As traditional broadcast journalists, very few if any of us were ever trained as photographers. Yet we now know that good photos are essential in order to maximise the impact of our journalism – in particular via social media.
Fear not however! Because there are a handful of apps that can help you transform your photography skills with a smartphone. But before going any further, it’s worth reading articles that are designed specifically to help introduce the basics of iphoneography.
Camera+ is one of the best third party apps for allowing manual control over focus and exposure. However, there are quite literally thousands of alternatives
Snapseed. Snapseed is one of the best apps for editing your mobile photography. And it’s free! Here’s an article that explains how to use the app
VSCOCam. This is also one of the best available apps for editing photographs. Here’s an online tutorial from the iphonephotographyschool.com on how to use the app to get the best possible results
AfterFocus – does precisely what its title suggests. Allows you to change the focal points of your images during the creative editing process
Retouch is a remarkable tool but must be used with caution to avoid the risk of changing the meaning or context of any image. Nevertheless can dramatically salvage & repair blemished images
Photoshop Fix. This is the new paired down version of Photoshop for an iPhone. the same kind of health warnings for maintaining journalistic integrity apply to this (and all other) photo editing apps.
Union allows a more creative approach to photography, merging different images to create new and original content
NightCap Pro enables better quality photos to be taken in low ,ight conditions – although this is clearly a weakness for the iPhone in general.
PhotoCollage – just one of many similar apps that allow you to very quickly create a collage or storyboard which can be published to any social media platform.
This specialist app called SKRWT lets you straighten lines in your images that have been distorted by the camera lens – a particular problem with any add on lenses, but visible around the edges of many photos
.
BBC Wales Technology for Journalism 