Adjusting Photo Exposure Levels on an iPhone

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Exposure is another important iPhone camera feature that can be very helpful once you know how to use it.

Exposure refers to the brightness of a photo.

An under-exposed photo looks too dark, while an over-exposed photo looks too bright.

A well-exposed photo will have great color and detail.
 
So how do you control exposure in the iPhone Camera app?

When you tap to set focus, the camera automatically sets the exposure (brightness) of the photo. It sets the exposure level based on the area you tap.

If you tap a bright area of the scene, the bright parts will be correctly exposed with plenty of color and detail. So in a landscape scene, you can avoid the sky being over-exposed by tapping an area of bright sky.
But keep in mind that the darker areas of the scene may appear under-exposed (which can actually look good if you want your subject to appear as a silhouette).

If you tap a dark area, the camera exposes for the dark parts of the scene. In other words, you’ll see color and detail in the dark areas of the image. However, the brighter areas, such as the sky, may appear over-exposed (as shown below).
Look at the examples below. Tapping to set focus on different parts of the scene has a big effect on exposure.
But you might not want the focus and exposure points to be the same. For example, you might want to focus on a subject in the foreground while exposing for the sky.

That’s not a problem! The iPhone provides an easy way to adjust exposure after setting the focus point.

After tapping to set focus, simply swipe up or down to adjust the exposure(brightness). Swipe up to make the image brighter or down to make it darker.

When the exposure levels look good, tap the shutter to take a photo.

Using Long Exposures in Landscape Photography

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Have you looked at some of those amazing long exposure landscapes and thought that they are something very difficult to create? Long exposure photographs, of course, require a lot of effort, thought and planning put into them, but they are not so complicated as you think.

So, what is so different about long exposure landscape images? They are not static like those images you take using a faster shutter speed, but are dynamic in the sense they capture movement showing what has happened in a landscape over a period of time. It could be from a few seconds to minutes or even hours.

They are not static like those images you take using a faster shutter speed, but are dynamic in the sense they capture movement showing what has happened in a landscape over a period of time. It can be from a few seconds to minutes or even hours

Remember the three Ps. Practice and Patience along with good Planning are very important for creating some compelling long exposure landscape images. Here are some quick tips for you to get started.

Look out for a good location. Long exposure photography is where you capture movement. So look for places where there are natural moving elements like waves, waterfalls, rivers, fog, clouds, etc. Make sure you have some static elements like mountains, trees or rocks in the frame so that the movement makes sense and gives a meaning to the image.

The best time to shoot for longer exposures is the blue hour or golden hour. This is to get some beautiful colors in the sky and light on the elements. However, you can also use ND filters of varying strengths to extend your shutter speed and capture more movements.
Check out your composition. When framing moving elements, just like you would do for a landscape image, carefully choose a foreground, middle ground, and background to create powerful compositions. The composition should lead the viewer into the image and keep them hooked. When capturing cloud movement, look for the direction in which they move and frame the scene accordingly to get a visually appealing shot.
Gear and settings. Since you are dealing with longer shutter speed, you will need a camera that lets you shoot in manual mode, especially one with bulb mode for very long exposures. You will also need a wide angle lens, a sturdy tripod, and a remote shutter release to avoid any shake or vibration. Use the lowest ISO possible and aperture between f8 and f11 for sharper noise-free images.

With long exposure landscapes, the look and feel of the image depends on the shutter speed and the speed with which the elements in the frame move. So try various shutter speeds for capturing different amounts of movement in the image and choose what works best for you.

Shoot raw. This will help you work with so much data while post-processing. Raw captures a lot more information in the file than jpeg and let’s you do more in post-production without introducing unwanted “artifacts” that can ruin the image.

Now, these are the very basics of getting into long exposure landscape photography

6 Types of Portraits

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There are several distinct types of portrait photographs you can create. Knowing these gives you a better understanding of how to approach a portrait shot and get the result you desire.

Here are 6 of the most common kinds of portraits you can photograph. The images are numbered accordingly:

1. Traditional

This is the most common type of portrait work. It’s created against a backdrop, and the subject generally looks directly at the camera. This style of work is most often used for business portraits, school pictures, church directories, baby pictures, and family portraits.

2. Lifestyle

Lifestyle portraits have become very popular in the last few decades. This type of work portrays the subject in a living situation. The key is to show the subject(s) enjoying their life. The activity is as important as the faces and the expressions. This style is often used in weddings, family portraits, engagement portraits, glamour work, and editorial photography.

3. Environmental

An environmental portrait is similar to a lifestyle portrait. The term environmental portrait is used primarily to describe work created for the editorial or business markets rather than families or weddings. An environmental portrait gives the viewer a sense of the person, their place, and how the two relate to each other.

4. Candid

Candid portraits are done on the fly without a lot of set-up. Sometimes the subject of the candid portrait isn’t even aware that the photographer is taking their photograph. One of the most difficult aspects to candid portraits is achieving a natural look when working with a subject. Almost any type of photography assignment can require candid portraits – weddings, families, children, or editorial work.

5. Glamour

This type of work requires all the skills previously discussed plus additional skills in the application of makeup and the styling of hair. Special attention must be placed on the selection of clothing, props, and posing.

6. Experimental and Abstract

Portraits in this genre are typically created for artistic purposes only and are often used as an interpretive view of the subject’s subconscious thoughts.

When/Why Enlarge or Upscale Your Photos?

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Why Enlarge Your Photos?

It’s helpful to understand why you’d want to enlarge your photos before diving into the various ways you can do so. We agree that the base reason is that we want to take an image file with one resolution and increase it to a larger resolution, and that is the very definition of enlarging an image. So, what are some of the reasons for needing to enlarge, or upscale, a photo?

Heavy Cropping

Cropping is one of the most common edits photographers make during post-processing. It’s one of the first steps I take when editing my photography because my priority is to establish the photo’s composition. In some cases, I have to apply heavy cropping if my desired composition, or the primary focus point, is too small or far in the distance. That often happens when I don’t pair the ideal lens and focal length with the desired composition. As a result, my post-cropped photos tend to lose a lot of resolution, and upscaling is the only way to regain it.

Massive Printing or Displays

As you can imagine, the resolution requirements are strict for large digital billboards or ad campaigns, and sometimes photographers have to apply a significant upscale to meet their needs. The same upscaling requirements are valid for photographers who need to print their work for large displays.

Enlarging and Sharpening Mobile Photos

The state of mobile photography has come a long way over the past decade. I’m constantly amazed at what I can achieve with that slab of glass, metal, and circuity in my pocket. Despite some smartphones pushing the boundaries of megapixel counts with their sensors, the image file output often requires much work when upscaling to achieve a sharp larger resolution.

Camera RAW Photo Editing Tip

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When asked, most photographers out there will insist that shooting RAW is the way to go. For image makers looking to avoid the destructive potential of a compressed and automatically “enhanced” JPEG, there’s no question concerning which format reigns supreme. It’s easy to think of a RAW file as a digital negative – regardless of the changes you apply in post production, the original image will remain accessible.

That’s not to say that the RAW file is perfect. Unfortunately, there isn’t a standard in place for the file format that’s been adopted by the major camera companies. Though .NEF and .CR2 files are both RAW file formats, they record the uncompressed, unprocessed information of an image file differently. This consequently leads to difficulty translating RAW files into certain software.

For this reason, the Adobe Camera RAW plug-in is a godsend. Capable of processing any RAW file, it comes preinstalled with the purchase of programs such as Photoshop and After Effects. As most people know, the program allows users to make basic adjustments to image qualities such as clarity, tonality, and color. What many people do not realize is that it’s possible to apply quick masks in Camera RAW. All it takes is a little bit of work with the Adjustment Brush (K).
When you have the Adjustment Brush options open, use the sliders to lock in the changes you’d like to make. Then, scroll down to the brush options to determine options such as the size and feathering (radial sharpness) of the brush. Once you’ve made those decisions, just “paint” in the areas you would like the mask to be applied. You may want to check the Auto Mask box at the bottom of the control panel, which can detect major shapes and elements within a photograph to create a more precise mask.