11/6

 Photography on the Smartphone

Agenda: 

Review How Do I (set up any passkeys lately?)

Presentation

Lots of Hands on

Homework:

Recording:

Did you miss the class?  Want to hear it again? (Yes, there was a lot of information!) You can hear the class by clicking on this link.

The camera and the app

When discussing photography on the smartphone, it is important to note that your smartphone has an actual camera embedded in the device and an app which is used to take photos.

The actual camera includes the lens (front and back) and the flash.  The flash also serves as your flashlight.

The app contains the settings and the capabilities of the camera.  

Finding the camera

Finding the iPhone camera:

Finding the Android camera:

Find the settings for your camera

Different phones will have their camera settings in different places on the phone.  Let’s take a few moments to find the settings where you can make changes such as those below.  On the camera on my Android phone, settings are found by swiping right and by clicking on icons on the top.  On the iPhone, they are found on the top bar of the camera app as well as below the screen.  Where are your camera settings?  If you can’t find them, see if you can find another classmate with the same phone.  Or, ask if you still need help.  Then, write it down so you remember.   (Your settings may be in a different location!)

Android settings (yours may be different)

iPhone settings (1)

iPhone settings (2)

Additional settings for iPhone:

Besides settings found in the camera app, the iPhone also has settings for the camera in main settings.  To access them, go to:  Settings>Camera

Two more things:  Settings and burst photos

Some of the settings on your phone (click on the arrow to view)

Some of the common settings you may have:

·         Flash   :  Set it on ON when you want to use it, or set it to Auto, and the phone will decide when to use it.  Some sources recommend keeping it off as it can overexpose the shots when close up. 

·         Switch to back facing or front facing camera  :  Tap icon once to switch from back to front or from front to back.

·         HDR:  This stands for high dynamic range.  It will take a series of images, each shot with a different exposure from darkest to lightest.  HDR photos take several photos at different exposures into one well-exposed image.  Note that when it is turned on, it will take longer for the picture to be taken.  So you must be very still (or use a tripod).   You can have it set for automatic, or turn on or off at will.  With Android, you can only choose on or off.

·         White balance (Android)   :  White light varies depending on the light source (light bulbs, sunlight).  Android offers 5 options for the different types of lighting.  Automatic setting works well for most situations.

·         Settings (Android)   :  Additional options such as scene mode (night, party, or leave at auto), store location (geotagging photos) and picture size (how big a photo in terms of megapixels). 

·         SCE (Android):  Scene mode:  Exposure modes which help you to achieve proper automatic balance for a photo.  My version has party, sun, night and action. 

·         Exposure (Android)    At default 0, you get exposure camera selects.  Otherwise, you can go up or down if you want an overexposed or underexposed picture.

·         Time-lapse:   This is a video recording that captures video at a very slow frame rate.  Depending on the length of your video, your phone may shoot two frames a second (for videos under 10 minutes) to one frame every eight seconds (for videos longer than an hour).   Used for things  like setting the setting sun or traffic patterns.

·         Slo-Mo:  Slo-Mo is slow motion.  This feature allows you to play back video at ¼ the speed, which makes the video appear much slower.  After you take the picture, you go to edit, where you can see a series of blue lines.  Where they appear to space out is where the slow motion will occur.  You can adjust these bars by pinching and moving out or in.  Hit the play button to see your results. 

·         Video:  The Video setting allows you to take a video using your smartphone or tablet.

·         Photo:  The default setting for camera

·         Square:  In this mode, your photo is square. 

·         Pano:  Pano stands for panorama.  It only works in portrait mode.  

o   To shoot a panorama with an iPhone

§  Choose your main point to begin. 

§  Click on white shutter to start the panorama.

§  Slowly swipe your camera in the direction of the arrow. 

§  Keep the arrow on the green line.

o   To shoot a panorama with an Android

§  Begin at the extreme left of right of where you want to begin

§  Press shutter button and begin panning

§  An icon of a wide curved screen will show how much of the photo you have captured

§  When done, DO NOT click on the X in the corner.  This deletes what you have done.  Instead, wait for the camera to stitch together the panorama.

·         Photo Sphere (Android):  This setting lets you capture all surroundings in a single image.  To use:

o   Select Photo Sphere.  A grid replaced the image on your screen.

o   Look for a small window with a white circle in the center.  There should be a blue dot on the screen.  If you don’t see it, move the camera until the blue dot is centered in the white circle.  The camera will automatically take a picture.

o   Other dots will appear.  Move camera so that one of them is centered, and the camera will automatically take another picture.

o   Continue until you have covered as much area as you want.

·         Lens Blur (Android):  Allows you to blur the background while focusing on the target. 

Taking Burst photos (Apple) Click on down arrow to view

Burst mode is when several photos are captured in quick succession.  This is usually done when the subject is moving.

1.   Create a burst of photos by holding down the shutter button or volume button.  

2.    After creating the burst, click on the thumbnail of the burst stack. 

3.   Tap Select.

4.   The iPhone or iPad will automatically choose which pictures were the best out of the burst. You will see a grey dot below the photos in the burst which the iPhone has chosen to have the best focus and composition. 

5.   Tap the blue checkmark above those photos that the iPhone has chosen or choose the ones that you want. 

6.   Click Done when you are finished.

7.   Choose to Keep Everything (in case you change your mind) or to keep only those that you selected.

Where do you find the pictures?

·         Android:  In the Gallery.  Swipe from right to left. 

·         Apple:  In the camera stream.  Tap on the small picture in the lower left corner.

Let’s change the profile picture for a Google account.

1.   Click on your picture while in gmail, and then click on the camera.

2.   Choose either upload photos (from one on your device) or your photos (from your Google account)

3.   Click on the photo you wish to choose, and then “set as profile photo”

4.   There might be a delay, but ultimately, you will see that your picture has been replaced.

Properties of a photo

Understanding properties of a photo:

While viewing your photo, if you right click on it, you will see a property setting. There are five tabs in properties.  The two tabs you might use are General and Details.


View a photo on Google Photos

View information on Google photos

View photo in Apple photos

View information on Apple photos

Sharing photos

Sharing your pictures:

After taking your picture, click on it to share it.   Tapping on them will give you some sharing options.  Depending on what you have installed on your device, you can email the pictures, text them, post them to an online storage, share them to a social network or more.   To share:

Android share
Apple share

Other Things to do with photos

Preserving your collection of old photos, slides and videos

Do you have boxes of photos, old slides, negatives or video tapes?  Preserve them!  Here are some ways that use technology to convert your media into digital format:

·         Do it Yourself:  Scan all photos using a home scanner, save to your computer or a cloud service

·         Bring it in:  San Diego has media transfer services such as DVD Your Memories, San Diego Audio Video, and Photos Movies and More. 

·         Send it in: Some possibilities include Scan Café, DigMyPics or Scan My Photos. 

·         Use an all in one site, such as Forever.  Scans all types of media, provides storage on their cloud, enables sharing via phone, create photo books and gifts

Sharing to a website or app

Have you shared a picture online, such as adding pictures to Facebook or Twitter, or attaching a picture to a profile online? You do this by uploading the photo from your smartphone to the site, or by taking a picture and sending it to that site.   Examples: 

·         Facebook: Use a photo as part of your post, or add to your photos page.

·         Google:  Attach a profile picture by going to round icon on your Gmail page.  It may be the letter of your first name, or there can be a photo. 

Some social networking apps which use your camera and pictures

·         Facebook: Use in posts and in timeline.  Very popular for picture collections

·         Instagram:  More for that special picture.  Uses filters in the app. 

·         Snapchat:  Quick shots and videos, shared with friends.  Disappears after viewing

Photo storage:  On the device and on the cloud (can do next week)

Photo storage on your mobile device

With an Apple device, there is no extra storage (such as a sim card).  So, what you see in the photo folder is what you have on the device.  To view the storage on your Apple iPhone, select Settings>General>iPhone storage

An Android device may be different.  It has an internal storage and a sim card.  You would go into settings, then into storage to see where your photos are kept.  If they are not being kept in the sim card, you can change settings for that.  If your device is telling you that there is no more storage for pictures, it can be that your delete folder in file manager app is full. To view the storage on your Android phone, select Settings.  Then look for something on storage.  (The Samsung storage is found under "device care". ) 

At any rate, it makes more sense to keep photos stored on the cloud, and not as much on your device.  Setting up an automatic sharing option (like the one below), you can delete photos from the device after they are uploaded.

Google photos:  

Although Google Photos was free in the past, your photos stored on Google Photos now count towards the 15 GB limit.  That is still a generous amount of storage, and there are some advantages to using Google photos.  It allows for automatic updates, easy to use interface and a great search tool.  It also links with the Google store to create books, gifts and more with the photos. 

To begin, download the free app from the App Store or Google Play Store. 

Open the app and sign into your Google account. Then follow the prompts to start uploading your photos and videos. There’s also a web version of Google Photos for uploading pictures and videos that are stored on your computer.

To view your uploaded photos and videos, you simply open the app or visit the Google Photos website from any device. Go to https://photos.google.com on the web or tap on the Photos icon in your app to view all your photos sorted in order of date uploaded.

View an individual photo by tapping on it. This is also how you access the options for editing and sharing a photo. 

To turn on the WiFi backup setting (to save cellular data)

Open the app and click on your photo

Scroll down to Google Photo settings

Select "Backup" and make sure that cellular data is OFF.  This way you will only upload during times when you are connected to Wi-Fi

  You can learn more by going to the Google site.  Best option if you have only PC/Android, or a combination of PC and Apple products. Requires setting it up on each device by downloading the Google Photos app and enabling it.  You can also view your photos online by going to photos.google.com.  

Great resource:  This resource explains how to use Google Photos

iCloud: 

iCloud is best for those who are Apple only.  It only offers 5 GB of storage, so it is likely that you have already purchased additional storage (especially if you are backing up multiple devices to the same username).  

To set up iCloud photos on your Mac, 

Open the photos app and select Preferences.

Tap on “iCloud” and select “iCloud photos”.  Indicate whether you want to put the originals on the Mac or only smaller, device-sized versions (regular versions are available on the cloud). 

Your photos will then upload to the cloud.

To set up iCloud on your iPhone:

Open Settings>Apple ID>iCloud>photos

Tap iCloud Photos

Choose optimize or download 

Keep in mind that iCloud will not automatically upload pictures from your PC or your Android device.  You can find more by going to the Apple support page for iCloud photos.  

What other choices do you have besides Google Photos or iCloud?

If you were a Google Photos user, you may be disappointed that you are losing this free storage.  However, there are options besides iCloud and Google Photos.  Here are some of them:

·         Are you a power-user?  Consider Flickr’s Unlimited Paid plan.  For $6.99/month or $60 a year, you can have unlimited online photo storage.  Not only that, they are stored in full resolution.  Great option if you have lots of photos, and especially if they are in different formats than just jpeg.

·         Do you have a Microsoft 365 account?  In this case, you can purchase a 1 TB storage on One Drive for $69.99 a year. 

·         Are you an Amazon Prime member?  You can enjoy unlimited photo storage (but only 5GB for videos, so keep that in mind). 

·         Cloud backup:  Or, you can just use a cloud-based storage service like iDrive or Carbonite.  They do have a cost involved, but they include unlimited (or high capacity) storage of all files, automatically.

·         Social networks (still free unlimited for the most part)

·         Dropbox or Evernote: Free up to 5GB

·         External Hard drive:  For the cost of the hard drive, you can save all photos to this external hard drive.  Good option if you want to keep them “in house” but may not be the best option in terms of security or in case the device fails. 


How can you back up your Google photos to your device?

Did you know that you can download all of your Google data at once?  It is done using Google Takeout (takeout.google.com).  While on this site, you can download not only Google Photos but anything that you have on the Google cloud.  Great for those who want to separate from Google, or to change an account. 

With the photos, once you have downloaded them to your device, you can then upload them to another cloud, or onto a hard drive. 

Deleting your photos  while syncing to iCloud or Google Photos

Deleting photos from the phone when you are using iCloud (iPhone only)

You can delete photos from your iPhone without deleting them from iCloud by turning off the iCloud Photos feature on your iPhone. Here are the steps to do that:

After you turn off iCloud Photos, any photos you delete from your iPhone will only be deleted from your iPhone, and not from iCloud. However, keep in mind that any new photos you take on your iPhone won't automatically upload to iCloud until you turn on the iCloud Photos feature again.

Deleting photos from your smartphone while using Google Photos (Android and iPhone)

Resources

Helpful resources:

There is so much information online to help you to become more adept at smartphone photography. Here are some to get you started. 

A free online class dedicated to digital photography: There are a number of organizations which offer free online instruction. Alison is one of them. Most of the classes are free, but you do have to sign up before. This class is offered by Alison and is pretty complete. 

What is Live photo in iPhone: This online article provides some information and examples. This site also has lots more you can do with your iPhone. 

Very helpful video tutorial: This video (especially the first 6 minutes of the 10 minute video) offers some excellent explanations on some of the features we will be discussing in class. A must watch! 

Web resource: A complete guide to smartphone photography. Great reference!

Tutorial: Time lapse on your Android. Our iPhone has a time lapse setting, but the Android does not. Here are some apps and more information on doing a time lapse on the Android. 

Web resource: How to print photos from your iPhone or iPad. Most of instructions can also apply to Android. 

Terminology resource: HDR, F-Stop, jpeg. This resource explains it all.

Real or fake? This article on BBC provides some clues on how to tell. Think you can now spot a fake? Take the Adobe test to find out. I did horribly!