iPhoneography 1: PicFrame

iPhoneography, it’s an actual thing! A whole class of photography on it’s own. It makes sense though, right? An iPhone has it’s own series of advantages in the processing of photos. There are so many things that you can do with an iPhone that you couldn’t do with your DSLR or point-and-shoot digital. Not to mention the instant results.

For those of you who are just getting into things like Instagram, or posting your iPhone photos to Facebook, this is part one of an introduction to the things you can do with your iPhone camera.

This post is going to focus on an app called “PicFrame“, used in conjunction with Instagram.

1) step one: take a picture. Sounds simple right? I think most of us know how to do this step, but I am going to give a few pointers for the technologically impaired.

– Focus: when taking a portrait, or a close-up photo of something, give the camera a moment to focus on the subject. A quick tap on the screen will help your iPhone figure out what your focal point is. Otherwise, just hold your camera still for a second and let it automatically focus.

-Lighting: whenever possible, don’t use your flash. Get outside if you can, or near a window with some natural light shining in. At the very least, turn some lights on.

-Hold still: the steadier your hand, the better chance your camera has to capture your shot clearly.

2) Editing photo size: Apps like Instagram use square photos. You can bring your photo directly into Instagram and crop it there. You can also use apps like PicFrame ($1.99) to compose your photo before you bring it to Instagram or Facebook. PicFrame also allows you to add some design to your photo, or give it some flair:

– set up a square or rectangular ratio

– bring in multiple frames so that you can include more than one photo (like a collage)

– create borders around your photo.

– add labels (text) as an overlay

– add effects to your photo

You can really get a lot of editing done with this app. I’m going to give you a few pointers to start you off.

Step 1: Choose your ratio. If you are editing your photo for Instagram, use a 1:1 ratio. If you are using it for Facebook, you can use whatever you would like. Note that Facebook profile pics (as well as many avatars for different websites) are also 1:1 ratio, so any borders you make on a rectangular photo will be cropped off on two of the sides if you are using it for a “square” thumbnail.

Step 2: Pick your frame. The app includes about 72 different layouts in which you can put anywhere from 1-9 photos.

The example shown here is a 2 x 2 frame:

Step 3: Photo placement: tap one time on the square that you would like to put your photo into. You can choose from any of the saved photos on your iPhone. If you’ve taken photos with another camera, and uploaded them onto your iPhone, those will work too. Fill each of the frames in your layout.

Step 4: You can move your photos around in each frame. You can use two fingers and spread them to zoom in, or pinch to zoom out.

Step 5: By double-tapping the photo, an editing menu will open up. If you click on the Fx option, you will be able to scroll sideways through 21 different effects that you can add to your photo.

Step 6: On the main screen, click the top-right corner where it says “options.” A menu called “corner & shadow” will appear. Play around with these until you get the desired effect. This allows you to round corners or create shadows to make your photos stand out from the background. If you don’t want the frames around your photos, skip to step #7.

Step 7: click on the “style” button on the menu at the bottom of the screen. The top line reads “width” and by moving this right or left, you can make the frames around your photo wider or narrower. You can even make the frames disappear. You can colour the frames or choose a pattern for them if you like.

Step 8: Labels. Like in the photo shown above, you can add text to your photo. Type in your text, then click “style.” Here, you can choose an existing preset label, or you can format your own. If you are making your own, there are lots of fonts available from the main “label” window.

Explore a little with all the functions, you’ll get the hang of it.

Step 9: when you are done editing your photo, I recommend “sharing” it the following way. When you press “share” click on the option to “save” to your photo stream.

Reason #1: the app will not write that annoying “used such and such app to create this” on your photo. Some apps do that. I’m not sure whether this one does.

Reason #2: if you save to your photo stream, you can choose where you want to upload your photo to, you can save it to your computer, and most importantly, you can bring it into other apps to do further editing.

My next post will talk about another app for editing your photos called Pixlromatic.