PART 3

Adjusting Settings Afterwards – My Favorite iPhone Apps

If you do like your photos but feel like they need just a LIIIIIIITTTTTTLE bit more brightness/contrast/love there are a number of awesome apps out there for you to use.

Now: I LOVE using the Lightroom App on my phone. It’s so easy and makes sense to my photographer brain. You have all of the essentials and more to really boost your photos by playing with exposure, contrast, cropping, changing color and saturation, and even creating your own presets so that each time you go into a photo you don’t have to redo all the settings, you simply tap on your preset that you’d created or that comes with the app, and BOOM, your photo looks that much better.

From 2018: I use Afterlight all the time on my iPhone photos. First of all, it’s 99 cents, which is nothing for how awesome and intuitive it is. It comes with basic adjustments like brightness, warmth etc but also other filters that you can add onto your photos AFTER you take them. That’s the key, you need to do it after so you have the original photo you started out with in case the filtered photo turns out bad.

Expert tip: Other ways to add cool colors and “filters” to your photos is to shoot photos through your sunglasses, windows, mirrors or through other see-through objects that can add extra interest. When I’m out to breakfast, sometimes I like to shoot through the empty orange juice glasses. It’s a different perspective than we normally have yet it’s still something that was part of the scene. 

Backing Up Your iPhone Photos – Dropbox vs iCloud vs On Your Computer

Backing your photos up after you take them can either be automatic or done whenever you plug your phone into your computer for an update. Using apps like Dropbox or Apple’s iCloud makes it so simple to have your photos automatically uploaded and saved to these two sources. Upon installing Dropbox, it’ll ask you in the setup options. To enable iCloud photo storage, go into your phone settings and choose iCloud. Then choose the Photos option and enable iCloud photo library and my photo stream. This will share all of the photos you take on all of your apple devices. Pretty cool right? The only caveat is that the storage is limited so if you want to store a lot of photos on here you’ll have to buy more storage. Same thing for Dropbox.

Personally, I hook my phone up to my computer so often that I back it up a few times a week and that’s good enough for me. Do whatever is easy for you. This is something so simple to implement that you shouldn’t sweat about. Remember, failing to backup could break your heart if you lose all of your photos or your phone. Be sure to set up a simple backup plan. 

Easily Printing and Making Albums from iPhone Photos

Now you have tons of gorgeous and sentimental iPhone photos! But what do you do next?

1. Go through them and delete the three thousand duplicates and duds that you probably have.

2. Choose your favorites to be printed.

3. SEND TO PRINT

A great company for this is Instagram Albums on Artifact Uprising. They are an amazing printing company that ships all around the world and won’t break your bank. Their books are fabulous quality AND THEY HAVE AN APP. They make it so freaking easy for you to make awesome albums. You could literally do it while sitting on the toilet (it’s really that easy). 

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Now you that you have the A to Z on iPhone photography how do you feel?

Which camp will you be part of, the amazing ‘shot on iPhone’ campaign or the hysterical yet terrible parody campaign? I vote the former.

If you’re interested in sharing the gorgeous photos you’re now making head over to Instagram and hashtag your photos with #TheAuthenticPortrait!

Interested in learning even MORE? Is that a “Hell yes!” that I hear? I wrote a whole gorgeous elaborate ebook on the basics of photography and documenting life in an easy yet authentic way. Head over here to grab your copy. You won’t regret it!

What People Think of The Authentic Portrait: A Parent’s Guide to Documenting Childhood:

“Your book is honestly, absolutely gorgeous. Its so incredibly informative, beautiful, and really makes it easy to learn how to take photos of my constantly moving boys! I’m so terrible about putting down my phone and picking up my camera to take pictures of my kids, and then later on I’m so upset that I don’t have any good quality photos to print out and blow up! It’s one of my goals this year to grab my dslr when we head outside and snap some shots!

Your ebook is amazing!”

– Alaina from Belle Vie Blog