Pro User Series iPhone & iPad Photography
iPhone & iPad
Photography Make more of the world’s most popular camera
Make more of the world’s most popular camera
sdit powlu to e
H es your imag on an iPad
You can take
super Shots!
ABZ41 2014
Amazing results every time – we’ll show you how
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DON’T MISS... Create stunning effects using Photoshop Touch
Get to know the camera apps that better Apple’s own
Give photos the vintage look – it’s quick and easy!
Contents
From dramatic landscapes to perfect portraits, iOS photography can be simple yet creative. Find out how to set up your shots then improve on them with great effects
Shoot
Create
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Your iOS device is capable of taking great photos, but it’s best to have a few skills up your sleeve before you start snapping Explore Camera+ Using Camera Awesome A guide to ProCam Location aware pics with Blux Get to know Huemore How to shoot great panoramas Shoot nighttime photos Gesture-driven camera shots The best possible group shot
Edit
You’ve captured the moment but things could be better… that’s OK, there are countless apps to enhance your pics 44 48 56 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82
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Save images from a camera Master iPhoto Edit with Photoshop Touch A guide to Luminance Gestural edits with Snapseed Get to know Handy Photo Create flattering portraits Boost your landscapes Fix boring skies, fast! Remove unwanted objects Balance your colours Fake depth of field Repair old photographs Black and white skills
Take things a little further by experimenting with a range of creative effects – it’s easier than you might think Apply vintage effects Shoot better HDR photos Clone colour between pics Make fake miniature shots Copy yourself with Clone Get the grunge look Instant-camera magic! Create vignette effects Amazing photo FX Paint effects using Painterly Sketch effects with My Sketch Star in your own comics Create graffiti effects Add stylish text to photos Frame your photographs Make photo posters Mimic wet-plate photography Make a movie from stills
Share
Don’t let stunning shots sit around on your iPad or iPhone, share them online or create unique cards and journals 136 138 140 142 144
Easy ways to share photos Create a photo journal Create your own cards Share your photos online Print from your iOS device
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Shoot | Panoramas
How to shoot great panoramas Use the iOS Camera app to take great shots, or go beyond it for more ambitious scenes and photos you can step into… 32 |
Panoramas | Shoot
Pic: iStockphoto
hile any picture can indeed speak a thousand words, a regular snapshot of a great piece of scenery tends to make a few of those words “I really wish I’d had a wide-angle lens.” Sweeping vistas, towering mountains, sunny beaches and holiday destinations cry out for a photo that sucks all their beauty into one picture… Whichever tool you use, the rules of taking a good panorama are the same.
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They’re made by having your iOS device take lots of individual pictures and stitch them together into one, which means the more consistent the lighting and the steadier your hand, the better the result. The ideal panoramic subject is also as still as possible, to avoid people wandering past causing confusion in the stitching process by appearing multiple times. As with all photography, but particularly smartphones/tablets, a sunny day is your best friend, and for
night shooting you should invest in at least a mini-tripod to give your snap the best chance. Finally, while the type of scenery that benefits most from a panoramic shot means this usually goes without saying, you also want to be as far back as possible where the detail is still good, ensuring that the lens can focus to infinity and keep a large area of the image equally crisp rather than trying to pick out individual features.
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Edit | Photoshop Touch
Edit with Photoshop Touch Who says the iPad can’t handle advanced photo editing? While Photoshop Touch (£6.99 / $9.99) isn’t even in the same sport as its desktop cousins, never mind the same league, it’s hands-down one of the best image editing tools on the iPad. Unlike many other apps, such as Apple’s iPhoto, it’s not restricted to simply polishing up your photos. It’s a full studio, handling everything from building an image over multiple layers to applying special effects, all with a simple interface that makes even normally complex tasks such as separating
SKILL LEVEL
Taking things further
IT WILL TAKE 40 minutes
YOU’ll NEED
iPhone/iPad, Photoshop Touch
a subject from the background a million times easier. If you have a Creative Cloud account, Photoshop Touch can access it. Alternatively, it can pull local photos, access your Facebook account, take shots within the interface, and even search Google for images that should be okay to use – though don’t take that on faith if your work is intended for public viewing. Whatever you’re using though, you can get great results. Over the next few pages, we’ll take a look at a few of its features.
It’s a full studio, able to handle everything from building an image up over multiple layers to applying special effects
visual guide | Getting started with photoshop touch Touch’s interface may look complex at first, but it’s all very logical…
File Menu
Of course, it loads files. What makes 1 Photoshop Touch special, though, is that being a layer-based editor, you’re not restricted to just files. In most cases, you’ll be bringing in and combining multiple images for your compositions. Access it all from here.
Adjustments
This panel contains tools designed to 2 work across a whole image or layer, many crucial for photographic work. It’s where you go to adjust brightness levels, to pull detail out of shadows and highlights, to reduce noise in an image, and to use the ever-present Auto-Fix.
Effects
These work much like Adjustments, but are designed to radically affect the image. Under Basic, you’ll find stalwarts like Gaussian Blur and Drop Shadow, with the Stylise, Artistic and Photo categories featuring more dramatic effects such as halftone patterns and creating the illusion of a pencil sketch. 3
Composition
Behind this icon are tools for playing with your layers, including warping, fading out, adding a picture straight from the camera, and Lens Flare – a button that it’s joked everyone gets to use once, and only once. There are also options here for cropping, rotating and resizing the image as a whole. 4
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Tools
Speaking of Tools, here’s where you’ll find them. Photoshop Touch includes more than are immediately obvious, with alternatives popping out if you tap and hold one; Blur, for instance, is partnered with Smudge, while the Clone Brush sits next to the Healing Brush. 5
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Layer Menu
Here’s where the magic happens. You can create new layers, reorder them, and alter their opacities and blending modes to turn a collection of unrelated elements into one coherent whole. 6
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Photoshop Touch | Edit HOW TO | USE LAYERS
1 What are they?
2 Creating layers
3 Touching the sky
4 Fade to white
5 Erase
6 Finishing off
The building blocks of any composition. Layers can hold imported pictures, text and brush-strokes, with each treated as its own thing in terms of effects. They’re much more primitive than in most desktop editors though, with no masks (though you can erase parts to reveal what’s underneath), the Clone Brush only working on its source layer, and no adjustment layers available to increase brightness, contrast or other settings on everything underneath.
Next, we go to the & symbol and add a fade. This gives us a line that determines where the fade starts and where it ends. Radial gradients are available, but for this one, a linear one will be fine. We need to avoid including the buildings, but also not to make the blue too overpowering, so everything is to some extent caught in the fade on this picture. When we’re done, there’ll be just enough blue that nobody will look too closely at it.
Every Photoshop Touch project has at least one layer, be it a blank or an imported picture. You can have twenty more, though it’s best to use as few as possible. To add or duplicate them, tap the + in the bottom right. To delete or merge them, tap the two squares. The merge button has an arrow, the delete button is a rubbish bin. From here you can also lower their opacity and choose a blending mode, as discussed overleaf.
Because the new sky is overlaid on the previous image, it’s obscuring the details. Easily fixed. Choose the Eraser brush and drag the sliders to make it reasonably large, but very soft. Sometimes lowering the opacity makes for a smoother edit, but in this case we don’t need it. The key is that the edges should remain soft so they don’t give away the effect. The biggest ‘tell’ here will be a white corona around the subject if we erase too much blue sky.
Here’s a simple example of what you can do with layers. This is a decent picture, but the sky is blown out. Luckily, we have plenty of others with good blue skies – in this case, we’re using one from Iceland. We import both, then use the arrow icon at the top to resize the Iceland picture so that the sky is big enough to fill the space. This can be tweaked later if it’s not quite big enough, or the ground slightly encroaches on it.
Paint in small strokes so that a tap on the Undo button in the bottom left won’t get rid of too much of your work. To finish off, open the sky layer’s opacity and lower it a touch. As pretty as a bright blue sky is, the strong haze will give away that it’s a fake. Here, around 70% makes the sky look better without immediately triggering mental alarm bells. The best edits are the ones that nobody notices you made, and it’s very easy to go too far.
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create | HDR photos
Shoot better HDR photos Add greater dynamic range to your iPhone snaps SKILL LEVEL
Could be tricky
IT WILL TAKE 10 minutes
YOU’ll NEED
iPhone, vividHDR or Pro HDR
ost cameras take photographs at one fixed exposure level. Under perfect conditions this is fine, but if with a bright sky or dark surroundings, resulting photographs can be poor: use a dark area for your exposure level and skies can be blown out; use the sky, and everything else becomes a silhouette. The idea behind High Dynamic Range imaging (HDR) is to take several shots at different exposure levels and then
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intelligently combine them into one. The finished composite has greater dynamic range than any individual shot that the camera could produce. Although Apple’s own Camera app has an HDR setting, it’s merely okay; third-party apps offer a greater degree of control. Here, we’ve used two: vividHDR (£1.49 / $1.99) is faster, and provides three useful presets; Pro HDR (£1.49 / $1.99) is slower but it’s better for fine-tuning, and it can also post-process an HDR effect onto existing images.
The idea behind HDR is to take several shots at different exposure levels and combine them into one
visual guide | Exploring vividHDR How to find your way around the main interface and manage your photos 3
The Gallery
Swipe from the left and you access vividHDR’s 1 Gallery. This contains previous images you’ve taken, and enables you to send them on to other services, such as email, your Camera Roll and Flickr. Mode types are also displayed for saved images.
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Mode selector 5
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Automatic previews
This is all about speed. Turn it off and your photos are saved once vividHDR has finished generating them. This makes it easier to take photos in relatively quick succession. If you use Custom Mode, a preview is always provided. 4
Auto-save
At the bottom-left of the standard window is 2 the mode selector, which cycles between the four options within vividHDR. If you’re unsure what to select for any given scene, use Custom; you then get to choose after you’ve taken your photo.
By default, vividHDR only saves photos when you tell it to. However, like many iOS camera apps, it includes an option to save ‘vanilla’ images to the Camera Roll. This slows things down but is recommended, because you then have a reference shot for each image.
Geo-tagging
Sharing
By default, vividHDR doesn’t geo-tag photos, 3 but turning this option on in the settings embeds location data in the usual manner. Data can be seen in-app – go to the Gallery and tap the info button at the top left to view the photo’s details.
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By using the sharing button, you get access to three sign-in options: Facebook, Flickr and Dropbox. The last of those is useful for providing extra, storage for your photos. Sharing is also available in the Gallery, which adds an email. 6
HDR photos | create HOW TO | Take vibrant photos with vividHDR
1 Set things up
2 Take a photo
3 Compare your images
4 Use other modes
5 Take your photo
6 Select your effect
Before you take any photos, swipe in from the right to access the Settings bar. From top to bottom, the buttons activate geotagging, the on-screen grid, auto-preview, saving the standard shot to the Camera Roll, and activating social/sharing services. Options that are turned on are displayed in blue. At the very least, it’s a good idea to turn on the grid, to help you compose photos (using the rule of thirds) and line things up more accurately.
Try using the other modes to take some pictures. The Lively option fills in more shadows and ramps up contrast, colour and saturation a little. Skies can look dramatic with this mode, but the photo still feels realistic overall. The Dramatic option takes things a lot further and is best reserved for more ‘artistic’ shots. On changing modes, vividHDR will provide a quick overview of what each one does. If you’re unsure about which to use, select Custom.
When you’re done, slide the Settings to the right. You’ll then be in vividHDR’s main window. From the mode selector, choose the Natural setting for now — it’s the least aggressive HDR effect of the three included. Hold your device in landscape or portrait and then tap the on-screen shutter button (vividHDR doesn’t work with the volume up button). The app will take three photos at various exposure levels; hold your iPhone very still.
Again, your HDR image should be generated within just a few seconds, and you can use the slider to compare the original with the HDR version. However, on using the Custom option, you also get a second slider beneath the photo, providing the means to adjust the HDR mode that’s used. Drag the switch between Natural, Lively and Dramatic and your photo will be updated, which takes a few seconds each time – be patient!
Your image will be generated within seconds, and you can compare the original and HDR version on a preview screen – drag the slider left and right to do so. If unhappy with the HDR image, tap the trashcan to delete it; otherwise, tap the close button to save it to the Gallery. Access the Gallery by swiping in from the left screen edge. Within, tap the button at the top-right to save any image to your Camera Roll. Snaps are also saved in a vividHDR album.
When you’ve settled on your favourite mode, tap the close button to save your image to the Gallery. It’s often tempting to go for Dramatic, with its vibrant colours and deep shadows, but that’s not always the most appropriate choice. Pick carefully, because you don’t get the option to change the mode postsave; but if you’re auto-saving standard shots to your iPhone as well as HDR ones, other apps can be used to post-process them into HDR shots.
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create | Multi-photo frames
Frame your photographs Combine favourite pictures in beautiful frames that you can share We remember sitting there years ago, armed with a dozen photos, one of those frames with a dozen cut-out slots, and a steely determination. Despite our very best efforts and quite a lot of strategically placed sticky tape, things never seemed to go to plan. Somehow, at least one photo would sneakily slip out of alignment at the last second, and another would disappear entirely before the frame was back on… The thing is, when multi-photo frames go right, they
SKILL LEVEL
Anyone can do it
IT WILL TAKE 15 minutes
YOU’ll NEED iPhone/iPad, PicFrame
can be beautiful, telling the story of a life, or providing an overview of a wonderful adventure. When they go wrong, you just want to give up. PicFrame (69p / 99¢) dispenses with the sticky tape, removes the need for steely determination, and replaces everything with elegance and fun. You import images from your Camera Roll or Photo Stream and can choose from dozens of frames, background patterns and effects. It’s a fairly simple app, but it’s one that enables you to create some truly stunning results.
PicFrame dispenses with the sticky of tape and replaces everything with elegance and fun
visual guide | Find your way around PicFrame PicFrame is very simple to use, so here’s what to expect to find on screen 1
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Canvas size
Although the iPad is small, its 1 screen is quite high-res, and PicFrame can output at a resolution about 50 per cent larger than the iPad’s. On that basis, try to use reasonably high-quality photos throughout, especially if you intend to print them.
Lock switch
When in the Adjust tab, a 2 subtle padlock icon appears at the top-right of the screen. This is designed to stop you dragging the areas between photos, which resizes the respective frames. (Should you want to do this, you can just unlock the padlock!)
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Photo menu
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Tap on a photo slot to access 3 its menu, enabling you to add a new image from your Camera Roll or through taking a new photo with your device’s camera. It also provides access to ways to amend your photos and also a ‘remove’ option; beware – there’s no undo!
Shape button
By default, all of the photo slots are square or rectangular. Tap a photo and select Shape from the menu and you can change the picture slot to a circle, triangle or another pre-defined shape. Generally, these work best if the slot was originally square. 4
Frames menu
You define your original layout using the Frames menu, and you can also use it during edits to change the layout. Additionally, if you’re done with a design but want to use the same set-up for different photos, tap Frames and then Clear (top left). 5
Visible labels
Unlike traditional image editing apps, PicFrame shows elements in context. This means you’ll only see labels when the Labels button is active (or when you tap Share); so when in Style or Adjust, don’t fret when your labels appear to vanish! 6
Multi-photo frames | create HOW TO | Create a multiple-photo frame
1 Set things up
First, choose a frame set from the many on offer (swipe left and right to access other sets). You can amend the frame set later on, although it’s best to settle before you do a lot of work. At the top-right of the ’Select a Frame’ screen is a format option, enabling you to pick a ratio. Those with square photo slots work best if you want to change some of them to one of the built-in presets that’s not straight-edged. Otherwise, a rectangle looks good on-screen.
2 Add your photos
Tap a frame to access its menu. Tap Camera Roll to access the standard iOS Photos menu. Select a photo and tap Done to load it into the frame. It’s also possible to load multiple images at once – do so by selecting several in the Photos menu prior to tapping Done. If photos load into the wrong frames, they can be swapped. Tap and hold to ‘pick up’ a photo and drag it to a different frame. Wait a second or two and the photos will be switched round.
4 Fine-tune your photos 5 Create some labels For each photo in turn, adjust its position and zoom level by single-finger dragging and two-finger pinching. If you wish to flip or rotate a photo, tap it, select Rotate/Mirror and then tap the relevant button. You can also add effects to your photos. Tap one, select Effects, and then choose from the menu. Effects are nondestructive, and so if you later decide to remove them or switch one for something else, you can just choose a different option from the menu.
Tap the Labels button and then somewhere on the screen to add a label. Type some text and hit Return. Move/rotate the label using drag/pinch gestures. To change the label’s visual appearance, tap it and tap Style. Presets can be used as a starting point. Using the Label and Text tabs, adjust the text and background colours; ensure there’s enough contrast for the text to remain readable. Use the Font menu to change the label’s typeface and the text’s size.
3 Adjust the frame
Select the Style button from the toolbar and you can adjust the width between photos, and the colour or pattern of the background. Changing the width moves your photos, so this step should be done before carefully zooming and moving them around. (It’s less of a problem if your frame only has a couple of images, obviously.) Select the Adjust toolbar button, tap Options and you can then also add rounded corners and a drop shadow to your photos.
6 Save and share
Once you’re happy with your frame, tap Save and it will be added to your Camera Roll, using the resolution defined via the slider at the bottom of the dialogue. We recommend setting that to its maximum value – you can always use an app to make your work smaller later, but increasing the size of smaller images always reduces quality. There are also social networking options (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and so on); those benefit from a smaller resolution setting.
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EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Graham Barlow Editor Christian Hall Deputy Editor Matthew Bolton Art Editor Seth Singh Design & Layout Nick Aspell, Andy Ounsted Operations EditorS Jo Membery, Ed Ricketts Contributors Ben Brain, Richard Cobbett, Roy Delaney, Ian Evenden, Craig Grannell, Tom Harrod, Kenny Hemphill, Steve Paris, Nick Peers, Alex Summersby Images Apple, Future Photo Studio, iStock
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