Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello. My name is Daniel English, and today I'm going to teach you how to take better pictures with your smartphone. I've been taking pictures for a long time with a lot of different cameras and phones, and I've picked up a few tips along the way that I want to share with you and that, I think will really help you improve your own pictures. The reason I love this topic and the reason I want to teach this to you, is because I feel like learning how to take better pictures with your phone is really important. Whether you're going to work or playing with your kids in the park or just doing your grocery shopping. You always have your phone in your pocket, and it's always right there if you want to take a picture. And so I feel like we end up using our phones to really capture some of the moments that matter and some of the things we want to be able to remember forever. I think there's a lot of value and taking just a little bit of time to learn how to make each of those pictures just a little bit better and, you know, really make them into something that you're going to be happy to look back at some day. I think you're gonna be really surprised at just how good of a picture you can get with a smartphone. You're not gonna need anything special for this class. So you don't need any fancy lights or a tripod or anything like that. The only thing you need is a phone with a camera on it. And you probably don't have that. Let me give you a little overview of what we're gonna talk about in class. We're going to start by going through the camera app, and I'm going to explain some of the settings and show you you kind of how you can learn how to use the app on your own phone. And then we'll talk about some photography tips, and I'll show you how you can use framing and line up your shot to make that picture really grade and how it makes a huge difference. What angle you take a shot from. Then we'll talk about lighting and how you can use the lighting in the scene toe really Just improve the overall quality of your pictures. And finally, we'll talk about editing and I'll show you how you can make some simple adjustments to your pictures after you take them to make them. You know, really, the best they could be before you save them or share them on the Internet. So that's what we're gonna talk about. And, you know, these are all going to be practical tips that you can just immediately go out and use. I'm gonna say this over and over in this class, but practice is really important, and it's critical that you guys go out and try. This stuff assumes you learn it. You know you don't need tohave a special event to take pictures up. You can just take some pictures as you're getting ready for work in the morning or while you're commuting into the office. And so go out and try this stuff and just experiment with it and see what works for you. You know, since this is an online class, you can take some of those pictures and share them with the rest of us. And, you know, I think it be really fun for us to be able to see each other's pictures and comment on them or give each other feedback. So keep that in mind as you're going through this, but you really just try this stuff out as you're learning it because that's so important. I think this is gonna be a lot of fun. And, you know, we all take pictures for different reasons. So whether you're wanting to make memories with your family or if you just really want to get that perfect shot for Instagram, I think you're gonna find something in this class that's helpful for you. So make sure your phone's charged, and then we'll go ahead and jump into a lesson one.
2. Learning Your Camera App: So in this lesson, we're going to talk about how to use the camera app on your phone. Now I'm using an iPhone. So some of the demonstrations that that I do are going to be with the iPhone camera. If using Android, you'll still get value out of this because the concepts that I'm talking about are things that are going to apply to any camera app. So what I really want to do is kind of show you guys how I learned my camera app and kind of guide you through that process yourself. So the first advice that I have for you is that the most important thing you can learn about taking pictures with your phone is how to open the camera app quickly. Now, I know that sounds goofy, and you think, Well, I don't know how to open the camera app, so I guess I got that one covered. But knowing how to do that quickly and efficiently is critical to taking good pictures. So nobody wants to be that person who see something happen, and then you pull your phone out and you're fumbling with it, trying to figure out how to open the camera app and take the picture. And, you know, meanwhile, the moments already passed, so you want to learn how to do that as quickly and efficiently as you possibly can. So maybe that means putting the app in a place on your home screen, where you can easily hit it with your thumb and launch it or another. Another thing you should do is learn what shortcuts your phone has for launching the camera . It's on the iPhone. I know that if I hard press in the lower right corner, it'll open. Open the camera from the lock screen on an android phone. A lot of times you can double tap the screen to open the camera, so understanding those things and knowing how to do that is very important. And that's going to really help you be able to take that picture. You know, the right moment. So once you actually open the camera app, the first thing I would do is look at some of the different modes that are available to you . So every camera has a number of different modes, and you know they'll do things like take a photograph or take a video but you'll also have some modes that you may not be asked familiar with. So on my phone I can take a panoramic picture or I can take a square picture. I would highly recommend it. If you see a mode you haven't used before, just try it out. So, you know, take a picture with it or see what it does and just kind of learned what? What options that gives you so funny Story. When I was setting up the material for this class, I was looking through the camera app on my phone and I realized that it has this time lapse feature that I had never actually played with on DSO. You know, I decided I'm just gonna try it. And so I took this time lapse video, and, you know, that's a really cool. That's a really cool feature. I think I'll be using that, you know, in the future. And so because because I tried it out and played with it. Now I know how it works, and I know you know how to use it and what effect it has so really just just play with these things and, you know, kind of understand how that works. Once you've learned the different modes, you also want to look at some of the settings that are available to you in the camera app. So while mode is going to be a major effect on your picture, So it's like the difference between taking a photograph or taking a movie, you know, video shot. A setting is maybe going to have a more subtle effect. But it's something that'll effects, You know, some or all of those modes. Let me show you a few of the ones that I have on my camera and kind of what, how I used it. So the first thing that we can look at is the camera flash. Now, I'm gonna talk about this more in the lighting video, but I typically leave the flash turned off because to me, the light is not really that flattering. Andi, my pictures usually look worse with the flash on, so I leave the flash turned off. You may also have something like a self timer, so that's the future where you can set your phone down on something and start the timer, and then you run and go get in the picture to take like a group shot. Um, not something I use very often because usually I used the selfie camera for a group photo. But, you know, it's it's good to know that it's there and know how to use it. So again, play with that and learn how that works. A lot of cameras have zoom feature, so, you know, on the iPhone I can zoom and I consume in or out. Think about the zoom is that sometimes, and on some cameras you'll lose a lot of quality when you use the zoom. So I don't want to go into too much detail here. But depending on whether you have an optical or a digital zoom, it can really affect quality. So, you know, I would maybe just do a quick search and see if your camera has an optical zoom or, you know, really, you should just try it and you take a picture zoomed in and see what it looks like. See if you like the way that comes out, you know you'll be able to tell if the quality is worse. I usually like to zoom with my feet, which means that you know I just moved closer or farther from the object. Teoh, zoom in or out. But, you know, sometimes that's not an option. So the zoom, maybe handy there, you know, in your camera may have some other some other random setting. So iPhone has this cool, live photo feature where it actually takes, like, a short movie clip instead of a picture. And that can be a really cool effect. Eso I think, Andrew, it has motion stills, which is a very similar idea. So, you know, again, you've got a lot of these little settings and you really just want to play with them and learn what they do. The best way to figure out if you like something is to try it. And so, with all the stuff used to try the settings out and see if there's something that, uh, you know, that you want to use in your pictures. Almost every phone these days has a selfie camera, so make sure you know how to switch between the selfie camera and the regular camera quickly. That can be really important for taking pictures. And, you know, maybe you have some filters available to you. Now, I don't use filters myself. I usually like to just take the picture so that it's as real as possible. And then if I want to add a filter afterwards, I might. But you know, maybe you really like those filters, and that really helps you artistically take a picture. And if that's the case, then do that. Then use those filters. So just know where all those settings are. Know how to use them. So kind of the continuing theme here that you're hearing from me is to play with your camera on. There's a reason I'm saying that. So think about what it's like when you use some of your favorite APS. So the abs that you use every single day, maybe something like Instagram or Facebook. So when you open instagram and start scrolling through that feed, you don't really have to think about how doe I like a picture. You just know that if you double tap on it, that heart will appear and you've liked that picture and you can scroll onto the next one. It's just kind of a subconscious thing that you know, you use that app so much and you're so familiar with it that you just really don't think about it. And that's that's where you want to be with your camera. So the more you play with it, and the more you understand all these settings and features, it's going to get you to the point where you can just see the picture you want to take and know what to do with your camera. To take that picture. The less you have to think about changing settings and selecting modes is gonna is gonna free you up to actually look at what's in front of you and take the picture you want to take. So I can't stress this enough, but learning how to use your camera app and just in daily understanding all those settings and modes is gonna make a huge difference in your photography. So I would spend time doing that and just spend a while playing with that app and knowing what's available to you and trying out the different settings, you know. And that's that's going to make a huge difference in your smartphone photography. So that's what we have for this lesson. You know again, go play with the stuff we use. Go try this out, you know, and experiment with it. And when you're ready to move on, we'll start talking about some photography tips and the next lesson.
3. Framing Your Shot: So now that you know your way around your camera at, we're going to start talking about actually taking pictures, and the first thing that we're going to cover is the idea of lining up your shot. Or sometimes it's called framing your shot. And this is probably the most important factor in determining whether your pictures we're going to be mediocre or really good. So all of these things Air really just guidelines and kind of ideas that you can keep in mind as you take your own pictures. So the first tip is actually a literal guideline, and it's called the Rule of Thirds. So if you imagine having a three by three grid under screen with the intersecting lines, the idea of the rule of thirds is that instead of centering your your subject in the frame , you actually put them at one of those intersecting points. And so this may seem counter intuitive at first, but it actually goes a really long way toward making your pictures more interesting. So one easy way you can implement this is if you have a subject that's looking in a certain direction, or if they're moving in a certain direction. You can use the rule of thirds to give them space to move into or space to look into. And it goes a really long way toward making your subject part of the scene on kind of giving your view or something more interesting to look at. Another way you can use the rule of courage is to kind of guide the viewer through the image. So, for example, in this picture of a river, I used the rule of thirds toe put the start of the river, you know, kind of in in one of those four corners and move it through the image. So the viewer sees this picture, and they're kind of guided through this whole scene just fired by following that river as it moves through. And so the rule of thirds is you know it's not an absolute rules are made to be broken, and your picture isn't bad if it doesn't use the rule of thirds, and it's not bad if the subjects in the middle of the picture. But this is just something to try that in a lot of cases can really make your pictures more interesting. My next tip is to consider all the angles. And what I mean by that is that if you're thinking about taking a picture of a subject, you should try it from, you know, a number of different angles and think about every different way. You could physically approach that picture and what the results of that would be. So this can actually have a huge effect on whether pictures good or bad. So remember those park bench pictures that I showed you at the beginning? And just by changing the angle, it dramatically changed that picture and took that from being a pretty mediocre shot of a park bench toe, something that was really cool and showed this background. So there's a lot you could do with with camera angles. So a perfect example of this is if you're taking a picture of a toddler or a dog or something like that, just get down on their level and take the picture from their their heights. Instead of your height. You'll be amazed at how good that looks, and you're kind of seeing the world from their perspective instead of yours. So that's Ah, that's one thing I like to do. I do it with objects to. So if I'm taking a picture of something like a coffee cup or, you know, just some small thing, I might actually move down and, you know, and take the picture from down low instead of just pointing at from above. So another idea you could try is taking a picture from directly above or directly below something, and that can really lead to some interesting shots. So, you know, a lot of times when I approach a scene, I try and think about what the obvious picture is that everyone's going to take. And, you know, maybe I quickly take one like that. But really, what I want to do is capture a unique shot and a shot from an angle that no one else is thinking of. So I heard it said one time that the were you. Look, when you take a picture of the more interesting it's going to be, and I think it's true. So I've gotten into some pretty weird positions to take pictures and, you know, probably kind of goofy when I'm doing it. But usually the end result is a pretty interesting picture, so that's definitely something to try and something you know that can make your own shots more unique and make them stand out more. So next time you take a picture, just try different angles and try taking that shot from different perspectives and, you know, see which one looks the best to you. So the last tip for this lesson is to use the whole scene. And I think this is really important. It might be the most important of these tips, but you know, when we take a picture, we have a certain subject in mind. And most of the time there is that one thing in the picture. That is the reason we're taking the picture. And that's what we're focusing on when we're lining up that picture and taking that shot. But when the viewer looks at your picture there, seeing everything that's in the frame and they're seeing the whole image, So it's really important to consider that when you're taking a picture and, you know, make sure there's nothing distracting in the frame and make sure that that entire images showing what you want to show and, you know, kind of guiding the viewer toward what you want to show them. So I think that's really important now. One way you can do that is, you know, consider whether you're seen is something that's overwhelming. So maybe you're taking a picture of Christmas lights and you know, in a lot of cases, especially with the phone, if you took a picture of a huge scene of Christmas lights, it's going to be kind of distracting. So there's just lights everywhere, and you don't really know where to look and, you know, you know, focal Point. So that za case where, you know, maybe me in person. I look at that and it's beautiful and it's so cool, but it's just hard to capture in a picture. So one thing you could do is actually just take a small picture of a big thing. So I like to get up close sometimes. So if I'm taking a landscape or taking pictures of Christmas lights, sometimes I just like to get really close to it and just take a close up picture of a couple of Christmas lights, and that picture could be really impactful. And that could really get the point across of you know, the beauty of that scene in something that the viewer can understand and can focus on. So if you're taking a picture of a large scene, it's helpful to think about everything that's in that scene. And you know, the things that are close to you and the things that are far away from you, maybe the small things and the large things in the scene. And just think about how those things can work together to make your picture more interesting. So in this picture I combine these small tents with this huge mountain, and you know, it really gives that picture a sense of scale, and you can see you know how huge those mountains are and how we're camping in the middle of nowhere. And it makes that picture really interesting. So it's helpful to consider the entire scene and see everything that's in it together, as as one picture and one thing that the viewers going to see. So these are just a few simple ideas to keep in mind when you're taking pictures so you can use the rule of thirds to start thinking about moving your subject out from the center of the frame and putting it at one of those four corners. You've got the idea of taking pictures from different angles to make it more interesting and get the most unique angle for that shot. And finally, just keep in mind that your viewers seeing an entire frame and an entire image. And so when you take a picture, you want to make sure that you're thinking about that, too, that you're seeing everything that's in front of the camera. So go out and try this stuff and experiment with it. You're really just gonna take a lot of pictures and see what they look like. But, you know, take some of these pictures and then post them on lines that we can all see them and comment on him. And then, when you're ready, will move on to talk about lighting and how you can use lighting in your pictures.
4. Using Lighting: So now that we've covered framing, we're going to move on to talking about lighting. Now I want to make sure we covered lighting in this course because good lighting is critical to taking a good photograph. So friending was more about where the subject is and how you lined up that shot and what was actually in your picture. But lighting is more about the overall quality of the image, So if you really bad light, your picture might be blurry or dark, and the view is going to have a hard time knowing what to focus on. And it's just going to really hurt the overall quality of that picture. But if you have really good light, it's going to enhance everything about that image. So the colors, we better and everything's gonna be Maurin focus, and it'll probably be easier for the viewer toe. Understand what you want to show them and to focus on the subject so good Lighting is really important now. None of us are, you know, wanting to take pro photographs our phones and you don't want to carry around big studio lights and set things up. So what, we're gonna talk about in this lesson is how you can look at the lighting in the scene. So all lights, they're just already there. And I'm gonna point out a few things that you might want to watch out for things to avoid. And then I'll talk about how you can use those lights to your advantage and use them to help make your picture just a little bit better. So let's go ahead and jump into it, and we're gonna start with tip number one, which is to pay attention to all the lights in the scene. So that's one simple. But when you approach a seem to take a picture, just take a moment and look at all the lights around you and all the light that's available to you in that scene. So if you're outside a great examples, the sun and you want to look and see, you know, is the sun low in the sky is pointing in a certain direction, or, you know that the middle of the day and the sun shining straight down from above, you want to do that for every light, though, so you know, street lamps or car headlights. You know, if you're indoors, you might look around and see what lights are on in this room. Do I have the option of turning on or off lights? I think it would help. So you just want to pay attention to all that stuff. You know? Also pay attention to things like reflections and, you know, maybe like smaller lights that could actually end up being in your picture. So all these things or things that could be distracting or could take away from your picture or they can help your picture. So you just want to understand what's out there and how each of those lights is interacting with the things that are in your seat. So now that you've found all the lights in the picture, let's talk about a few things to watch out for. And one of the biggest of these is avoiding harsh light. Now, harsh light is just any direct beam of light from a source. So something like the sun or a bare light bulb if you see a sharp shadow on the ground, that's probably a harsh light, and the problem with harsh lighting is that it's just not very attractive, are very flattering for your subjects. So it's just this direct beam of life that doesn't, you know, have any variation in it, and it tends to make your subject just not look all that great. A good example. This is a camera flash, so if you take a picture with your flash, you'll probably notice that you know your subject's face just looks very flat. There's no variation or texture on their face, and it's just like it's really not a very flattering light. So typically, you want to avoid that heart flighting. So the key to dealing with harsh light is to find ways to defuse that light. Now, if you're really lucky and you're taking pictures outside on a cloudy day, you're gonna notice that those pictures come out a lot better because the clouds diffuse that lion and make that light just a lot more pleasing on your scene and the entire picture just going to look a lot better if you're not as lucky and it is bright and sunny, you can always take a picture in the shade, so find the shade under a tree or near a building and try taking your picture over there and you'll probably be impressed. It just how much better that looks and how soft that light is on your subjects. So that's that's always a good option as well. If you're indoors than you know if it's during the day, try to find a nearby window and stand next to that window when you take your picture. So windows diffuse light really well and you're gonna find that that puts a really nice pleasing light on your face or on that subject, and makes that picture come out a lot more nicely than if you had used a lamp or something in the room. Looking for those sources of diffused light is key, and you really want to avoid that heart. Flighting. The final tip is to light your subject so your goal is always to paint your subject in the best light possible, and you want to use all the lights available to you to make your subject look their best. So what are some ways you can do that? Well, one is to avoid putting the light directly behind the subject. So when you do that, the front of the subject that's facing your camera isn't going to be lit up and they'll be the darkest part of the image. And so you're typically not going to be able to see the subject very well in that situation , I decided to take a few selfies to show you guys how you can apply some of this in your own pictures. So take a look at this 1st 1 and you can see that I'm standing right in the sun and I'm getting that harsh sunlight directly on my face. And you immediately noticed that this picture just really doesn't look very good. So for one thing, I'm way too bright and you're not seeing any of the detail on my face. It's making my skin tone look bad, and I'm very well lit. You can see what's going on in this picture, and you can see my face, but it just really doesn't look very good. So let's see if we can do better than that for this next one. I took about four steps to one side just so that I was out of that direct sunlight, and I'm standing in the shade under some of these trees, but I'm still facing directly toward the sun and you can already see that this looks a lot better. I'm getting this nice diffused light on my face and you can make out more than detail on my face. And my skin tone looks better. And really, in every respect that this is a much better picture than the previous one. And this is a picture you could be happy with. It looks pretty good, but we can do a little bit better than that. So for this final picture, I stayed in the exact same spot and I just turned a little bit so that the light was hitting me in an angle instead of directly on. And you can see that now, in this picture, I'm getting some shadows across my face and you can kind of see a little bit more detail. You might imagine that if you were looking at me in real life, this is this is more of what you would see. So this is more natural. This picture is a lot more flattering and a lot nicer to look at in the previous ones. So if we compare these three shots, you can see that it just really makes a huge difference. how you use lighting. And just by taking a few moments to think about these things and tow experiment with different kinds of lighting, you can get a much better picture and something that you're gonna be much happier with. And, you know, I've talked a lot about subjects of people you know, taking pictures of people. I think that's you know what a lot of us are taking pictures of, but all the supplies to other objects to So whatever you're taking a picture of, just pay attention to how the white hits that object. And you know what the what each surface of that object looks like and how that light is interacting with it and, you know, kind of move your subject around or move your picture around. You try different things and just really see you know how the lighting changes and having the light in different parts of it. How how that affects the image. And I think you'd be really surprised that the impact that has and really how you know, just taking a picture from a slightly different angles with light hits just a little bit differently makes a huge difference in that picture, so those are the basics of lighting and, as you can see is pretty simple. You just have to look at what's around you and find all the lights that are in your scene and understand what you're working with. You can try to avoid some of those harsh lights and focus more on the diffused lighting that's going to look better and more pleasing in your pictures. And then when you're kind of placing your subject in the scene, you'll want to position them so that the light is hitting them. But that nice angle on giving, you know, some nice shadows on their face, or just some really nice detail on whatever you're taking a picture up. So go try those things out and, you know, just like everything else in this course, you really just have to try it and play with a bunch of different stuff and see what works well for you. So take a bunch of pictures and a lot of different lighting and just see what you like and , you know, and experiment with avoiding some of those harsh lights or taking a picture in a shadow or next to a window You know, just try those out and see what effects those have. I think you'll be surprised it You know how you can really bring up the quality in a picture just by messing with lighting and using that to your advantage? So that's all I have for this lesson. In the next lesson, we're gonna talk about editing pictures and how you can make a few simple tweaks to just improve your pictures a bit s. So stay tuned for that on. I'll see you in that lesson.
5. Simple Photo Editing: welcome back. So at this point, you've learned how to frame your pictures and and how to use lighting to make your pictures better. And so at this point, you're getting pretty good at taking pictures with your phone for the last lesson in this course. I wanted to talk about photo editing, and this is a topic that I love to talk about because it's something where you could really spend just a minute or two looking at a picture that you've taken and making some small adjustments that just make it a little bit better and, you know, make it make it really great before you share it online or send it to your friends. I think photo editing gets a bad rap sometimes because we all seen pictures that are over, edited it. The lighting is weird and the colors are really unnatural, and people just kind of gone too far with it. And, you know, maybe you've also seen things where people have used photo editing in a deceptive way, and you have used it to show something that's not there or make a picture misleading. And so for all those reasons, I think that we all see, editing is a bad thing and think of it as something that you shouldn't do. But we're all taking pictures with our phones and, you know, a lot of times it's a spur of the moment thing and you see something exciting and you want to take a picture of it. And, you know, even if you thought about all the guidelines that I mentioned in this course, and you're framing and you're lighting sometimes it's just not quite right, and sometimes the air framing me off a little bit or the lighting. This wasn't perfect, and you know all those things take away from the picture and just make it. Make it distracting and make it harder for the viewer to see what you were trying to get across to them in that picture. So what we want to do with editing is this. Try and fix some of those things and clean some of those things up so that the viewer can really focus on what you want to show in the picture. So we're not going to be able to use editing to completely change the way a picture looks. But you can really use it as a way to just amplify what you've taken and make that picture just a little bit better so that, you know, it's really impactful and really, you know, brings a message across to the viewer. So I'm going to be using an iPhone to talk about these examples. And, you know, I'm using just the tools that are built into my iPhone. And if you're using Android, you're going to have very similar options available to you. So I'm not using any kind of special app or any any unusual tools. These are very basic photo editing tools, just doing some cropping and rotating and adjusting the lighting. And you're going to have access to these on really basically any phone that has a camera. So follow along with this, and what I want to do is I'm gonna show you a few examples of some pictures that I took and how I was able to use the editing to make them just a little bit better. And, you know, I'll take you through that process and kind of show you some techniques you can use. This first picture is of a local landmark here in Austin and as soon as you look at it there, a couple of obvious things wrong with it. So I was going for a kind of an effect here with having my shoes in the picture, and it seemed cool at the time. But when I look at it now, that's just it's really kind of taking away from the picture, and I don't really like that. So that's one thing immediately that I don't like, and it's also kind of at an angle. So I was trying to take this picture quickly and I didn't have a whole lot of time to line up the shot. And so it's just kind of a little a little off kilter there. And so I'm gonna go ahead and try and clean some of these things. So let's go ahead and jump into the editing and let me show you what I would do this picture. So the first thing I'll do is fix the rotation. I'm gonna go in, rotate this picture until I feel like the horizon is straight. And is this something that I almost always get wrong when I'm taking landscape pictures So usually my horizon is just off at least a little bit. And, you know, even if it's just slightly off, it's really distracting. So the first thing I'd like to do is clean that up and get that says perfectly straight. Next, I'm gonna do a little bit cropping. So I already mentioned I want to take my shoes out of the picture. So let me go ahead and remove those. And I'll also remove some of these tree branches on the left side because they're a little distracting Teoh and they kind of take away from that shot. So there's some cropping and you can kind of see that this already is looking better. And this is, you know, a nicer picture. Fewer distractions. 30 looking good. Last thing I want to do is make just a few simple lighting adjustments to it. I'm just going to adjust the lighting in contrast to bed and kind of adjust those colors that it just cleans that picture up just a little bit. So let's take a look at the result. You can see that I was able to make this picture quite a bit better with less than a minute of editing, so I remove some distractions from the picture with those tree branches and my shoes fixed the rotation, and I made those colors look just a little bit better. And that turned this picture from being one that I probably would have deleted to something that I'd be pretty excited to post online or or to show somebody. So we just did some simple things. We didn't change what this picture was about. We just made it a little bit nicer and, you know, just a little bit easier and more fun to look at. So that's that's really what editing can do. And, you know, that's why I think anything is so valuable. So this was maybe kind of an extreme example. But for the next one, it's gonna be a little more subtle. But I think you'll still be able to see how editing this next picture is still something that's useful and something you might want to do. The second picture is of the skyline in Boston, and it's already a really good picture. I could probably share this one as is, but I'm being a perfectionist and there a couple of things that I'd like to fix about this . So first I can see that again. The horizons just slightly. Often it's, you know, it's kind of distracting that it's just a little off. And I also feel like my framing was off on this a bit because I think the building's air a little bit too low in the picture and I'm getting a little bit too much of the sky. We're gonna go ahead and clean those things up. Let's go ahead and jump into the editor, and the first thing I'm gonna do is just go ahead and rotate that horizon just a tiny little bit until it's perfect. And that's going to make this picture a lot less distracting. And, you know, that's just one last thing you think about when you're looking at this picture. Now that I fix the horizon, let me go ahead and crop this picture. So I wanted the buildings to be just a little bit higher up in the frame, and I felt I've got a little bit too much sky in this picture, so I'm gonna go ahead and crop some of the sky out. I want this picture toe have similar dimensions to what the original one had so I'm also going to crop out some of these buildings on the edges so that I can keep the picture roughly the same dimensions. So that looks pretty good. I'm happy with that. And the only other thing I want to do with this picture is go over to the light settings and I'm going to adjust the contrast just a little bit. So for night pictures, I really like to adjust the contrast, because I feel like it makes the light stand out a little bit better. And it makes the darker colors of night just a little bit darker. And so I really like the way night pictures look with just a little bit of extra contrast. So we're all done, and you can see that in this case, the edits were pretty subtle, and I didn't make any major changes to this picture. I really it was good enough before I could have shared this picture, have been happy with that. But making those tweets to me just made that picture a little bit better. And I was able to fix just the one thing that I really didn't like, which was the sky. And, you know, I just really think this picture is a lot better now, so, you know, very subtle, very simple, but something that makes a difference and makes that picture better. Let's go ahead and take a look at the last one. This last one is another Boston picture. It's the Charles River, and I like this picture a lot. But there's that one lady sunbathing there on the dock, and that's pretty distracting. And to me, that takes a lot away from this picture. So let's go ahead and fix it. You know the drill by now. So we'll go ahead and jump into the photo editor. And this is one rare picture that I took where I feel like it's actually pretty straight. So I don't think I need to rotate it so we'll jump straight into cropping. So I'm just gonna crop this picture and sorry, lady, but you're no longer in this picture, so you're going to go and so finished cropping liking that already. The one last thing I'm gonna do here is to suggest the lighting up a little bit. So I think this picture was maybe a little bit too dark. So let me just move the lighting up and make that just a little bit brighter, and that's it. So this picture is done, you know, again, seeing kind of a before and after of that You can really see that. You know, this looks a lot better, and I remove that distraction from the picture and increase the lighting. So it's a little bit brighter and easier to see and, you know, again so much better with just a few little tweaks. So that's really what editing can do. And that's why I think it's worth spending time on editing. So that's really it. These were just some very simple photo editing tips, but you know, I think you can take just a minute or two after you after you've taken a picture and just do some of these things to make that picture a little bit better. So in doing that, cropping to remove distractions from the image or adjusting the lighting a little bit to make it just slightly better those are things that are going to make a big difference when you share this picture with your friends or posted on Instagram, you know, and it'll just make that picture nicer and make it something that you know that you're happy to have forever. You know, we're not doing anything deceptive with editing, and we're not going crazy with the editing, but, you know, just making some small, slight tweaks here and there that can really improve the quality of that image. So go play with these things. Figure out what options your phone provides and what editing you're able to do, you know, and then experiment with it so you can do it with pictures you've already taken if you want . You know, the great thing about editing is that you can go back and at pictures that you've already taken. So, you know, just play with that and learn what's available to you. And, you know, I think you're gonna be really happy with the improvements you're able to make by using photo editing. So I hope that was useful. You know, I hope it's something that you'll think about next time you take a picture. But, you know, take these things and go experiment with them and try them out on di. Think you're gonna be happy with it?
6. Closing: These have been just a few simple tips to improve your smartphone photography, and I think they're going to be really helpful for you guys. So learning your camera app is going to be really valuable and just really giving you knowledge of the tools before the moment hits. And before you take that picture, you know, and then when you actually do take the picture, I think that thinking about some of those framing concepts and how you can emphasize your subject or maybe take that picture from a unique angle doesn't really help. You can use the lighting Teoh. Just improve the overall quality of the picture and, you know, make that picture better. And then finally, you can use editing to fix any problems and remove distractions. And, you know, just do a few simple things that will really help make that good picture Great. So the most important thing for you to do now is go out and practice this stuff. So we've talked a lot in class about, you know, these different techniques. But the best way you internalize those things is to go out and try, so go out and take a bunch of pictures. You know, I think that you can take a good picture anywhere. So, you know, maybe just like on your way to work or, you know, your morning routine. Just take some pictures that try out some of these techniques and, you know, maybe postal of them in the class so that everyone else can see them. And we can comment on each other's pictures and kind of see how everyone's using some of these some of these techniques. So if you have any questions about things that we've talked about in the course or stuff you'd like to know more about, please let me know. So either post a comment or send me a message. But I'm planning on doing more courses on these topics and covering some of these things in more detail. And so, you know, I love to hear from you. If you have a question, you know, we need to talk about it, or I might use it as an idea for a future course. So, you know, definitely get in touch if you have any feedback on this, but yeah, that's it. So, you know, go out and take pictures. You know, we live in a really exciting world. And I hope that you've seen through this course that you've got a really great tool in your pocket that you can use to just capture some those moments and you could make some really exciting pictures. So go out and have fun with that. And thanks for watching this course.
Daniel English
