tip: iphone-ography.

There are tons of tips and tutorials on the web regarding taking better pictures with your phone. In fact, I know of one photographer who offers an online workshops to help; you can find more info about Ashley Campbell’s SnapShops here.

For today’s tip, I’ll take you through the editing process that I go through for the majority of my iPhone photos.

First, find your subject, and a properly exposed photo will make ALL of the difference here. I love this board painted with an American flag that hangs in our dining room. There’s a ponytail palm that lives on a bar right under it, and this particular area of our home receives spectacular light most mornings and afternoons.

I opened the camera app on my iPhone and selected “square,” so I wouldn’t have to worry about cropping for Instagram, and I snapped the shot.

From there, I opened up my favorite iPhone editing app, PicTapGo, by Totally Rad! and pulled in my flag picture.

The sun coming in from the left made a really cool light leak effect, but it also janked the color a little. This is where editing gets fun.

PicTapGo has tons of filters from which to choose. The company also has a Photoshop filter that I use sometimes with professional shoots while editing, so I’m pretty familiar with different looks that I can achieve. My favorites are the film filters (an additional purchase) and a filter called “High Fives”. Each filter’s strength can be adjusted (and I highly recommend adjusting them. Very rarely should you ever use any filter at full strength…), and they can be layered as well.

The navigator will give you a sneak peek of what your photo will look like with each filter applied.

My steps are these:

Adjust exposure
Adjust color and/or contrast
Apply creative filter
Adjust warmth
Adjust haze (if I’m feeling crazy…)

First, I applied Auto Color and adjusted the strength (I didn’t need to adjust my exposure for this one, but I found it too blah orange, which means wonky white balance).