Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey, guys, Welcome to the course. My name's Kjaer Smithy. And in this class I'm gonna be teaching you how to take high quality photos using your iPhone. So as a social media influencer and journalists, I have to post a lot of photos. And people always ask me, How do you take such awesome photos? And they think I use a DSLR camera or really expensive high quality camera, which is actually not the case. Most of my photos you guys will see on my INSTAGRAM are from my iPhone. So in this costume to be teaching knew the tools and acts and techniques I like to use with my iPhone, your capture high quality photos. So this class is great for people who don't want to invest money in a really fancy camera, and they already have their iPhone or even a Samsung. Any sort of smartphone will be good for this class. We're gonna go over some of my favorite editing software on the phone, different APs, different pools in those acts that I like to use that really make my photo op before nobody likes the next class
2. Creating an Engaging Photo: so there are many elements that go into taking a great photo and we're gonna go heading. Address some of those omens right now. The 1st 1 is lighting. So direction of light and the source of light are going to be important for getting a really high quality photo on. And we're gonna go over how you can manipulate those lighting sources on your mobile phone in the next thing element that you want to keep in mind when trying to produce a great photo is the framing. I'm sure you've heard of rule of thirds. We're gonna go over that a little bit and then also your subject. You want to draw attention to your subject or your focus point of your photo and you can do that with many things. You can do that with light lines frames. There's a lot of things. So we're gonna go over that, and then the other thing would be perspectives. So that essentially, is exactly what it sounds like. What angles can you take on a fluttery doing and above? Are you doing it below to the left or the right? What angles and perspectives are you, um, shooting your photo in and those perspectives I was actually really important. We're gonna go over Why, Um, in the next, uh, course and last clarity and color so warmer or cooler and we're gonna dress this in the lighting section and then also in the editing portion off this course. So there's many things you can do in regards to the colored, the clarity and color. So let's go ahead and address these topics. We will start with the lighting, so go ahead and grab your mobile device You're gonna be using for this course and click the next video and we'll work on lighting.
3. Lighting : Okay, So I'm gonna show you guys how to take a photo and adjust the lighting, uh, in your camera app on your iPhone. So right now, the photos kind of dark, and I want to bring in more light. So how I can do that is I can tap the screen. Did you see the Seattle box Pop up And what that is that's exposure meter box. So I'm gonna tap it with my finger and slide my finger up, and you can see that the exposure is getting brighter. Exposure just means the amount of light commuter photo now in reverse tap it signed my finger down, but it will get darker. Really good technique. If you're taking pictures of people on, you can't see their faces. You can talk their face, slide it up or slow down. If you're outside, it's too bright. Uh, another thing to keep in mind when you photo is the light direction. So right now I have some limps on inside, and it's casting a shadow of the camera, and you may not walk that shadow there, So you're gonna want to, um, try to find a different source of light natural light coming in through a window midday is always pretty good because you're not getting that harsh, right? You're just getting the naturally that's coming through the window, um, and a light source as well. So I have bedroom lights on, which are kind of yellow, so it's going to make my overall picture a little bit yellow. But like I said, I can use this meter to adjust that make it not so yellow make a little bit brighter. You can see more detail in magazines, which is cool. So that's most important thing. When it comes to lighting and taking a photo with your iPhone. Use that exposure meter. We're gonna go into the next course, which is framing.
4. Framing: Okay, so now we're gonna go over framing. And there's a couple things you want to keep in mind when taking your photo in regard Stuff for any, Um, first, if you do not have your grid on which is thes lines going, turn it on if you don't know how to show you but your settings top of settings here, down to photos and camera grid to know. So turn that on will use that to about 4/3. So we have our grid on rule of thirds. For those of you that don't know pretty simple. You have three columns right here. Boom, boom in three rounds and there's something featured in every 30% every square. So whether it be just a tip of a pen, we're a little magazine. There's something in each box. Um, they don't all all the boxes. You have to be fully occupied. They just don't have something in every box for this Course is. I mean, photography isn't art, and you can choose not to do that. But for this we're gonna talk about occupying all the squares, so make sure you have your grid. Um, I have this on square mode right now. There's a reason for that. When you post to instagram, it hosts a square. So if you take a photo like this not in square mode, you're gonna have to. Let's say you take the four like this, Okay, Now, if you switch that to scream out, a lot of it has been cropped out. Fortunate still looks OK, but let's say you didn't want to do that if you took a group photo with this big, um, staying in landscape mode like that when you go to crop it, it's just going to be a mess. So keep in mind where you're posting your photo. Um, you're posting instagram. Switch the square mode. I generally just leave it on screen. One that post most photos there. Um, if you're posting on Facebook or interest, you can use your other settings there. Just keep in mind when you take the photo. What framing are you taking it in? Are you gonna have to crop anything out? If so, give yourself room to do that, so next would be subject. So what is the subject in this photograph? I would say the camera, that's what I want to focus on, so that'll be when my eye starts. So that's a subject place. It occupied most of the photos, so it's in. Four squares are supposed to these we have one each. Um, do you have your subject and then leading lines that help your eyes slow through the photograph? So I start here. Where where does my eye in action? One of the nets down the pen. This is a line. And then it was the next line. This form of the book. Do you have slow? You have movement in the oil. Good photographers know how to access that part of photograph is, you know, leading your eye. They're called leading lines because they lead your eye around photograph, so those things use your great. If you need it, you practice those rule thirds. Keep in line. What platform you and be posting, too. And give yourself room to crop if you need to. What's your subject in the user? Leading lines to draw attention to that subject that completes framing
5. Perspectives : Okay, so now we're gonna talk about perspectives, and essentially, what that means is exactly what it sounds like. What perspective are you seeing? Something. Um, the four we will go over today is bird's eye view. Looking up, looking down, dead on there's many other ones or just gonna do goes. So birds. Eye view is probably the one that you see on instagram a lots trending, unique. And that's why it's so popular. And that's the over the head shot. I guess you could say so. This is kind of a bird's eye view, and the reason that so unique is because you don't walk around seeing things from up or dive you. So when you see something from member attributes, it's interesting. It makes you want that linger on that photo and then really good for talking. Players know how to take photos that, um, show a different perspective. And that's what people want to see. They want to see things from a perspective they don't get to see every day. No, the next would be looking up. So I can really do it with this because lying on a bed but looking up with sales, I have this on the glass table. All this stuff on the glass table, I could get underneath the table and take a photo looking up. I mean, that would be a different core. Perceptive looking down. There's another perspective a little bit different than Bird's eye view. So birds have you be right about here, right on top of it, like you're flying over looking down. It's kind of what you see every day you walk by things. If you're taller than it, your that's what you see. That would be kind of looking down the camera's angle down. So when people take pictures of their food on their not getting right on top of it, almost to the point where they're staying on their chair, they're probably just snapping it. Be looking now, that perspective not too popular. It's what people just naturally results because it's easy. Just lift your former take a pick, mom. So not a unique perspective. That's kind of what everyone does and then dead on. So that would be kind of like a portrait or getting really close in the subject state seconds, you could say Ah, a little bit more unique, but still pretty woman one. So those are the four perspectives. Keep in mind when taking a photo. Try to give your viewers a different perspective when showcasing. That's what's going to make your photo succeed and stand out from the best.
6. Afterlight Photo Editing App: So now we're going to get into editing the photo, and we're gonna be using the after light app. So that's what it looks like. They're on the right. If you haven't downloaded that, go and do that right now. And then we're going to talk about adjusting contrast color, sharpening the photo and using the clarify, but in and then adjusting highlights and shadows. So these are all the things we're gonna go over in this app. Um, so take notes if you need to refer back to them. Um, gonna describe the other features is APP has as well, so let's go ahead and add it. Our photo in afterlife.
7. Editing in Afterlight : Okay, so we are editing and after light. Um, there's a free version and a premium version. They're both pretty similar. The premium. You just get more filters. So we're using the free version, and you want to select your photo? There we go. So we'll use this one. This is a photo we just took, um, with the one. This is a photo had the best lighting, um, using our exposure meter. And now we just want to go find, tweak some of the shadows and stuff that we have. So right here, the shadow we want to try to get rid of it is a little over exposed. Um, we can try and fix that as well. Overexposed means there's too much light. So there's three things essentially, that I always do when I'm editing a photo. Turn up the brightness. Always turn up your brightness, uh, on your phone when you're editing. So you concede the photo? Um, it's dark. You can't really see the detail, so turn the brightness. Um, and we're going to first just the sharpen, the sharpening. Um, so the tool for that you're gonna click this one here. You're in a scroll to the triangle. The triangle is thes sharpening button. What that does is it makes the lines shopper. So I'm gonna just up it right here and you're in a siege. Is the clarity and Hance on this photo Certain photos you can't sharpen too much because it'll look fake. But for stuff like this or landscape sharpening is what gives it that DSLR. Look, this is a DSLR camera, so DSR look can be obtained by sharpening your photo. I say this is the most important and secret ingredient to making your mobile phone. Mobile photography look amazing and high quality. It's a sharpened button, so we'll put about 50 and then click the check mark. Another type sharpening type tool is this clarify button right here. So if you click that you can notice, um, take a look at this part. Well, I do this and you will see a difference. It makes it much clear And then also the pen Here You can see that Pang it's really clear. So for this photo all go ahead and bump it up a lot because the floor was over exposed. So I want to make sure you can start seeing those lines. So there we go and then select Check for applying your future to it. So if sharp in the photo with two different tools the clarify. But in here generally it's like a magic wand on different APS and then sharpen, which is this one here? This wasn't This triangle is virtually always this the icon for sharpening another name for it to be structure. So just look for the triangle for sharpening your photo That's like first and foremost following born. I literally always do that when I'm editing a photo. Um, the next is highlights and shadows so you could make the brighter areas which would be the white brighter, and the darker area areas which would be like this part in the camera darker by using your highlight and shadow. So h and s, um, are generally the icons for that. So we go and click the H. Watch what happens to the bright areas to get bread so you can eliminate some of the shadows By doing that. Um, there's other APS to that really pinpoint stuff like this. Like snap seed. Um, I could show you in another video how to do that. But for this for this course, we're just gonna keep it pretty simple and use after light. And by upping the shot, are upping the highlights. Excuse me. Well, kind of eliminate some of those shadows. So when I got to leave it right about there, and then click the check mark to apply. Now, let's adjusts. Um, shadow. So a lot of those filters you see that are kind of like vintage looking What? What? Essentially they do their presets. So basically, we're making our own filter right now using all these tools. And people do that. They make these presets with tools and they sell them. So you're kind of making on filter to get that old look. If you want to do that, you'll adjust the shadows. It's a little hard to tell what this photo so bright, but to make it look washed out, he could just move the shadows around. So watch the camera as we do this. So this is with really dark shadows Now watches I move it up, that camera gets really washed out and almost looks old or worn out. So if you were to do that with, um a landscaper. Little trinket photo with coffee and your computer and you, you know, wash out those shadows, makes it look door old. Vintage. That's like it that look. So manipulate your shadows a little bit. You do it too dark. You may not be able to see some detail if you do it to light, may wash it out. So keep that mind just depends on what look you're going for. So that is the sharpening, the highlights, the shadows And in contrast, generally this is what people normally use tends to be this type of icon, black and white circle. This is overall adjusting everything. It's kind of like a blanket term for everything, so it could bump it all the way up. And it's making the colors brighter, the shadows darker, the highlights brighter. Um, it's kind of just doing one easy step for all those things. I don't really do that till the very end. Um, if I couldn't get it, exactly the look how I wanted it, Teoh, I'll use this. Um, generally, I don't really use this. We know that much. It's kind of like the cherry on top, so leave it like that and then colors. So let's say I want to make some of these colors brighter. Um, you use this saturation square here. Normally, it's a rainbow on other APS so quick that and then you can up the saturation. Lower it. It's gonna hard to tell on screen cast, but here you go. So moving it down, taking away the color, moving it up, really, really contrast ID. I like to keep my photos pretty authentic. I don't like them to look too edited, so I generally just use a tiny bit of contrast just to get a little pop good for landscapes , make the water blue or trees greener. Uh, whatever you may have it. So those are just some techniques, Um, when editing first and foremost is the sharpened tool. Most important, that's what gives it that high quality DS or look, it makes those lines sharper. Um, if nothing else, use that tool, and then you can adjust your highlights, your shadows and then contrast. So that's that for after like, there's a bunch of other icons in here you can use, um, in regards to call, I'll show you this real quick temperature is cooler, so blues or warmer. So if you're wondering what that waas and I was, you people out a question about that. Some questions about that. So temperatures just like a thermometer cooler. Warmer. Ah, technique is if you're photo is If you took a photo, let's it's sunset and it was really orange. You can actually add some blue to it and will neutralize the photo. So will make the photo so orange and vice versa. If you took a photo inside and blue light was shining on you guys faces or something like that, you can add some warmer colors to it, and it'll neutralize that. So that's that for after light. Um, the free version is really good if you upgrade your just going to get some more filters. So these are all the filters they have and a lot of good options in there. Um, but I'd really like to edit my own photos and stay away from filters And yeah, so that's that for afterwards and then to upload tree that real quick, you just quit the done button. If you miss that click done, and these are your options to save, I always recommend just saving it to your camera roll. Don't upload directly to Instagram because if you decide that you wanted to fix something last minute you're gonna have to read at the photo. It's not gonna let you go back. I'm pretty sure. Last time I tried, it didn't work. So just to be on the safe side, just save it to camera will. And then, um it will say, you know, safe. Complete click. Ok, you got to go. Yeah, I recommend just saving it to camera roll. And then from there, putting it where you want to put it.
8. Posting and Extending Reach: So there's many things you can do when posting your photo that whoa, um, increase engagement or the amount of likes or shares on your photo. And when posting instagram, they haven't option to share on other social media accounts. So I always share on my Facebook and Twitter. So when you're uploading the photo you click sharing, you're going to see those different icons for those different social media accounts. I recommend you share this photo on those accounts. If you have them, the more, um, accounts your photo is featured on the better chance more people are going to see it. They for sure we'll see it. So the more people that see your photo, the more traffic you're having to that content. And people are more likely toe like or engage with that. That particular photo he posted, um, for the comment section. This is a big area for called action, which is essentially that you're asking your followers to interact or engage with what you have posted. So in the comment section, you could say something like my photo project from At Care Collective Skill share class, learning how to take photos with my iPhone or you could say, um, for another example, you could say I took this photo with my iPhone. Don't believe me. Here's how I did it. Click the link in the bio for the class I took or something like that. So you're giving your your followers, um, something more than just a pretty picture. You're giving them either advice or technique on how to obtained something, and people value that information. Um, so we're so for this class, you're gonna be posting your photo, Um, using relevant hashtags. We're gonna go over that in a second, but created engaging comments. So, um, something like what I've written here or the suggested comments. But that will be good for getting more traffic to your photo. And for Hashtags, you all know Hashtags. There's a lot of stupid ones. There's a lot of good ones. Some of them are used for a purpose. So for this course, we're gonna be using it strictly for purpose. They're gonna use hashtag er, collectives. And that's so I can see everyone who's participated in this class, and you guys can see the other students that have participated in this class. So when you search the Hashtag section and Instagram. You can see everyone who has taken the scores because they've used this but specific hashtag. Um, I'll be selecting one winner that I feel the photo captured everything we talked about into his course and featuring them on my INSTAGRAM account. So that's just some things to keep in mind when posting your photo when wanting to build traffic or engagement likes whatever, Um, these were some techniques you can use.
9. Summary: So just a recap of everything that we have went over and most gonna have. Ah, outline uploaded for you guys as well. Either a link or a document that I can get to you. Um, when captured in the photo. Three things keep in mind. Lighting. Um, you know what kind of light the source light the direction of light framing. You know that, Um Also portrait's to what platform you're gonna be posting on. So if you're gonna posting on instagram and you know that makes you take your photo in that square frame on your iPhone, you're gonna be posing on Pinterest. Then you can probably live in the default. So just have in mind what, um, frame host you're gonna be using when you're posting your photo. Also, you know, the rule of thirds and leading lines is also another way to frame a subject and bring attention to that subject perspectives. So, as we mentioned, the really popular perspective right now is that bird's eye view are over head looking perspective. Um, I would recommend doing that perspective playing with it, but also keep in mind that everyone's doing it. So if you want to be unique tryto find different perspectives using props, using whatever you can to give a different perspective. That's what really makes the photo unique. And people like your photo. Um, and then when editing your photo, Ah, we talked about sharpening and clarifying buttons and how that is the key to getting that DSLR look. So those two, if nothing else, from this course those two is kind of the secret ingredient to getting those high quality photos. And remember, that's the triangle button that's normally the the sharpen. On any app that you use, it's gonna be like a triangle. Um, and then the clarify sometimes is a triangle, but it will be lame, like structure. I know. I think on ah, this goats like that but not me. The triangle app, magic stick or something called structure. Those are gonna be your to sharpen and clarify buttons. And that's the key to DSLR quality per se. And in contrast, highlights shadows. Um, that can just give it the artistic touch that can just bring more attention to, um, I mean contouring. I know makeup artists. They like to take a lot of a lot of photos of the makeup. They do. So if you enhance those shadows, it'll dark in the dark in the darker areas. Um, so in contrary, in case for those of you who follow makeup, um, color saturation, temperature bumping all of those just a tiny bit like we did Well, kind of just make the photo pop a little bit more, giving it that high quality look and then also posting the photo. Remember those relevant hashtags and engaging comments? Um, and then linking to your other social media accounts. So when you share it on instagram, if you have a Facebook or Twitter, whatever else they offer to share, make sure you share that, because the more platforms your photos on, the more exposure it's gonna get in more engagement. Pretty simple. More people that see it, the better chance you're gonna have that they interact with that photo. Um, so, yeah, that completes the course. If you guys have any questions, please feel free to leave them in. The comments section below will be here answering any questions you may have also on instagram where you guys will be posting the photo at care collectives. You can, um, DME questions on there, too, if that's easier. Um, I'm gonna be uploading some notes for you guys. So you have those refer back to and you share the course, and I'm gonna be teaching more courses on social media, mobile photography type stuff. So if you want to follow me on skill share, you can, um, looking for two senior guys projects. Make sure you use those engaging comments, hashtags and good luck.
Kiara Smithee, CEO of My Solar Solutions
