5 Tips For Better Smartphone Photos
Phone photography is fun, easy and best of all, it does not require a heavy baggage or expensive gear. All you need is there in your pocket. Composition is the heart and soul of every photograph and regardless of the camera you use, achieving a good photograph has become accessible to anyone, anywhere. No room for excuses.
There are two elements in every photograph we capture: what we see and what we feel. The combination of these two will result in a good photograph, so it’s important not only to be able to share what we see, but also what we feel.
Here are some tips to take your phone photography to the next level:
- Crop & Align.
Get rid of all things around the subject that will cause distraction to the eye. Make sure the eye will go straight to where everything is happening on your photo. Also it is important that your photo is properly aligned horizontally and vertically. You want the symmetry within your photo to be pleasing to the eye. Do not use the zoom feature since this feature will only degrade the amount of pixels on your photos. - Use Editing Apps
The standard editing tools for phones are limited. Filters are nice but they won’t always give you the look and feel you need. In order to bring emotion to your photo, you need to recreate the drama that went on in your heart and editing apps can help you bring this into your photos. One app I use, is SNAPSEED, which was recently acquired by Google. It has great options what will help you bring out the best in your phone photos.
- Don’t Over Edit
Adding extra blurs to recreate depth of field, or extreme sharpening and contrast to try to reach an HDR look will only make your photo look unreal and distracting. You want to give the photo an editing touch that will continue to make your photo look natural.
- Find a Better Angle.
If you want to achieve a good photo you need to experiment and try every possible angle. The common eye level angle is good for landscape but for a more dramatic photo you will need to get low and high.
- Sharing & Details
I love adding extra text to my phone photos before sharing them. As the saying goes, “a photo is worth a thousand words.” However, I believe an extra word won’t hurt. Just don’t overdue it; hardly anyone wants to read a long text. Make it short and expressive. To add text and other cool stuff to my photos I use Phonto. And finally if you want to share your photo find the proper platform for phone photography and let the world know how good you are at it. I use INSTAGRAM, but there are many others where you can sell and print your photos. Make it fun!