Smartphones, particularly the iPhone, have revolutionized photography.
We always have it with us, which means that capturing amazing images has become easier than ever.
However, snapping a photo is just the beginning; it’s in the editing process that a picture truly comes to life. Whether you’re an amateur enthusiast or a seasoned pro, mastering iPhone photo editing can elevate your images from ordinary snapshots to stunning works of art. In this article, we’ll explore seven iPhone photo editing tips to make your pics really pop.
Let’s dive in!
Cropping
Cropping is the most under-used editing tool. But it’s the most powerful way to make your photo pack more punch.
With cropping, you take the most striking part of your photo and make it the focus of the image.
Here’s an example from an iPhone photo I took at the Palacio Real in Madrid.
This is the original:
The bottom half of this photo was just wasted space. By removing it, I put the emphasis on the arches, which is the real subject of the photo:
Identify the subject of your photo, and use cropping to fill the frame with that subject.
Another effect of cropping is compressing the foreground against the background.
Notice in the second image how the ridges in the background are much more prominent and seem to be much closer to the arches. This compression effect makes for a more dramatic image and is another benefit of cropping.
Cropping can also be used to remove distractions, resulting in a more impactful photo.
Compare the above photo with the original:
The sky, the pavement, and adjoining buildings were all distractions. They were cropped out of the final image, resulting in a photo with much more impact.
In the iPhone Photo app, the cropping tool allows you to do ‘free form’ cropping or fixed cropping. Tap the ‘frames’ icon at the top of the screen, and you’ll see ‘free form’ and ‘original’ at the foot of the screen.
‘Free form’ means you can move any side of the cropping tool independently of the other sides. ‘Original’ means the four sides of the cropping tool move together, maintaining the original aspect ratio.
You can choose to crop using some standard frame sizes, such as 9:16, 4:5, and 5:7.
Another useful feature of the cropping tool is ‘orientation,’ which allows you to switch between vertical and horizontal:
It’s worth playing around with this – you may discover that a photo you took in vertical format looks better horizontal:
One final point about cropping: always crop your photo before making any other edits, as the cropped image will influence the edits you need to make.
Apply Filters
If you’re in a hurry and don’t want to get into the details of editing, the first thing you can do with any photo is apply a filter.
Tap on the Filters icon at the bottom of the screen and choose from one of the ten filters. A good filter to start with is ‘Vivid.’
If you feel a filter is too strong, there’s a slider beneath it—use the slider to dial down the effect.
Adjust Color
The editing tools that affect color are Saturation, Vibrance, Warmth, and Tint.
Saturation and Vibrance are closely related. Saturation adds more color to everything, whereas Vibrance only adds color to the parts of your photo that are not already saturated.
It’s best to use one or the other, but not both. I generally avoid using Saturation, as it can very easily make your photo look unnatural. Vibracne is a more subtle tool that will make your image pop without looking fake.
Warmth and Tint are also closely related.
The Warmth slider makes the colors warmer or cooler. Dragging the slider to the right emphasizes orange, and dragging the slider to the left emphasizes blue.
The Tint slider moves the image between magenta and purple on the right side of the slider and green on the left side of the slider.
In landscape photos, the tint slider needs to be used very cautiously, as it can make your photos look quite ‘overdone.’ But if you have a closeup of something, a flower, for example, you can use tint much more freely.
Experiment With Brightness
There are two editing controls that affect brightness: Exposure and Brilliance.
The iPhone is very good at capturing light in low-light conditions, such as early morning and early evening. But this also means that the iPhone tends to over-expose during the middle of the day. That’s why I often find myself using the slider to reduce exposure – this recovers more detail and makes the photo more interesting.
Brilliance makes your photo look more vibrant by brightening dark areas and bringing in highlights—it adjusts shadows and highlights simultaneously.
Add More Detail
Adding detail to your image will really make your photo pop.
There are five sliders in the iPhone Photo app that will add detail to your photo: Sharpness, Definition, Contrast, Noise Reduction, and Black Point.
Let’s look at each of these four tools.
Sharpness: The Sharpness tool works on edges within the image. It finds the edges where brightness and darkness meet and makes the dark a bit darker and the bright a bit brighter, giving the image the appearance of being sharper than it really is.
Definition: The definition tool takes a more subtle approach than the Sharpness tool. It adds clarity to the image by removing layers of haze and subtracting ‘whiteness’ from specific areas within the image.
Contrast: The contrast slider targets the difference between light and dark areas. When you increase contrast, light areas become lighter, and dark areas become darker. Adding contrast also increases the difference between highlights and shadows.
Black Point sets the point at which the darkest parts of the image become completely black without any detail. In an overexposed image, adding black point can improve the contrast. I use black point to add detail and depth to my photos.
Use The Perspective Tool
The Perspective tool is very useful in photos of buildings or any object with straight lines.
When you take a photo of an object with straight lines, such as a building, any distortion in the perspective becomes very obvious to the viewer because we know these lines are supposed to be straight.
Typically, when you take a photo of a building, the building appears to lean away from you. This happens because you are closer to the base of the building than you are to the top of the building.
The Perspective tool can fix this for you.
In this photo of the Cathedral of Saint Mary in Toledo, notice how the columns on the left and right are leaning inwards.
This is a perspective problem that I fixed in the edited image using the Perspective tool:
You can find the Perspective tool by tapping on the Cropping icon. It has three components: Straightening, Vertical, and Horizontal.
Straightening: This part of the tool allows you to adjust the angle of the photo to make it appear level or straight. It’s particularly useful when you have a photo where the horizon line is not horizontal or when you want to align the edges of buildings or other structures in the image.
Vertical Perspective: This part of the tool helps you correct vertical distortion in your photo. This is the tool I used to make the columns on either side of the cathedral photo more vertical.
Horizontal Perspective: This tool allows you to correct horizontal distortion in your photo. When you take a picture of a wide scene from an angle, horizontal lines may appear curved or skewed. The horizontal perspective adjustment helps you straighten these lines, making the image look more balanced and aligned.
Remove Distracting Objects
Removing distracting objects is a key part of editing your iPhone photos. Whether it’s people at a popular tourist destination, a stray piece of litter in a landscape shot, or an unsightly cable in an architectural shot, eliminating distractions will dramatically improve your iPhone photos.
In photo editing software, the tool that removes imperfections from photos is often called a ‘healing’ tool. The iPhone Photos app used to have a healing tool, but this feature has now been removed.
So you will have to use a third-party app for this.
I have used various such apps, and two in particular are very good at removing blemishes.
Photo Director is an excellent tool for removing objects and people from your photos, while TouchRetouch does a very good job of removing lines from your photos.
Here’s a photo of a Toledo street scene in which I used both of these apps. I removed the people using PhotoDirector and the lines using TouchRetouch.
This is the photo before people and distracting objects were removed:
And this is the ‘after’ photo:
These two paid apps for removing objects and blemishes from photos both cost about $20 or less.
One More Tip
Well, that’s it!
These seven iPhone photo editing tips will help you dramatically improve your photos.
But before we wind up, here is one last tip for editing photos in the iPhone Photos app.
Each slider has a circle above it. When you move the slider, a yellow number appears in the circle indicating how much of that effect you have applied:
It’s useful when editing to compare before and after. To do that, tap on the circle, and the app will show you what your photo looked like before you moved the slider:
Conclusion
In these seven iPhone photo editing tips, we’ve covered cropping, applying filters, adjusting color, experimenting with brightness, adding more detail, using the perspective tool, and removing distracting objects.
With these simple editing techniques, you can elevate your images from mundane to mesmerizing. Whether you crop your photos, add more detail, or use the perspective tool to straighten a building, you now have the tools to take your iPhone photography to the next level.
Remember, mastering iPhone photo editing is not about conforming to rigid rules but rather about unlocking your creativity and expressing your unique perspective. So, don’t be afraid to experiment and push the boundaries of your creativity. Editing your iPhone photos can transform your image into something that really grabs the viewer’s attention and makes them go, “Wow!”
