3 Tips for Better iPhone Images

Branding photography is an import aspect of business in this day and age. Social media is now an important component of any business. Current and potential clients what to know more about you, your business, and what you have to offer. It is also a way to connect and network with others.

Where does photography come into play with this? Professional photographs can increase your engagement and create a cohesive look to your feed, website and overall branding. Most businesses have an Instagram account; it is a way to connect with others. Sometimes keeping up with post can be difficult and sometimes hiring a photographer doesn't work within your budget, so you may try to take images of your products on your own.

Remember my last blog post on 6 flat lay photography tips for Instagram? If not you can view it here, and we're elevating that post with 3 additional tips here.

Lighting

I probably sound like a broken record by now...how many times can I talk about lighting? If you've read my other tips and tricks blog post than you know I like to talk about lighting. You may know that this has a lot to do with photography. Setting your products up in a neutral space to avoid colour casting and in a well lite room is the best recipe you can start with. Use a large white see to soften the light (if that's the look you're going for) and use white foam core board to bounce that light back in and soften the shadows. One of the great things about using your iPhone is that you have a live view, so watch for those shadows or harsh highlights. As long as your image is well lite and exposed correctly, editing will be much easier. Getting it right in camera makes all the difference. You may want to avoid using the flash with your iPhone. Unlike using an off camera flash, there isn't a lot of control with your iPhone and being in a well lite space will make using your iPhone easier as phones are not the best for shooting in low light.

Taking The Photo

  1. Surprisingly this is something that gets overlooked more often than not. Your phones go everywhere with you, so you can image how much dirt and grime those little lenses carry around. It takes 2 seconds clean your lens, so add that as one of your to-dos when prepping.
  2. Avoid the zoom feature - your image quality will fall drastically using this feature on your phone, so avoid it all together. Move closer to the subject instead of zooming or take a wider shot and in post crop it to your liking. Hold as still as you can - a moving or shaking phone will add motion blur making the image look blurry and poor quality overall. The sharper you photo is the better quality it will appear. If you have a small tripod with a phone attachment, you can try using this if you feel a bit shaky.
  3. Be sure to lock your focus - tap you phone on the section of the image that you'd like to be in focus. This will ensure that your subject is in the right focus and the sharpest part of the image. This is so important, especially if you are photographing product images!

Editing

Nowadays, phones have the incredible capability to capture images and there are plenty of apps out there you can use to edit your image - so many good ones! These can take your phone images to the next level. Some of these apps include:

  1. A Colour Story
  2. VSCO
  3. Lightroom
  4. Photoshop

All of these apps will have their own learning curve if you are not familiar. My top two favourite apps to us are VSCO (comes with filters) and Lightroom (PRESETS). These are great especially if your feed already has a cohesive look to the images. If your feed doesn't - that's okay! You may want to research mobile lightroom presets to help with this process - there are plenty out there. If you're more tech/photography savy then you may already have custom presents, like myself. This really helps when it comes to editing an image on the go to ensure your images are consistent with your brand.

I hope you've enjoyed some of these tips and tricks! If you find yourself lost and unsure of how to elevate your images shoot me a message! I'm always happy to help answer questions.

Happy to share this Durham Region branding session with Worth the Squeeze. If you haven't tried her all natural juices - you are missing out!