Taking Photos: Camera+

I use Camera+ for shooting photos on my iPhone 5. The Camera+ app has way more options than the standard iOS photo app.

Sharing Photos: Instagram

I love Instagram, but I don’t use it to edit my images. I don’t want every image to be square, and I like having a little more control over editing than Instagram offers. So, the only thing I use Instagram for is sharing images.
My favourite part of Camera+ is how you can choose focus and exposure points. This is great if you are taking an image where a person is in the foreground, and the background is very bright.

The standard iOS camera app chooses the exposure for you, and typically automatically exposes for the bright area. This means the person in the foreground will be very dark – you may not even be able to tell who it is! In Camera+, you could put the focus point on the person, and then move the exposure point around until you achieve the effect you want.

See the difference when you move the exposure points?

The other great part of Camera+ is the image stabilization. Have shakey hands? Or a moving subject? Simply turn on image stabilization and it won’t take the photo until everything is in focus.

Editing Photos: Afterlight

I love Afterlight for editing images right on my iPhone. It offers SO much control over things like brightness, exposure, contrast, clarity, and hue & saturation. There’s filters (similar to Instagram but better) and you can choose how intense the filter is by adjusting the opacity from 0% to 100%. You could do 50% of one filter and add another filter after. This app really gives you a lot of control over your image.

I use the borders feature a lot in Afterlight. It’s really great for adding some white space around an image to make it square. Makes any photo Instagram compatible. The circles and shapes are fun too.

Some of my Instagrams edited with Afterlight: