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How to Take Great Pictures With Your iPhone

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Posted by Patrick on Dec 17, 2008 in Tutorials

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Taken and processed with iPhone

Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that the camera that comes with the iPhone is just terrible. Awful really. And to make things worse, the camera app is bad too, essentially a shutter and a file browser. The solution is to develop a simple workflow (yes a workflow on the iPhone) and a couple of tips on taking pictures.

First things first. Stop using the default camera app.

Next I want you to grab a couple of apps from the app store. The first one you need to get is CameraBag.

As you can see, it’s only $.99, so I know you can swing it. Camera bag works just like your ol’ camera app…

At the bottom is the camera function, save function, and browse function. At the top is a drop down menu for the included filters (your bag of cameras)…

Using Camera Bag is easy. Take your photo and then choose a filter. If you like the look, save the photo. Importantly, you can open already taken or saved photos and filter them as well. Also saving creates an additional file, it doesn’t replace your original file.

Next download Photogene. Photogene is as close to Photoshop as you can come right now on your iPhone.

Photogene lets you crop, control levels, color temperature, saturation, add borders, type, and even sharpen!

The next step is optional, but I mention it because it is a part of my iPhone “workflow”. Through some experimentation I like to start by taking pictures with the following app:

Again, the Vint Green app is optional, but it is what I use. It works as a camera, which you can then apply the “vint green” filter to and save. That’s it.

So by now you’ve downloaded all your new photography apps to your iPhone, now what? As I said, I start with the Vint Green app most of the time, but you can use Camera bag too. Take your picture and save it. Then open up Photogene, crop and adjust the levels, temp, and saturation. If you want, you can sharpen your photo, but easy does it. Save your image and move on to Camera bag. Think of Camera bag as your filters or plugins for Photoshop (Photogene in this case). Typically I like the “instant”, but “helga” usually looks great too. The beauty of both of these apps is you don’t lose your original, so go ahead and play. Sometimes an image can still look a little off after Camera bag, so if needed take it back to Photogene and dial it in. For the “Sink” photo at the top of this post, I ran “helga” over “instant” with some levels in Photogene.

As I said at the top, the iPhone camera is terrible, but printing these little pictures is absolutely possible. I like to email the pictures to my desktop (using the “Photos” app that comes with the iPhone), and resize them in Photoshop. For best results I stick with smaller than 5×5″, usually 4×4″. This minimizes the noise, and banding that frequents the typical iPhone picture.

Finally a couple of tips on how an what to take pictures of. First, exploit your iPhone’s weakness. Emphasize motion blur, look for contrast, get too close up, and find interesting details. I’ve gotten great shots through the car windshield, while deliberately moving the camera, etc. Second, find reflective surfaces to take pictures of, like the sink above, buildings, buses, puddles, anything with a shine. Third try odd angles. It’s hard squaring up a photo with the iPhone so your average straight on shot rarely comes out straight. So as before, go with the weakness, take the odd angle, and it comes out looking more deliberate.

So there you go. Follow this workflow, and I’ll bet you breathe new life into your iPhone’s sad little camera, and take better pictures too.