Smartphone Photography: A Complete Guide for iPhone & Android

1. Introduction: Welcome to the class Smartphone Photography, A complete guide for iphone and Android floor from the Aleph My photography company. And I have more than 13 years of experience teaching and working professionally in corporate fashion and portrait photography. I have covered London and Paris fashion weeks for international magazines. I have an artistic work in contemporary photography in which I use both my cannon and my iphone to take my series. I showed my work in solo and collective exhibitions, and I had won artistic grants and awards. I also have a master in contemporary art curating. And I have created my students portfolios that helped them to start working professionally in photography. I took photography into thousand and one as a hobby, and I could have never imagined where it would take me from being an amateur hobby to becoming a profession and an art with increasing technology on mobiles. In the past few years, I've been taking more and more photos with my iphone. I think it's amazing that we have such a powerful camera at hand. On this class, you will have a complete guide on how to take creative photos with your iphone or Android and edit them like a professional photographer. You will first learn the basics on how to use the camera of your mobile. And then we will get deeper into camera lenses, how to control the lighting, and the best camera modes for different types of photographs. We will also cover my favorite part of photography, the creative side. You will master composition techniques, point of view, and I will share tricks to make your photos look amazing. I will show you examples of my own work for you to be able to understand the concepts. We will also talk about how to curate your own photographs and organize them in albums by genres or themes. At the end, you will learn how to edit your photographs using two apps that are totally free, Lay Room and Snapseed. You will be taught the tools that professional photographers as myself on our everyday work, to improve the lighting, the color, and to also remove imperfections. And create your own preset to apply to a bunch of photos. This will save you tons of time and will help you to develop your unique style. I will explain with my iphone and sometimes also with a Samsung mobile. In some lessons, I will explain the two together and in other lessons I will separate them. Please have that into account. Most of the Android mobiles available resemble pretty much these two brands. If you're using another model or another brand, it could happen that it doesn't have all the features covered in this class. But you should still be able to follow along the lessons and apply most of the concepts that you will learn here. I invite you to do the final project to practice what you learned in the class. Without further ado, please pick your mobile and let's get started. 2. Learn Some Basic Tips to Start: Let's get started. I would like to share with you my own photo tips that you can apply to your own photography. First, we have the technique. This is an important part of photography. To be able to apply the technique, we have to, of course, know the rules. As you probably heard, we first need to know the rules to later be able to break them. Something equally important is practice. As everything in life, trial and error is the way to go. The more you practice, the better you will become at something. Go out and take a lot of photographs, but also start to take them more consciously. Take a moment before shooting to see what you want to shot, to apply the techniques that you will learn in this course. Also, take a moment after taking the photo to review them, to see what you like about your photo, in case you want to improve something of your photo that will help you a to learn. Finally, don't forget to experiment. Once you know how to do something. The problem is that we tend to do it the same way over and over again. Maybe we go on holidays to a different place. But as we already know how to take a nice landscape, probably all our landscapes start to look the same. To change that, it's important to use our creativity to try new things. To leave our comfort zone as often as possible. We will talk about point of view later that are a great way to become more creative with our photography. 3. Mobile Photography Basics: Camera Lenses: In this section, we will talk about the basics of mobile photography. Depending on your iphone or Android, you might have one or more lenses. I'm using an iphone 13 Pro. I have a telephoto ****, a wide angle ****, and an ultra wide angle ****. The first one is the best four portraits. The wide angle is better for landscape street photography. To use it on your mobile, just stop on the 05x ****. The ultra wide is the one used for macro photography. To use it, you just need to get really close to an object and your camera will switch to this **** automatically. But we will cover it more deeply in another lesson. In the next section. Remember to only use the zoom that you see on the camera. Yes, on the screen or with the portrait mode because these are optical zoom **** will be the one that magnify the image. But if you zoom in with your fingers, what will happen is that you sum will be done digitally, the image will lose quality. You also have the selfie camera. Well I recommend to use this one only for self. If you want to print that photo later, Well, it won't have a lot of quality as the other lenses that you have available on your phone. 4. Focus Control: We are now going to cover focus control. You have to tap on the screen on the area that you want to achieve the focus. You can have the focus on the foreground or the background. If you have the focus on the foreground, that area will appear sharp. But if you have it on the background, then the foreground will appear blurry and the background will be sharp. We will expand this more when we talk about the portrait mode. To lock your focus for upcoming shots, you have to tap and hold the focus area until you see the A F lock. If you want to change the focus to another area, you have to tap on another area of the screen. 5. Iphone: Photo Tools: Now we're going to talk about the most useful tools that you have available in your phone to use them. Open the camera up and then tap the arrow at the top. You will see that the menu appears at the bottom. On the left, you will find the flash. You can turn it on or off, or choose auto. Which means that your mobile will choose when to activate the flash or not. Depending the situation, I personally recommend to use the flash only if you're shooting a person or a small group of people in the night and you don't have a lot of light available. But I will really avoid it to shoot a landscape. Because as you will learn later in this course, to shoot a night landscape, it will be better to use the night mode. Next to the flash, you will find the live mode, we will see that mode later, also in a special section. Then you have the styles that are basically presets of tone and warm that you can also personalize them at the moment that you are shooting a photo. You can swipe between the different styles. Standard rich contrast, vibrant, warm and cool. If you want to customize a photographic style, you can adjust the tone or warm of each style. You just need to drag the slider to the right or to the left to adjust the value. If you bring the tone up, you will make a photo brighter and more vivid. While bringing it down increases the contrast and adds more shadows. If you bring the warmth up will hsee the warm temperature in a photo, while bringing it down will enhance the blue temperature. If you tap on the arrow that looks like a circle, you can reset the values. It's important to note that photographic styles are not filters. You cannot change them after you took a photo. The only time that you can change photographic style is before shooting a photo. If you want to change to a different style, you will have to take the photo again. Next to styles, you will find the format ratio. This is the aspect ratio of an image. That will be the proportion between the width and the height of an image. You will find three sizes in your mobile 43 square. And 16943 is the best one since it uses the full megapixels of your camera square will be the one optimized for Instaam. But unless you are only using that photo for Instaam, I prefer to shoot in 43 and then crop it. When I upload it to that platform, the aspect ratio of your sensor is 43. That means that when you shoot a photo in 169, you're actually using just a part of the sensor. You are corroping the image. And as a result, you will have an image that has lower quality. Next to that, you will find exposure compensation. You can move the slider to the right or left to adjust the lighting to make a photo brighter or darker. You can see that at the top left corner shows that you have applied the exposure compensation. Remember to reset it to zero if you don't want the same adjustment your upcoming shots. Next to that, you will find the Tim. This is a great tool when you want to take a photo and you want also to be part in that photo, you will find two types of timers, the 3 seconds and the 10 seconds. One What I tend to do is that I will place my mobile on steady place. I will set the timer to 10 seconds, then press the shutter button. Then I will move with my friends and I will be part of the photograph. Tap on the timer. You can select the 10 seconds timer. If you want to take a selfie with the timer, you can change to selfie view and then tap on the shutter button. And the timer will count 10 seconds and then it will take the photo. If you prefer the 3 seconds timer, you can change to that one. Moving on, you will find the filters. Filters are different than styles. Because you can apply them. Also, after taking the photo, you are also able to change the filter. If you didn't like the one that you choose, you can drag the slider to choose between the different filters available. Then take a photo. If you want to change the filter that you chose or if you want to have the photo without it, just go to edit and then tap on filters and select a new one. Or choose original tap done to save your edits. Or if you don't like your changes, tap on cancel. I prefer to apply the filters afterwards, but that is really up to you. Finally, you have the option to shoot in row, tap on row, and turn it on or off. You can also turn raw files on at the top corner of your camera. The difference between a JPG file and raw file is that JPG are files that have been compressed by your mobile, which means they are files that are going to be lighter than the raw ones. They are files that have been processed by your mobile. They will have a greater lighting colors and also sharpness. The raw files, as the name says in English, they are files that haven't been processed. They are raw. You cannot use a raw file, for example, to upload to Instagram or to print an image, you will have to post process that file, edit that file on an app, on a program, and then converted to JPG to be able to print or to upload to Instagram. Raw files take more space in your mobile, but as a result, they have more sensor data to work with, Meaning that you will have more possibility to edit the colors, the lighting, also the sharpness of an image. My recommendation for you is to always shoot in PG, unless you want to take a photo that you're going to enlarge. Let's say to do an artwork you need really a lot of quality or you really want to edit that image in detail. Then you can go for a raw file. A thing to note, when you shoot a photo in JPG and then you shoot the same in raw. You won't see a difference in the preview in your mobile, because actually your mobile is sharing a preview in JPG. But you will see it when you open the app that you will use to edit. You will see that the files are washed out. They don't have, again, the color and the gray saturation as we will see in JPG file. 6. Android: Photo Tools: We are going to see now how to find some basic tools in Android. You will find a menu at the top with different icons. On the left you will find a flash. You can turn it on or off, or choose auto, which means that your mobile will choose when to activate the flash or not. Depending the situation, I personally recommend to use the flash only if you're shooting a person or a small group of people in the night and you don't have a lot of light available. But I will really avoid it to shoot a landscape. Because as you will learn later in this course to shoot a night landscape, it will be better to use the night mode. Next to that, you will find the timer. This is a great tool when you want to take a photo and you want also to be part in that photo. What I tend to do is that I will place my mobile on a steady place. I will set the timer to 10 seconds, then press the shutter button, and then I will move with my friends and I will be part of the photograph. Tap on the timer. You can select the 2 seconds, the 5 seconds, or the 10 seconds. If you want to take a selfie with the timer, you can change to selfie view, then tap on the 10 seconds timer. Then tap on the shutter button. And the timer will count 10 seconds, and then it will take the photo. Next to that, you will find the format ratio. This is the aspect ratio of an image. That will be the proportion between the width and the height of an image. You can find four sizes in your mobile 3491611. And full 34 is the best one since it uses the full megapixels of your camera. The aspect ratio of your sensor is 43. That means that when you shoot a photo in 169, you're actually using just a part of the sensor, so you're corroping the image. And as a result, you will have an image that has lower quality. 11 will be the one optimized for Instagram. But unless you are only using the photo four Instagram, I prefer to shoot in 34 and then crop it. When I upload it to Instagram, full aspect ratio is the most cropped and the one that has the lowest resolution. You can see in this example that 34 or 43 that is highlighted in light blue takes the whole image, while the other formats crop the photo. Moving on, you will see motion photos. Motion photos puts a little context into the making of the shot by letting you to capture a few seconds of action. Before you lift your finger from the shutter button, you will see the photo as a little video. If you tap where it says at the bottom, see motion photo, you can see the full video. And it gives you the option at the top to save the video, then you're able to share it. Another option that you have, again when you tap on view motion photo, is to create a gift. You will see it at the bottom. You can choose which part of the video you want to save it as a gift to share with your friends. Finally, you will find on the one icon, the image filters on the menu at the top, you will see the filters option. Below it will appear different options for you to choose. You will see the warm filter, the cold one, and many others, like the ivory filter, colorless, soft. At the end, you will see the black and white filters, like the gray, the classic, and black and white. With the slider, you can control the intensity of each filter. If you take a photo with a filter and then tap on the photo and go to edit, you will find the filters icon that is represented by three circles. You will see that all the filters appear again. So you can select another one for your photo. Or even go back to the original photo without any filters. Tap on Save if you want to keep the edit on the top menu, you will find more filters to choose depending on the model of your mobile. At the end, you will have the phase filters, which allow you to make modifications to your model's face. You're able to add different filters. The first one is a smoothness slide the bar to adjust it to your desired level. You can also add the tone filter again, change it with the slider. You will also find the Jo filter in eyes and nose again. You can adjust it with the slider on the right, you will see a phase icon. If you tap on it, you can turn on or off these filters. Finally, you have the option to shoot in a row to activate it, tap on settings, then format and advance options and then activate the raw copies. The difference between a JPG file and a Raw file is that JPG are files that have been compressed by your mobile, which means they are files that are going to be lighter than the raw ones. They are files that have been processed by your mobile. They will have a greater lighting colors and also sharpness. The raw files, as the name says in English, they are files that haven't been process. They are raw. You cannot use a raw file, for example, to upload to Instagram or to print an image, you will have to post process that file, edit that file on an app, on a program, and then converted to JPG to be able to print or to upload to Instagram. Raw files take more space in your mobile, but as a result, they have more sensor data to work with, meaning that you will have more possibility to edit the colors, the lighting, also the sharpness of an image. My recommendation for you is to always shoot in JPG unless you want to take a photo that you're going to enlarge. Let's say to do an artwork you need really a lot of quality or you really want to edit that image in detail, then you can go for a file. 7. iPhone: Live Photo. Creative Ideas & Long Exposure: Live photo is only available for phones. If you're using an Android mobile, please check the lesson on Pro Mode. First, you need to tap on the right corner and activate Live. When you take a photograph using Live mode, you will see it as a little video. Since your phone records what happens 1.5 seconds before and after you take the photo. This will give you the possibility to choose a different key photo or add other creative effects. To change the key photo, you will have to tap on Edit. After that, you will find at the bottom left the live photos button. Tap on it, and move the slider to change the frame. It will give you the option to choose another key photo. Touch on where it says Make key photo. To choose that selected photo as the one that you like to keep. Another thing that you can do is to tap on live and choose loop or bounce for a creative effect. This could be useful for example, for interm stories or just to have fun. But for me, the most amazing feature is long exposure. Go again to live and tap on long exposure. This one is particularly useful if you're shooting water to achieve the fact that water looks like silk. Instead of seeing the frozen drops before. This effect was only possible using a DSLR or analogue camera. In the lesson of manual photography and exposure triangle, I will explain to you what is long exposure. You will be able to understand it and apply it for your own photography. You will also be able to control the exposure manually using an app. 8. iPhone: HDR: What is HR? When I ask this question, some of my students tend to say high definition, but no. Hdr stands for High Dynamic Range. Dynamic Range means the range of the lightest stones to the darkest stones within a photo. The higher the dynamic range is in a photo, it will have more detail between the areas of the highlights and the shadows. It is helpful for high contrast situations. What will happen is that your mobile will take three photos at different exposures. A bright image for exposing correctly for the shadows, a neutral image for the mid tones, and a dark image for the highlights. And we'll plan them together. In the end, you will have a photo with more detail. If you don't use HDR, it might happen that the sky turns over expose. In some photo ops, I recommend to have it on for almost every situation. The newest iphones have the HDR setting by default, meaning that you cannot change it. But older iphones or other mobiles still give you the option to turn it on or turn it off. To turn it on, you have to go to the main settings of your iphone and browse camera and then scroll down until you see HDR. Then you can turn it on. In older mobiles, I used to turn it off when I was shooting a portrait because I didn't like it. It looked a little bit artificial. But you have to really test it yourself according to the mobile that you have, your model, and see if you like it or not. 9. Android: HDR: What is H D R? When I ask this question, some of my students tend to say high definition, but no. H DR stands for High Dynamic Range. Dynamic Range means the range of the lightest stones to the darkest stones within a photo. The higher the dynamic range is in a photo, it will have more detail between the areas of the highlights and the shadows. It is helpful for high contrast situations. What will happen is that your mobile will take three photos at different exposures. A bright image for exposing correctly for the shadows. A neutral image for the mid tones. A dark images for the highlights. And we'll blend them together. In the end, you will have a photo with more detail. If you don't use HDR, it might happen that the sky turns over exposed in some photographs. I recommend to have it on for almost every situation to turn it on on Android. When you are in the camera up, just go to settings there Bros, until you find HDR and turn it on in older mobiles. I used to turn it off when I was shooting a portrait because I didn't like it. It looked a little bit artificial. But you have to really test it yourself according to the mobile that you have, your model, and see if you like it or not. 10. Exposure Compensation: Let's talk now about exposure compensation. When you tap on the screen, you not only adjust the focus but also the exposure when you tap as sun will appear for iphone users, or it could be a light bulb for Android users. Depending on your mobile, you can move the slider to the right or the left, or up and down to adjust the lighting to make the photo brighter or darker. Imagine that you are on an outdoor setting and there is a lot of light around you. Probably like to decrease it a little bit. Or maybe you are indoors and the setting is quite dark. You would like to increase the light a little bit. This is a great feature to adjust the lighting without having to use the flash. In upcoming lessons, we will see how to edit your photos using light room. And I will show you ways to adjust exposure, but always try to get the best photo at the time that you're shooting. 11. BONUS: Iphone Tips: How to Open Your Camera App & Burst Mode: Let's see now how to open the camera of your mobile really fast. From the lock screen, you can swipe from right to left. It will open the camera up. Also from the lock screen you can directly tab at the bottom right corner and open it from there. When you are on your home screen, you can go to the right top corner with your finger and drag down. Depending on the customization that you did previously, you will see your camera up there. If you press for a few seconds, it will give you the option to take a selfie, a video, a portrait, or a portrait selfie. We are going to cover now the burst mode. It will give you the possibility to shoot many photos at a time. You have to open the camera of your iphone and then swipe the shutter bottom to the left. You have to lift your finger when you want to stop. Then you can select from all the photos that you took. The ones that you want to keep, just tap on the photos. Then it will give you the option to keep everything or to keep only the ones that you selected. The birds mode is helpful to shoot a person or an object that is moving, so you can later select the best photo fro and interaction that you wanted, like I'll show you in this example that my niece's jump. 12. BONUS: Android Tips: How to Open Your Camera App & Burst Mode: Let's see now how to open the camera of your mobile really fast. On the lock screen, press the power button twice and you will open the camera up. Also from the lock screen, you can tap on the camera icon and slide your finger up. And you will open the up or from the home screen, browse for the camera icon and you will open it. We are going to cover now the burst mode. It will give you the possibility to shoot many photos at a time. When you are about to take a photo, press the shutter button and move it down. As long as you hold it there, you will be taking photos. When you lift your finger, it will stop. If you go to your images, you will be able to see all the ones that you took and select the ones that you want to keep. Just stop on the photos that you like and then on the arrow below. And it will give you the option to keep only that photo and delete the unselected ones. Then you can save the image. 13. Camera Modes: Portrait Mode on iPhone and Android: On this section, we will cover the different camera modes that you have available on your mobile. Let's start with the portrait mode. This is a great mode to shoot people, but you can also use it to show details and textures of things. If you have a fashion brand or you sell accessories, it's a great way to show the details and the texture of your clothes. If you're doing landscape photography, it's great to take a photo of the whole space. But also it's good to get closer to something that you like, something that call your attention, and use the portrait mode to shoot that. This is a way to get more involved in what's happening in a place. Select the portrait mode on your phone. In newer phones you have two options, the three X and the one X zoom. In Android you will have to tap on more. It could say portrait or focus, or **** blur on phone. If you tap on the upper right corner, you will find an F. It stands for the F, stop, the aperture of your ****. This resembles analog or DSLR cameras that have lenses with different apertures. The smaller the F number, you will have a shallower depth of field. The bigger the F number, you will see everything more in focus or have a deeper depth of field. In photography, death of feel is the sound within a photo that appears sharp and in focus. It extends in front of and behind the point where we have our focus point. Subjects located in this area will be in focus. Subjects outside this area will be out of focus. It's important to adjust the F number correctly, because if you have two persons or two objects in a photo and you don't use the correct F number, it could happen that the other person or the other objects appears out of focus. You can see in my example that by changing the F number or depth of field, I make the object at the back to appear in focus two. If you use an Android phone, instead of seeing the F number, you will see a slider that you can move to the right or to the left. That will have the same effect, you will be changing the depo feel of your photograph. Another thing to have into account, as we mentioned before when we talk about focus control, we can choose to tap on the subject that is in the foreground or the subject that is in the background. 14. BONUS: iPhone Portrait Lighting: In portrait mode, you can tap the lighting control symbol to select a lighting effect. You have the regular, that is natural light. The face is shown clearly and the background is blurred. Then you can choose photo studio light. With this one, the face will look brighter and the photo will have more light. Overall, simulating a studio light next to it is counter light. With this one, the lighting effect will be more dramatic. The face will appear with deep shadows, with some areas looking very bright and others very dark. Following that one, you will find the stage light. With this one, the face will stand out as the background will turn black. Then you will find stage light mono. This one is similar to the previous one, but the photo will turn black and white. Finally, you can find high key light mono. With this one, the face will turn black and white and the background white. After choosing the lighting effect that you like, tap the shutter button to take the photo. After shooting the photo, you can remove the lighting effect if you don't like it to do this, tap on the photo. Then on edit, and afterwards you can change the effect or remove it. Also, each effect gives you the possibility to adjust the intensity of it. Move the slider to the right or left to make it more intense or less intense. To change the effect, tap where you see the effect symbols and move the slider to the side. If you want to remove it, chose natural light, click on Done to save the photo. 15. iPhone: Macro Photography: From the iphone 13 Pro onwards, The iphone has the feature of macro photography, meaning that your iphone is designed with this ultra wide **** that gives you the possibility to take a short photo of an object very close to the camera. Like even this close to do it, you just have to get really, really close to an object. It could be as close as 2 centimeters and the camera will automatically switch to the ultra wide ****. This is a fantastic way to shoot details, textures, wildlife or anything that you want. 16. Android: Macro Photography: We will continue with macro photography on Android, on your mobile, you just have to go to more on your settings and select Macro. Then you just have to get close to an object around three to 5 centimeters. With this mode, you can take a sharp photo of an object that is really close to your camera. This is a fantastic way to shoot details, textures, wildlife, or anything that you want. Some androids might not have the macro mode, so you just need to tap on the drawing of a close up and get really close to your subject. 17. iPhone: Panorama: Panorama is a fantastic mode to shoot. Landscapes. To select this mode on iphone, scroll to the right until you see the panel mode. You have to press the shutter button one time and start moving slowly in the direction of the arrow. When you're ready, press the shutter button again. On phone, you can tap the arrow to pan in the opposite direction. I see that people tend to do the panorama like a semicircle. This can work well if you're shooting on a garden, but sometimes it could lead to a photo that looks like this. The witch was actually straight. If you want to avoid that, the best thing to do is to place your mobile parallel to the wall and keep moving straight. If you want a vertical panorama, just rotate your mobile to the landscape orientation and move upwards. To achieve better panoramas, I recommend using a gimbal, that is an stabilizer for your mobile. 18. Android: Panorama: Panorama is a fantastic mode to shoot. Landscapes on Android. Go to the right until you see more, and then choose the panorama mode. You have to press the shutter button one time and start moving slowly in the direction of the arrow. When you're ready, press the shadow button again. I see that people tend to do the panorama like a semicircle. This can work well if you're shooting on a garden, but sometimes it could lead to a photo that looks like this, The which was actually a straight. If you want to avoid that, the best thing to do is to place your mobile parallel to the wall and keep moving straight. If you want a vertical panorama, just rotate your mobile to the landscape orientation and move upwards. To achieve better panoramas, I recommend using a gimbal, that is an stabilizer for your mobile. 19. Night Photography on iPhone and Android: Now we're going to cover the night mode, both on iphone and Android. And this is a great mode for low light situations. On Android, you need to tap on more and then select night. On iphone, it turns on automatically when the camera detects a situation where we don't have a lot of light available. I want to mention that the night mode is only available in iphone 11 or later on dark settings, The night mode button will appear at the corner of the screen and you can turn it off or on. When it's on, you can tap on the arrow at the top, then tap on the icon of the night mode at the bottom to be able to use the slider to move between the auto and the max timers. Changing the Tim Er will allow you to control the exposure time when you're using auto. Your iphone will set the exposure time automatically. With Max, it will use the longest exposure time available. The longer the exposure time, your phone will capture more light. This is the first example that I took when I set the timer to auto. This is the second example. When I set it to max, the exposure time was 1 second. You can appreciate how the whole image is brighter, but especially you can see it on the darker areas. How the black of the background has more details in this photo, where as in the previous one, it is a more intense black. On the newest Androids, you will see that you will have a timer very similar to the one in iphone. But older Androids won't have the option to change the exposure time. It will be just set to auto to achieve the best result. With this mode, you will need to keep your mobile steel or to use a tripod. If you have camera movements, you might get a blurry photo. What happens is that the shutter of your camera is being open for the time that you set. If you move your camera during that time, as your camera is capturing the light, you will get a blurry photo. If you want to know more about the shutter, I explained that on the lesson on manual photography, please check that. 20. Manual Photography. Exposure Triangle: In this lesson, I will talk about manual photography. You know that apart from your mobile, we need light to be able to see a photo. We control the light using the exposure triangle. Understanding these concepts will help you if you want to manually control the settings of your camera. If you're using an Android, the way that you will do that is by using the Prod. If you're using an iphone, it will be through an app that is called Ra. Plus. In upcoming lessons, I will explain you in detail how to use the Pro Mode on Android and the row plus P on iphone. Let's start now with exposure triangle. We have three things to control, the aperture, the share speed, and the 0 aperture in photography is the opening of the camera ****, which is related to the amount of light that passes through the camera ****. I explained aperture before with the portrait mode, but I wanted to repeat the lesson here just to make sure that you understand the concept. The aperture is measured with the number. The smaller the number, you will have a shallower depth of field. The bigger the number, you will see everything more in focus or have a deeper depth of feel. In photography. Death of feel, the song within a photo that appears sharp and in focus. It extends in front of and behind the point where we have our focus point. Subjects located in this area will be in focus. Subjects outside this area will be out of focus. In this example, I use an F number of 1.4 The focus is in the little angel. As I have a shallow, therefore feel, you can see that the foreground is out of focus and also the background. In the second example, I use an F number of 16. Again, the focus is in the little angel, But as I use a bigger F number, I have a deep def of feel. I expanded my focus area both to the foreground and the background. Another thing to have into account is that the smaller the F number, more light will enter to your lenses, the bigger the F number less light will enter to your lenses. The next thing that we're going to talk about is the shutter speed. This is the amount of time that the shutter of your camera remains open. A lower shower speed allows more light in the photo will be brighter. This is ideal for photos taken at night. Also, a slower sharer speed will capture more movement. In this example that I'm sharing with you, I was able to capture the movement of the dancers. I recommend to use a tripod for this type of photography, because if not, you will also have your camera movement faster. Sharer speed allows less light in. This is helpful for capturing photos of fast moving objects to be able to freeze the subject. A shared speed of 1/125 is a standard when you don't have a moving subject. If you're shooting sports or other types of movement, you will want to use a higher shared speed, such as 1/250 or even faster than that to freeze the action. In my example, I use 1/250 to freeze the model. When you're using these high speeds, make sure that you have a lot of light available for a well exposed photo. The third element that we're going to talk about is the. So this controls how sensitive is your camera sensor to light. Low values are for brightly lit objects, higher values are for poorly lit objects. Have in mind that the higher, the 0 that you're using as your camera sensor is being more sensitive to light, you will have more digital noise. In the example, you can see that at higher levels, the digital noise is more visible. I recommend to try to keep your as lower as possible. But of course, if you are indoors and you need more light, you will have to increase the. So always check that the digital noise that you're seeing is not too bad. When I'm shooting night photography, my advice is to keep your saw as low as possible and instead use a tripod and uses low share speed. With that, you're allowing a lot of light to enter your camera, but without having to decrease the quality of it using a higher. So that will turn to a photo with a lot of digital noise. In my example of the City of New York at night, I use an 0 100 and kept my camera on a steady place. 21. iPhone: Manual Mode with Raw+ App: On iphone. If you want to manually control the settings of your camera, you will have to download an app called Row Plus or another similar. This one is free and you will find it in the Apple Store. Remember what we saw on the previous lesson on manual photography and exposure triangle. This app will only allow you to change the shared speed and the S, but not the aperture. Remember that if your most important thing in the photo is to be able to adjust the aperture, you will have to do that with the portrayed mode that we also saw on a previous lesson. Open the raw plus up, and you will find at the bottom the 0 and the shutter speed sliders. Move the slider that says shutter speed to be able to change it. If you move the slider to the left, you will use a slower shutter speed and more light will enter to your camera. If you move the slider to the right, you will use a faster shutter speed and less light will enter to your camera. You can also adjust the, if you move the slider to the right, you will be using a higher on your camera will become more sensitive to light, more light will enter to it. If you move the slider to the left, you will be using a lower, less light will enter to your camera. Another tool that you have is the White Balance Tool. It will help you keep the colors of your image as true as possible to the original. The different types of light are represented with these icons. A. B means automatic. Your mobile will adjust the color temperature automatically. Then you have the shade option. Then you have the cloudy color temperature. If you're using the flash day light, then you have white fluorescent if you are indoors or Another type of light is Tuxen. The white balance tool is at the top of the Raw Plus app. You will see the light icons that I have just explained. Choose the icon according to your current setting. 22. Android: Pro Mode (manual mode): Let's continue with the pro mode on Android. This mode allows you to manually control the settings of your camera. Remember what we saw on the previous lesson on manual photography and exposure triangle. Most of the Android mobiles will only allow you to change the share speed and the isome. Meaning that the upper tour will be set automatically by your mobile. It could happen that in a new model, you will be able to also adjust the per tour. But remember, if your most important thing in your photo is to adjust the upper tour, you will be able to do that using the portrait mode as we saw on a previous lesson. To use the pro mode scroll to the right on the menu of the camera of your Android until you see more then tap on pro mode. Tap on the icon of the shutter speed to be able to change it. If you move the slider to the right, you will be using a slower shutter speed, and more light we enter to your camera. If you move the slider to the left, you will be using a faster shutter speed and less light we enter to your camera. You can also adjust the O. If you move the slider to the right, you will be using a higher o, and more light we enter to your camera. If you move the slider to the left, you will be using a lower iso less light will enter to your camera. You will see that when you change the iso or the shutter speed, the EV will change two. E V means exposure value. It indicates the amount of light obtained from the combination of the iso and the shutter speed. If it goes red or gray and a minus appears, the camera is telling you that the photo is under expose, so it's too dark. What you can do to solve this is to increase the IO or use a slower shutter speed. Doing any of the two adjustments will make your camera to capture more light, so the photo will be brighter. On the contrary, if you see that a plus appears, the camera is telling you that the photo is over, so it's too bright. What you can do to solve this is to decrease the iso or to use a faster shutter speed. Doing any of these two will make your camera to capture less light, so the photo will be darker. If your mobile has a white balance tool, it will help you to keep the colors of your image as t as possible to the original. You can set the color temperature according to the situation you are in. In photography, the color temperature is measured in calvins. For example, the color temperature of daylight is 5,500 calvin. On the promote tap on white balance and move the slider to the left or right. If you move the slider to the left, your mobile will adjust the color temperature, so it looks colder. If you move the slider to the right, we adjust the color temperature, so it looks warmer. We will expand more about color temperature in the section that we will talk about color editing in line room. 23. Composition: Framing: Composition in photography is the way in which we arrange the visual elements within our frame. To compose is to create. We can think of the composition of our photographs as an artist that design an artwork. The first thing that we have to choose is the framing. The frame is the portion of the image that we decide will get inside our photograph. We have three orientations to frame our photos. It could be horizontal, vertical or diagonal. The horizontal orientation is mostly used for landscapes and shooting video. Nowadays, that lots of people are posting on Instrum most of photos that you will see around are vertical. So you probably are seeing a lot of vertical landscapes, too. This also applies for videos. As everyone is doing stories or the reels, you will see that most of the videos are also vertical. In the old days, the vertical orientation was mostly used for portraits or fashion photography. Regarding composition, what we choose to include inside the frame is equally important to what we choose to live outside the frame. In this example, you can see that there were tourists on the right. So by shooting the photo in the vertical orientation, I avoided them. You can do the same if you see other distracting elements in your frame, such as junk or other things that you don't like. The third option is to use the diagonal orientation. For this one, you will have to tilt your phone. This creates an illusion of movement and it is often used for extreme sports. This example, I took it at offensive competition at the Olympic games in London, so you can see how the image has more movement when it's tilted than when it's straight. Something important the photography is to be clear with your statement. If you want to shoot a diagonal photograph, then make it look diagonal and not just a little bit because it could look like it's more a mistake than really your decision. You can try this framing for all types of photography, not only sports or landscapes, you can also shoot portraits. In this example, I tilted my camera horizontally like this. And in this other example, I tilted vertically like this. 24. Rule of Thirds: The rule of thirds is a composition technique that places your subject of center in the photograph to the left or right third of an image, leaving the other two thirds more open. The rule of thirds generally leads to, well composts and balance shots. It is called Rule of thirds because we have three vertical thirds and three horizontal ones in the intersection of the lines, we can imagine four points. The idea is to place our most important object in one of these points. Of course, we can use more than one object and use more than one point. I'm sharing now some examples of the same sculpture and you can see how I play around with the subject, placing it in the four different points. To be able to use this rule more easily, you just have to turn the grid on on your mobile, on iphone. Just go to the main settings of your phone and brows the camera up. Then turn on the grid. If you go back to your camera, you will see it now on the screen on Android. When you are in the camera up, go to the settings, and there you will find the grid. And you just have to turn it on where it says three by three. 25. High and Low Horizon: We can also use the rule of thirds to know where to place the horizon. People tend to place the horizon in the middle because they think the middle is good. But actually, it could lead to a photo that is a little bit boring. It will be better to choose a high horizon or a low horizon. Of course, it depends on what we want to give more importance to. What do you think? Why did they choose a high horizon for this photo and why did I choose a low horizon for the second? On the first one, my priority was to give importance to the view, the island, the water. On the second one, my priority was the sky. I like those clouds with shapes that look like lines. That's why I placed my horizon at the bottom third. 26. Symmetry & Asymmetry: You can use the rule of thirds both for asymmetrical and symmetrical photos. If you want to take a symmetrical photo, you just need to imagine a line in the middle of the grid. And then plan your composition according to that symmetry. As we saw at the beginning when I explained this rule. When we use the grid as a reference to know where to place our subject of center in the photograph, the composition of our photo will be asymmetrical as the example I'm sharing with you here. 27. Perspective: Perspective is an optical illusion that serves to create a three dimensional sensation. In a photograph, the world is three D, but our photographs are always two D. Depending on the way that we connect the foreground, the middle ground, and the background, we can increase the three dimension in our photos by adding an element to your foreground. You can increment the perspective in a photo as in this example that I'm sharing with you. It is also important to use a wide angle **** that, remember this is the best **** for landscape photography. 28. Negative & Positive Space: It's important to think on the way that we use the positive and negative space. The positive space is the area that is full in which we have objects or people. The negative space is the area that is empty, where we have the sky or the ground living negative space helps the viewer to focus on the subject or subjects and avoid other distractions. In this example, I like the minimal look of the landscape. So my focus was the man walking towards the big tree on the left. The man and the tree are the positive space, underground and the sky are the negative space. 29. Fill the Frame: Filling the frame with your subject and leaving little or no space around it can work really well for certain situations. To achieve this, remember to get really close to your subject and use the portrait mode or the macromode. Remember that with the portrait mode, you will need a certain space to be able to achieve the focus. But with the macromde, it will give you the possibility to shoot being very close to your subject. The photos that I showed you before with the macromde are clear examples of applying this rule. You can see in the first one that the subject, the rose, takes most of the space of the frame. So there is almost no negative space, only a tiny it in the bottom left corner. In the second example, the leaves are all the positive space. 30. Frame Within the Frame: This is an interesting way to add a frame to your photograph. If you find around elements such as windows, arches, or plants, you can use them to frame the scene. It's not necessary that the frame surrounds the complete scene. It could be only the top borders or corners. In this photograph, the structure of the traffic lights of the street surrounds the muddle of the man only at the top. In this other example that I took in Nice, you can see that the window acts as a frame for the landscape. 31. BONUS: Camera Shot Sizes: Let's talk now about the camera shot sizes. Then refer to how much of a subject is displayed in an image. This concept is used for video two. There are different types of camera shot sizes, as you will see. The long shot, the full shot, the cowboy shot, the medium shot, the close up, and the extreme close up. The long shot, also known as the y shot, will keep the entire subject in frame while also showing the surrounding environment. The full shot lets your subject fill the frame head to toe while still allowing some features of the scenery. It is the chosen one for fashion. For example, the cowboy shot frames the subject from the knees or mid side to the top of the head. It's called cowboy shot because it was used a lot in cowboy films. It's very important not to cut the photo exactly at the joint. It's better to carry a little bit higher or it could be a little bit lower as well. Because if not, it will be considered a technical error. You can use the tip. Also, if you're shooting an upper body photo, I will suggest not to cut, for example, the photo exactly on your shoulder. But you can, again, carry a little bit here or a little bit here, leaving a little bit of a space. Because if you're shooting a model, it will look like if that person has a part of their body that is missing to avoid given that idea. Yes. Again, try to cut it a little bit before or after the joint. The medium shot frames from the waist up to the top of the head. The close up shot fills your frame with just the face of your subject. An extreme close up shot fills the whole frame with your subject, causing the face to be cropped within the frame. For example, you can focus just on the eyes of your model or another part of the body like the hands. 32. Camera Angles: We are now going to cover camera angles. A camera angle is the specific location at which a camera is placed to take a photograph. Depending on the place where we set the camera in relation to the subject, it can affect the way the viewers perceives it. Changing your point of view is a great way to be more creative and play around with your photography. 33. Bird's Eye View: To take a photograph using the bird's eye view, you have to be standing on a place higher than your subject. You can shoot from a terrace, a balcony or simply be standing on a chair or some stairs. The idea is to place your mobile parallel to the ground. You might be able to see a cross or maybe just a line, depending on your mobile model to help you achieve to be parallel to the floor. The bird's eye view has become a popular angle to shoot food photography. In my example, I had to step on a chair to be able to shoot the whole table. Another type of photo that I like to do is to shoot the tiles of the floors. Pay attention because you will see that there's something missing on this angle, that you will be able to see it on the next. 34. High Angle: Now let's continue with the high angle. Can you discover what it was missing in the previous angle that we can see now in this high angle? Yes. Something that we talked before. The perspective in the bird's eye view, the perspective was missing. It looked like everything was flat. This could be great to achieve an impactful photo, but sometimes, as we mentioned before, you would like to have perspective in your photos to emulate the three dimension, especially when you're shooting a landscape. Definitely when we use the high angle, we will see that perspective. Also, everything that is closer to your camera will become bigger. In this example, you can see that the grass appears bigger than the cliffs that are located on the middle ground and the background. This is a great angle to shoot landscapes, but be careful if you're shooting people because you will make their heads appear bigger in relation to their body. 35. Eye Level. Photograph a Full Body Portrait. Photograph a Child: The eye level is the angle that we use the most and it is the best one for portraits. We have to set our phone like this. An important tip to have into account to avoid camera distortions, as we saw with the high angle in the previous lesson, is that when you're shooting a baby or a pet, you will have to be at their eye level. Maybe you will have to sit on the floor to achieve that. In this example, you can see the differences between the high angle and the eye level when you're shooting a full body portrait. The best way to do it is to shoot from somewhere between your waist and hip. But shoot from your hip without tilting your phone. Because if I do that, I will add camera distortions. Keep your mobile straight. This is what fashion photographers do. For example, when we're shooting a lookbook with the step, we elongate the model's body and it will look more stylized. I know sometimes it's a little bit uncomfortable to shoot from your hip. Another thing that you can do is to turn your mobile upside down. With that, you will have your lenses at the bottom and it could be a little bit more comfortable. 36. Low Angle: Now we're going to continue with the low angle. The low angle is the opposite from the high angle. Remember in the high angle we were here in the low angle. We are going to shoot from here in the low angle. Similar to the high angle, what is closer to the camera will become bigger. As this example of the tree, you can see that the bottom seems wider than the top. Be careful when you're shooting a person because you will make their feet and legs to appear huge at the camera. Maybe you don't want that as you can see in the photo of the sculpture. But this is a creative angle to try out for landscapes or other types of photography. 37. Low Angle for Selfies. Tips: Remember that we mentioned that the low angle is not the best for portraits. But if you are on a crowded space full of tourists and you want to take a selfie of yourself, what you can do is to place your mobile from below and look down. Doing that, you minimize the distortion and you elevate your background to avoid the tourist. If you don't look down, this is how your selfie will look. See that I have my grid activated and I use the upper third to place my eyes. This is a helpful tool when you're shooting a close up. 38. Very Low Angle: Let's move on to the very low angle. The very low angle is just the opposite from the bird's eye view that. Remember we were here with the very low angle. We have to, again, be parallel, but here we're going to be parallel to the ceiling. This is an amazing angle to shoot the ceilings of the churches or theaters. Again, you will see that little cross or the lines, depending on your mobile, that will help you to find the right point to take your photograph. If you're using this point of view, my recommendation is to go for a symmetric photograph. Since most of the time architecture tends to be symmetrical. My tip for this photographs is to make sure that you're standing really, really on the center of the ceiling. Because if you are moving a little bit to the right or to the left, that will be a problem. Later you will see that your photo is not symmetrical and to edit that in post production is really, really complicated. So my recommendation is better to wait a few minutes, the amount of time that you need, and you will make sure that you will have a professional photo like these examples that I'm sharing with you. 39. Storytelling: Telling a Story with Your Photography: Storytelling is the art of conveying stories. You are not just showing beautiful things, but you're also sharing a particular situation that could be real or imagined. From your point of view, you probably heard the famous quote, A picture tells the southern words. As we talked before, a picture is like a painting. You are composing an image and you want to share something with the public. When we take a photo, we communicate something. It's important to know what is the message that we want to communicate. You can ask yourselves these questions. What is the purpose of this image? What is the most important thing in my photo? Is it a person? Is it a feeling or an emotion? Take a moment before taking the photo, To thinking that it will save you editing time or having to review one south photos with no clear objective. As we talked before, if you have elements in your picture, don't add really nothing interesting in your photograph. It's better to crop them out. Having a lot of things going on in an image could be really distracting for the viewer. As you can observe in this example, there are some electrical elements and cables on the right that don't really add anything of value in this other photo. By choosing the vertical frame, I removed those objects. I just focused on the architecture of the place and the texture of the wall that we are my main interests in the picture. Moreover, if you use the light correctly, you can lead your viewer's eye to the place that is more important for you. In the photo in this picture, you can see that the museum is full of artworks, but having the natural light focusing on the sculpture that is in the middle, it makes it the most important thing to look despite the other elements around. What I wanted to show in this picture is the purity and simplicity of the sculpture that portray a woman who is focused, making her art. Her image creates a big contrast with the saturation of the museum that is full of colors, gold, details, and artworks. 40. Curatorship: Select Your Best Photos: Now is the time to select our best photographs to send to our friends, to print them out or to post them on social media. A good tip to know which ones are your best photographs is to think on what we have just mentioned, the story telling. You can ask yourself the same questions again that you ask before taking the photo. What is the purpose of this image? What is the most important thing, if it is a person? If it's a feeling or an emotion that you want to share, look for the photograph that shows that message more clearly. Then think about the technique. If it doesn't have any mistakes, then think on the lighting. Which one has the best lighting? Then there is something that has to do with your personal style. Trust your gut, in which one is the photo that touches your heart more. I want to share with you some examples with this series of photos. In the first one, you can see that the composition is messy. There is a lot going on. I don't really know what is the most important thing. In this photograph. You can see part of a sidewalk, a couple that is going to the right. A girl that is being barely visible. Not really a good photo. In the second example, the landscape is nice but there's nothing going on. It's really a boring photo. In this one, you see a girl, but it's really hard to see her again. I don't understand what's the purpose of this image. The composition is also not correct. The rule of thirds is not being applied. Again, we have another messy photo. In this one, the boy is almost being confused with the tree. There is another tree appearing on the left, but it's cut. There is a strong shadow at the bottom that adds nothing to the image. We can see, again, a lot of technical mistakes in this one that follows, you can see that the image is over exposed as we talk in the other examples, the composition is also not correct. From the series of photos, I selected this one as my final image. I like how minimal it is. There are only three main elements, the man, the tree, and the bench. You can see that the most important thing that is happening is that the man is walking towards the big tree. For me, this photo has a spiritual meaning. The man seems tired. He's not walking straight in a way. The big tree can be a metaphor for his wish, the thing that he wants to accomplish in life. You can see that there is an obstacle in the middle, the bench. Or we can actually see it as something good, that he can take a little rest before he continues his journey toward his objective. Of course, this is just my story telling another person who probably see something different. But the important thing is that this is a photograph that opens questions, ideas, that gives you the possibility, think to imagine your own story. That's what good artwork should always do, to give a space to the spectator, to use the imagination. If a photo has technical issues, the main objects or characters are not clear as in the previous examples. It will only confuse the viewer. As today, the attention span is very short. The person will move on and won't pay attention to our photo. That's why in photography, it's important to have a clear meaning behind the photograph and to use the technique accordingly to show the message that we want to communicate. 41. Organize Your Material. Use Albums for Different Themes or Genres: All mobiles have the option to select with the heart, our favorite photos, and then we will find them in the favorite folder. The favorite folder in iphone is inside the photos app on Android is inside the gallery app. That's a good thing to do, but I also like to do something different to organize my material. I start to select the photos that I like, I group them on albums. For example, I have one album for my landscapes, another for myself, Portraits for details, or a certain series that I'm working on. Feel free to create as many albums as you need. How to do it on iphone. In the photo app, you have to go to Select, then tap on the photos that you want. Then you have to tap in the arrow on the corner. Then you have to click on a two album there. You can create a new album. For example, I'm creating one with the name Italy on it. Then I tap on Save. Or another thing that you can do is to select your images. Tap on the arrow at the bottom corner, then add them to an album that you have already created. How to do it on Android. When you are in the gallery up, tap on the album tab and then tap on the three dots at the upper right corner. And then tap on Create Album. Give a name to your new album. Then select that album to begin to add photos to it. You can add your photos just by tapping on the images that you want. When you finish, tap on. Done. 42. Photo Editing in Lightroom: Getting Started: Now is the time that we're going to start editing our photographs. We will start with the first program, Adobe Light Room. Light Room is one of the top programs for photo editing, and you also have the version for your computer, not only mobile. On this course, we're focusing on the mobile version and only the settings that are free to use. The tools that we're going to see are the foundations for photo editing. If you later want to use the version of light room in your computer, you will be able to apply the same things that you are going to learn in discourse. To get started, you first have to login with your Facebook user or your e mail to be able to use the app. Once you did that, we're going to tap on the plus button and select an image to edit from your camera role. Please start applying all the tools that we're seeing in the course to your own image to be able to test it yourself. 43. Crop Tool. Keep Your Horizon Straight: The first tool that we will use is the crop tool. You might be familiar with this one. See that you will find at the bottom all the tools. It could be that in your mobile, you see the menu on different places. Sometimes my students tell me that it could happen. But just make sure that you find all the tools that we are seeing on this course. Tap on the crop tool. It is helpful to remove something from a photo that doesn't look good or that you don't want it to be there. You need to tap on a corner of the image to start to crop the photo. Once you do that, you will see that a grid appears. This is really helpful because you will be able to apply again the rule of thirds. You will always see a check and an X. Press the check if you like, the edits that you did or press the cross if you don't like them, be applied to your photo at the top. You will also have the return button to go back one step. The crop tool will also give you the possibility to tilt your photo until you see it is completely straight. Remember, it's important to keep your horizon straight. That is the different from a photo that looks a and a photo that looks professional. If you really want a photo that is inclined, then make it totally inclined. Remember that in photography, it's important to be clear with your intention. If not, it could look more like a mistake than something that you really wanted to look this way. All the things that you can do is to rotate your photo or flip it horizontally or vertically. 44. Light Tool: The light tool is probably one of the most important in this program. You will see with a few clicks, your photo will change in an incredible level. Tap on the light tool that you will find it in the menu at the bottom. We will start with the first one, the exposure. With the exposure tool, we control the lighting of the photograph. You can darken or lighten the image depending on which side you're moving. If you move to the right, you will see that your image becomes brighter. If you move to the left, you will see that your image becomes darker. See what is it that you need in your own photograph? If it's a photo that you took and it was on a dark environment or during a time that you didn't have a lot of light available, maybe you need to brighten the image. Or on the opposite, if you took it on a very sunny day and you see that it's very, very bright, you probably want to decrease a little bit the lighting, the contrast tool increases the difference in lights and color between the bright and the dark areas of an image. You will see that your photo stands out if it has more contrast. On the contrary, if you want a vintage look for your image, you can move the slider to the left and it will give you the feeling of a photo that got old with time. If you go now and pick a photo when you were a child, you probably see that the colors look a little bit faded. This will be the way to imitate that. If you don't want this vintage look, you would rather want to increase a little bit the contrast with the highlights tool. We control only the highlights. These are the brightest parts of a photograph. Move to the left to decrease the highlights, or to the right to increase them. If you have any over exposed areas in an image, then you have to move to the left. With shadows. You control the shadows of a photograph. Move to the left to darken the shadows, or to the right to clarify them. It will help you to recover details in the dark areas of an image. I like to always increase a little bit the shadows to be able to see things that before were all black with whites. We modify the purest whites, move to the right to make your whites more pure or to the left to decrease their intensity. For example, if you had a session using a white wall as a background and you see that the white came out a little bit grayish. You can adjust the whites to look white with blacks, we modify the pure blacks. If you move the slider to the left, it makes the darkest color information in the image darker. If you move it to the right, it makes the darkest values lighter. 45. Color Tool: Before we start using the color tool, I would like you to explain a little bit about the color wheel. You might have seen this before in things related to fashion or make up. It actually applies to a lot of things. Basically, we have two sets of colors. The cool colors under warm colors. On the cool colors, we have violet, blue, and green. On the warm colors, we have red, orange, and yellow. Think on this. If you have to take a photo of a newborn baby, what colors would you like to use? Warm or cold colors? Like in my example? Probably warm colors, right? Because you want to really create this warm environment for this baby. If you travel to a place that is snowing, what colors would you use for that photo? Would you use warm or cold Like in my example? Probably call right. These colors will be given by the setting itself. When we saw manual photography, I explain about color temperature. Please go back to the lesson to remember what we saw In the same menu. At the bottom, you will find the color tool. On the left, you will have the option to turn your photo black and white. Just tap on that icon. You can tap again to go back to the original colors. You will also see the temperature tool. It is helpful to correct the color of your photos. You can emulate a cold temperature even if you took the photo with warm, natural light or do just the opposite. Move the slider to the right for a warmer temperature or to the left for a colder temperature. Here also counts your personal style. I particularly like to edit my photographs with a cold temperature, but maybe you like to edit your photographs a warm temperature. The tint tool is helpful to add a green or magenta tint to the image in case you need to adjust the colors of it. Move to the left or right according to your needs. Then we have also the vibrance and saturation tools. Please test it yourself. Move the slider of the vibrance tool all the way down to the right and come back to zero. And then all the way back to the left and then come back to zero. Then please do just the same with the saturation tool. Do you see any differences between the two tools When we use the saturation tool, if we go all the way down to the left, everything turns black and white. If we go the opposite way, the colors become a little bit too artificial for me. If a photo is edited correctly, you won't be able to see that the photo was actually edited. It should look natural. The difference between the saturation tool and the Byron tool is that the saturation tool will saturate all the colors, but the Byron tool will only saturate the medium tones. What I like to do is to first saturate a little bit the colors with the saturation tool, but then to continue with the iron tool to keep the colors looking natural. For example, if you took a photo of a model and you increased a lot, the saturation, the skin will look a little bit artificial. If instead you continue with the On tool. As this tool only works with the middle tones, it will keep the colors of the skin closer to reality. 46. Check Your Progress: If you tap on your photo, you can see how it used to look and how it is looking. Now, this is a good thing to do to check your progress. How is it going if you feel that your photo is looking better and not worse than before? I always like to do that to check my progress. 47. Presets: If you like your edits, then a useful thing to do is to save them as presets. I have presets that I use always for my social media accounts. Presets will save you a lot of editing time because if you took a bunch of photos at the same setting with the same lighting, then you can apply the same edits to all those photographs instead of having to edit each photo one by one on the menu at the bottom. Tap on presets, then tap on the three dots in the upper right hand corner. Next, select Create preset. Give a name to your preset. For example, I call mine Holidays. After that, you can select which edits to include in your preset. On the check to save it. Your custom preset now appears in the preset panel inside the user presets group. If you want to apply the same edits to another photo, you just need to look for the presets that you created before you can create a as you want for different occasions, series or social media accounts. You can also apply the presets that you have already available in the app. For example, there is a group of presets to turn your photo black and white with various styles. 48. Save/ Export Your Photo: Once you finish editing your photograph, you can save your photo, tap on the arrow inside the box at the top right corner, and then save to camera roll. When you save your photo, you will find it in your mobile as if the photo was just taken. You will still have the original on the day that you took it. Another thing that you can do is to tap on share and send it directly via Whatsapp or E mail. You can also add a border to your photo, so you can change the thickness, the size, and the color. You can tap on export S to be able to change the quality of your photo. You can include a watermark if you want that tap on there. And then on customize to be able to change the size, opacity, and the location of it by moving the slider of the horizontal offset and the vertical on E. Or you can also use the dots that you see in the picture in case you like one of those locations. You can also change the font, make it bold or italic, and use a drop shadow. You can tap on the check mark if you like, what you did finally on save image or you can share it via e mail or Whatsapp light room. Also save the photo as a file. You will find it in your library if you later want to do other adjustments to your photo, like for example, change the colors to black and white, you can save it again and you will have another version of the same photo with the new adjustments. 49. Photo Editing in Snapseed: Getting Started: Great, now we will continue with a Snapseed. This is an app from Google. We will see here other tools that will complement the edit that we did with lie room. You probably see that some of these tools are also available in lie room, but you have to pay to use them. First, select your photograph. To do that, tap on the plus icon and then open from device to choose the image to edit. You will see at the bottom a menu that says, these are like filters adjustments that were already created by the app. Press the check mark. If you want to keep one of these filters or the cross, if you don't want. Next to looks, you will find the tools, Dove. 50. Selective Tool: We will try first the selective tool. Go to tools and then select that one. The selective tool is a great way to only adjust, for example, the lighting on a certain area of an image. It could be useful for a portrait or a landscape. You have to tap on the area that you want to work with. Here you will set a control point. Move the slider at the top, to the right to brighten that area, or to the left to darken it. You have other tools, a part of the brightness tool, for example. You can adjust the contrast, the saturation or the structure of an image to use other tools like contrast, swipe your finger down on another area of the image, and then up when you select contrast, move the slider at the top, to the right to increase the contrast, and to the left to decrease it. Then swipe down to change the saturation. And then move the slider to the right or the left to increase or decrease it. Afterwards, you can swipe down again to select a structure. When you move the slider to the right, you increment the amount of details in the image. A structure will bring out the texture of objects throughout the photo. If you move to the left, you will reduce it. 51. Healing Tool: The healing tool is my favorite. In a snapseed, it is helpful to remove certain things of your image. It is helpful to remove stains, or you can use it to remove some dots on the skin of a model, for example. To use it. Go first to tools and then select the healing tool. Let's say that we want to remove the dark areas of the stone. The best way to do it is to get closer to that area. So by pinching two fingers on the area you would like to remove. The closer that you sum in, the better that the healing process will look. Then pass your finger tip on the section you would like to remove. You will see that a red area appear because you are actually creating a mask. Snapseed will copy the texture of the surrounding area from the one that you selected. This tool works best when the texture is uniform because if you have tiles, for example, it won't look well. As you can see in this other example, you can go back one step and reverse the last edit by tapping on the back button on the bottom menu. Or you can tap on the forward button to add the edit back to the image. Once you're happy with your image, tap on the checkmark to keep your edits or the cross if you don't want them. Next, you will be taken back to the main menu. 52. Perspective Tool: If you took a photo of something related to architecture, you probably need to adjust their perspective to the photo. For the photo to look professional in architecture, it's important to see that the lines are aligned. The way to correct it is Daphne with the perspective tool at the bottom menu. Select the perspective icon and then tilt. Then you will need to move with your fingers to the sides or up and down to adjust the image. It might look a little bit complicated at the beginning, but with practice you will become good with this. You can tap again on the bottom menu and select Rotate if you need to tilt the photo or a scale to expand it. With the free tool, you will be able to adjust the perspective more freely. Also at the bottom menu, you will see the edge healing tool. Keep it in as smart as it is because it will automatically fill any blank edges so that no cropping is required. If not, the blank edges will be left to solid, black or white. Moreover, you will find in the same menu a magic wand. With that one, the app will automatically at just the perspective. Remember to tap on the check mark to keep your edits or the cross if you don't like them. You also have this tool in iphone or Android check. If it's easier for you to edit directly from your mobile, I tend to do it with my iphone. Since I think it's easier. I will explain you with iphone, but you will see it's very similar on Android to on the photos up in iphone. Go to Edit and then tap on the crop tool. Then tap on vertical to adjust the perspective vertically by moving the slider to the right and left, then go to horizontal and do the same. You will probably need to go back from vertical to horizontal until you like the result. Again, as I said before, it might be a little bit complicated at the beginning, but the more that you do it, the better that you will become at it. You can also straighten the photo. If you feel that you need to do that, tap on Done to keep your edits. 53. Lens Blur Tool: The **** blur is great. To increase the blurriness of the background to make your subject to stand out, go to tools and select **** blur. Then tap on the area that you want to keep your focus. You can adjust how big or small you want that area to be by adjusting the circle with your fingers and making it bigger or smaller. Then on the top, you will see blur strength. Move the slider to the right to increase the strength of the blur effect, or to the left to decrease it. If you tap on the image and swipe down, you can select from the menu that appears, another tool that is transition. Then at the top, you will find the slider again. If you move to the right, you will increase the distance of the fade between the in focus and Bl areas to the left. You will decrease it. Then swipe down on the image again to access from the menu to vignette strength. Move the slider to the right to darken the edges of the image and incorporate a vignette to the image or to the left to remove it. If you tap on the dot, that is your area in focus, it will turn blue. You can move it with your finger to another part of the image. For example, I now have the focus on my hand. Remember to tap on the check mark to keep your edits or the cross if you don't like them. 54. Save/ Export Your Photo: If you like your edits, Now is the moment to save your photo. To save it, go to export. If you top on share, you will be able to share it on Whatsapp or email. If you top on save snaps will ask you if you allow the app to modify the photo. Since it will modify the original, I recommend to use the option, save a copy. It will save a copy with the edits that you did and you will still have the original unedited you export. The photo is very similar because it also saves a copy. The difference is that sometimes with some mobiles save a copy is more compatible than export. But you have to check with your own mobile which one works best. I save a copy in my iphone and it works well. 55. Recap on Everything That We Learnt: I hope that the things that I share with you help you to improve your photography. To make it more creative and more professional. Let's do a recap of everything that we learned. We started talking about the best camera settings for our photographs. We cover lenses, focus control, lighting. We got deep on camera modes. Then we got an interesting section on composition that you can apply for the different types of photography that you like to do. Then we continue with points of view, how to play around with our creativity. We also cover photography storytelling, how important is to communicate a clear message, and then equally important to create our work, to select our best material, and to organize it. Finally, we learned how to edit our photographs as a pro with li room and snap Sed and to save our edits using the precepts. What an exciting journey that we took together. I want to thank you so much for finishing this class and I hope that you are more excited than ever to continue taking photographs. Remember what I said at the beginning. Keep practicing. Apply the things that you learned in the class. Take some time before and after your shot. Don't be afraid to experiment and leave your comfort zone from time to time. If you keep up with the woodwork, you will develop your own voice and unique style as a photographer. Thanks again and please keep in touch. You will find me on Instagram Asta Valley ph.