a really fun iPhone photography feature to play around with, so let's get started learning how to use the zoom slider to catch all the detail you've been aiming for in your pictures. 

Need iPad and iPhone help? Sign up for iPhone Life Insider and Sarah will help you with all your iPhone troubleshooting and iOS-related issues. To learn more go to iPhoneLife.com/Insider. In this Hey Sarah column, one Insider wants to know how to remove everything from their old iPad so they can give it away to a friend while another wants to know if it's possible to delete photos from their iPhone without also deleting them from iCloud.

If you're into iPhone photography and filming, there will come a time when you feel the need to start investing in accessories to improve your results. One of the most basic yet helpful extras you can buy is an iPhone tripod. A phone tripod can help you get your best shots by stabilizing your iPhone, thereby eliminating unwanted movement and jiggling while you film or live stream. A tripod is also very handy when the time comes for a selfie or group shot where you'd like to include everyone. Whether you have the newest iPhone or an older version like the iPhone 6, iPhone 7, or iPhone 7 plus, there's a tripod out there that will help you take your filming and photography to the next level. Let's get started learning about three of my recommendations for your upcoming purchase. 

One of my favorite features of the iPhone is the Camera, as well as the Photos app. Before purchasing my first iPhone I didn't take too many photographs at all; it was just too inconvenient to tote around a camera and then upload the photos to my desktop. Now that I've had an iPhone for several years, it's time to learn some photography tips so I can fully utilize my smartphone to take great pictures, or at least good ones! But how to take good pictures on my iPhone when I've never been much of a photographer? Luckily Apple shares lots of photography tips and tricks, and here's one I want to pass on to you; how to take an overhead shot on your iPhone. Let's get started! 

In a previous tip we went over how to make a slow-motion video with the Slo-mo feature of your iPhone's native camera app; in this tip, we'll learn how to edit your Slo-mo video. After you’ve taken your video, you can edit it to choose at which point you want the slow motion to begin and end. Let's get started learning how to edit slow-motion videos on the iPhone. 

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 the 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 remove photos that have been put in to the wrong People album.

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."