How To Use iPhone 4 Photo Apps And Take Great Pictures In Four Easy Steps

I take a lot of pictures with my iPhone 4. I used to carry around a real camera, but since I’m not a serious photographer like my friend Keely, I’ve opted for a more practical approach… my iPhone.

What’s amazing is the iPhone 4 camera is actually really good. Once you learn how you to adjust the lighting with the use of the focus option then the rest is in the eye of the beholder.

NOTE: ALL of the photos I post online are taken with my iPhone 4s.

For the camera geek in you, there are some really cool apps that replicate old camera models, which can be very fun to use. Hipstamatic and PictureShow are cool for this. I’m sure there are others, but I haven’t found the time to dive into all of them yet.

For the social networker in you, Instagram is my favorite app for sharing my photos online. I used to do this with Posterous, but the fact is… Instagram is easier and the engagement between friends is much more fulfilling for me. I’m also a fan of Foodspotting. If you like taking pictures of your food then this is your app and tribe. Take photo of said food, Post photo of said food on Foodspotting, Eat said food. Easy.

I like to kept it simple. You have to figure out what this is for you, but my four suggestions are as follows:

1. I take all my photos with the camera for the iPhone 4s.
2. I always have the HDR (High Dynamic Range) setting on. When HDR is on it will take two pictures. One with the original lightening and one with an enhanced view. This allows you to get a better shot in low light conditions without using the flash or over exposed lightening conditions. The flash on my iPhone is a joke. I never use it.
3. Once I’ve taken the photo, I decided if I want to touch it up a bit. I go between two apps. One is called Photogene and the other is called Snapseed. Both are amazing and easy to use. Photoshop has an app now too but I like these two so much that I haven’t even messed with anything else.
4. Once I have fixed my photos, it’s ready to send out to you. I’ve always been a big fan of twitpic but I was looking for something that would post the picture well in facebook as well as anywhere else I wanted it to go online with only sending it out once.

Flying over the rockies and edited with Photogene

This is one of the reasons Instagram is so easy… I can tweet out pics from Instagram as well as send them to my blog and Facebook.

Again… really simple to set up and easy to do. Take picture, (fix picture if needed), send picture out through Instagram. 

Now… the most fun camera app I have though is 360Panorama. It’s just what you think it is and is fun to learn how to use. You can shoot a full 360 view or a really cool panoramic.

Photos taken with 360 Panorama

So that’s what I do. It’s easy, fun and works well for me.

How about you? What cool camera/photo apps do you use? What works well for you?