Take the Best Picture and Your Cell Phone

How to take the best picture with your cell phone and how to edit them right on your phone with this free app! If you're using your phone as your only camera you can take great pictures using these simple cell phone photography tips.

Let's be honest, we don't even own a camera anymore! The day we got our first smartphone was the day we never picked up a “real camera” again, sad to say but true. When we began blogging about 3 years ago we took pictures of products and at events with our cell phone as we had been taking pictures of our kids, but now that other people were looking at them we began to search how to take the best picture with your cell phone….let us share what we've learned with you! (originally published 6/15, affiliate links present)

Yes we had heard that to take the best pictures you needed to spend upwards of $1000 on some special camera to get the best shots. We didn't believe it.

• We believe in using what you have, being as frugal as possible, and researching ways to get what you want with little money out of pocket. So we created this post filled with tips for taking the best iphone photography.

Believe us, it took almost this entire time (3 years) to solid what we have learned thus far. There is always room for improvement so we are under no allusion that we can't still learn more, but the difference between the mobile photos we used to take 3 years ago vs the ones we take today are night and day!

• (update) Fast forward 3 years and we now do use a separate camera lens to take most of our photos. We have a Sony a9000 and love it. But, we still send them to our phone and use the same photo app to edit mentioned below before sharing on social media.

How to take the best picture with your cell phone tips

• Get down to their level – When you are pointing and shooting photos of kids (or animals) you need to get down to their level. Have you ever had a child take a picture of you only to notice all the wrinkles on your neck and the hairs inside your nose?? Well, that is because they aren't at your level. The same goes for taking pictures of something or one who is smaller than you.
  • Crouch down to eye level and then take the picture. Now, take a look at the picture below….we will talk about how we improved the clarity in a minute.
• Put the sun behind you – As you can see in this picture the sun is in front of us and that causes the what you're focusing on to be dark. If you walk to the other side and let the sun be behind you you will get a much better picture.
  • Natural lighting is always best with mobile photography or with a digital zoom. Artificial light sources create odd shadows. We don't like it.

• Focus – If you're taking a smartphone photo of scenery or something large (like the picture above) you don't necessarily need to hone in on an object and focus on it, but if you are featuring let's say a SNICKERS bar but you want to show where you are in the background you need to focus on the object and have everything else somewhat blurred in the background.
  • All you have to do is when you're holding your phone to take a picture, touch the object on your screen that you want to focus on.
  • The rest will become blurry and what you touch will come to life and be what your eye is drawn to.
  • You can see the picture below, there are a few others here in this post.

• Interesting angles – When taking a picture don't always think about taking it face to face or face to object straight on. Think of an interesting angle you could take in order to get someone's attention.
  • Taking a picture looking down at the object or event makes it interesting. Yes that means you need to find a chair to climb on in order to get that shot.
  • Take this shot here of the plants. It would be hard to get all 5 plants in 1 shot without taking it from up above. It creates a different feel. You can also create an area to the side or below where you can add text later.
  • You can see a few examples in our gardening with kids

• Editing apps – THIS is probably the most important part in taking the best picture with your cell phone. The funny thing is it is probably the easiest part to do. It took us a while to find the right APP and software to do it though. We wanted one that was FREE. We found a few.
  • Use free editing software called PicMonkey. My favorite one we use daily.
  • Then, download the free APP called Aviary, then once you have taken your picture touch the APP and it will bring up all your photos.
    • From there, tap the picture you want to edit and enhance. Tap further enhancers like “scenery”, “food”, or “portrait”. If you are featuring a person and want to soften their features. It is GREAT and did we mention it is Free??!!
    • Let us show you the difference between one photo that was taken on our phone vs one enhanced in Aviary. Look at the picture at the top of this post with the dinosaur. Now look at the one below. This took 20 seconds to do!
      • It will save your original image and the enhanced one. No worries loosing one or if you wanted to alter it in a different way later. What an good difference right??!!! From ok to dynamic in less than a minute.

• Adjusting – Once you have your image enhanced and you are ready to develop your picture (if you are not a blogger you would be done at this point and go on to step #6) or you want to put it online or in a blog post you can further enhance or adjust the size of your picture or make it into a collage for Free using PicMonkey.
  • If you want all the features they offer it is $33 a year. That's super cheap but the free version offers you a lot too!!
• Developing – we develop all our pictures right on our phone!
  • Did you know you can print free photos on your phone? We know you're probably so excited at this point you might need to sit down.
    • Snapfish offers all customers 100 free prints using the code 100FREEPRINTS almost all the time.
      • Every month you can click the pictures in the photo albums on your phone. Then add them to your cart, choose what sizes you want, and get 100 free 4×6 prints.
      • They're sent directly to your house which is fabulous. Yes, Snapfish lets you develop a total of 1,200 free prints every year!

• Free Images – If you are a blogger, web designer, or looking for free stock photos or graphics try GraphicStock here. There are several places online to find images and graphics. Many sites do not offer high quality dynamic images. This one has over 250,000 and they are high quality too.
  • Mobile phone – Of course an upgrade is always going to help the clarity. If you have an iPhone XS you're obviously going to get a better photo than an 8.
  • The smartphone camera for each upgrade is usually pretty substantial.

Looking for the best cell phone for tweens, here's a recommendation.

We hope these tips help you improve your cell phone photography skills. We've shown you how to take the best picture with your cell phone. Plus here are a few ways to enhance your photos for free too!

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