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Hidden Features

With any camera, of course, the new features that you can actually use, and see, and operate, are half the reason the new camera is so fun. But it's also important to take a look behind the scenes and underneath the actual back of this camera and phone to determine what about it is so great that's hidden that you can't necessarily see. Well, the Apple iPhone 7 has some pretty neat features, and first and foremost is the 6 element lens. What does that do? Well, it's just a better quality lens that gives you sharper, more beautiful images. It makes them higher quality. The next thing that's really awesome about the iPhone 7 is the A10 processor. And I talked about that a little bit in the beginning of the class, but all it is really is a chip. It's like, you know how when you go out to get a new PC or computer and it says, "Oh, the Intel Pentium V processor," all these fancy names for fast processors? That's exactly what an A10 chip is. It's just a processor inside the phone itself. As a...

matter of fact, not only does it make the camera faster and perform better, but it also makes the phone itself perform faster and better. So any application you use inside the Apple iPhone 7 is going to be faster and more efficient, and particularly when it comes to editing your images. It's one thing to actually take an image with your camera. It's another thing to process it, like add effects, and increase the contrast, and fix the exposure, actually enhance the image inside some kind of app in your phone. The A10 chip processor will make that process that much faster, too. And if you're working with RAW files or large format files, that makes even more of a difference because that fast processing speed is going to just make things smoother, easier, and more fun to operate is really what it comes down to. And speaking of RAW shooting, the Apple iPhone 7 has the ability to shoot in RAW format. Now, I know that sounds like a foreign language, and to those of you who aren't professional photographers, it probably is a foreign language. Put it simply, in second-grade terms, it just means there's more data in the files that you shoot with the camera. It's a file format. Just like a JPEG file, or a TIFF file, or a Word document, those are all file formats. RAW files are just that. But what they have is uncompressed data inside of them. Now, the Apple iPhone shoots generally in JPEG format, you know, just as is. Put the camera in gear and take a shot, it's going to shoot it in JPEG. But you can shoot in this RAW format. Now, you have to go into a different app like Camera+ or whatever to do that. And we're going to show you how to do it here shortly. But that RAW file, the pixels are not compressed. So here's how I want to explain it. When you shoot in a JPEG mode, what happens is that's what's called a compressed format. So, the image, all the pixels are analyzed by your phone, by your computer, whatever, and it looks at pixels that could be discarded, that are extraneous information that don't compromise the integrity of the image. And what it does is it shrinks the size of the file down. It compresses it. It gets rid of unnecessary pixels. That's what a JPEG file is. A RAW file, uh-uh, it is not going to get rid of any of that data, which makes editing your images more fun because the app that you're using to edit your images has more data to pull from. That makes your images even more beautiful when you enhance them. So, granted it does take up more space on your phone, those files are huge in size. So you want to make sure you get, if you're a photography aficionado, you want to make sure you get one of the Apple iPhones that has a lot of storage space so you can store those RAW files on it. And of course, if you're sending things to the cloud for backup, that's going to take your backup space in the cloud as well, which may end up costing you more money over the long run. So, keep those things in mind when you're shooting in RAW. They're large format files, but there is all the data you need there in your image, you can enhance your images for a better quality looking image at the end, and you can print those images larger should you want to. So, the hidden things inside the iPhone include this RAW format shooting, where all your pixels are present, and better editing. And to do that, you need to actually get into another app, like the Camera+ app. It'll allow you to not only shoot those RAW images but make adjustments to them as well, because not every app or software out there can read RAW files. And I don't want you to get confused and go, "How do I edit this file?" You just need the right app for it and we're going to talk about that next. So, with the RAW capabilities in the iPhone Apple 7, it's important to use an app that can actually edit the images. So, I love to use the Camera+ app. And you can see here on my phone, I have tons of different apps that are fun to play around with, that are artsy, that do different effects here and there. But Camera+ has been around for a long time and it's one of the best photo editing apps out there. But it also allows you to use RAW files that the iPhone 7 can actually shoot. So I just shot an image using the Camera+ app of the grid wall that we have here. So, in order to take an image, just I want to note and make sure that I emphasize, to shoot the RAW image, you got to do it inside another app to get the RAW file into your phone. So, to do it in the Camera+ app, you would simply press the Camera button down there and I can take a picture of Gabe and Chris and Cathy right here, and it shot it in RAW. Now, before you actually take the image, make sure that Camera+ is set up to capture the RAW file. And to do that, you're going to press the icon over here on the lower right, the list icon, and you're going to scroll down to where it says, Quality and Format. You're going to pick the highest quality JPEG file, but then you're also going to make sure the Save RAW Photo button is clicked to On. Then it will save not only a JPEG version of your image, but it'll also save that RAW image as well. So, I'm going to go ahead and add an image that I shot earlier of the grid wall, which is this one right here. And if you see, I can press Info and it tells me that I've shot a JPEG and RAW file, that it's 4000 by 3000 pixels wide, that's a big file, and it's 16 megabytes in size. That's a huge file. So, we're going to be working with the amount of data that's in this file to create a really enhanced image. So, I'm going to go ahead and press OK. And now I have some options here. I can either do RAW Adjust, Edit, Share, Save, or Info. I just pressed Info to get the file specifications. Well, to do RAW adjustments, where you can really work with the full amount of pixels that are in the RAW file, you click on RAW Adjust. Now, I have all kinds of options down here at the bottom. I can adjust white balance, make my image warmer or cooler. Oh, cool, looks kind of cool. I can also adjust tint, which would be the green and magenta sliders. I like that right in the middle because that blue look is what I'm after. I can also adjust my exposure here. And like I said, this won't feel much different than what you're doing in a regular editing software, but where it comes into play is the amount of pixel data that's in the file and the amount of pixel data that you're working with when you're editing. Super important. You can do brightness and contrast. You can do highlights and shadows, so I can bring my shadow detail up or down. Go ahead and bring that down. And highlights down for a little more dramatic look. Cool beans. And then there is, of course, curves. Now, curves is a pro feature. For those of you who don't quite understand what curves is, I encourage you to play around with it. It allows you to adjust the contrast of your image. So the left side of the curve will make my shadows darker, and the right side of the curve will bring my highlights higher, or brighter. I can also adjust what's called midtones. And you'll see there's some presets up here. I can do a high contrast preset, or just a midtone adjustment preset. So I'll go ahead and choose. Let's bring in a little bit more contrast to make it a little bit more dramatic, give myself a good curve going on. There we go. That's a little bit too much. Let's go that way. You got to play around with this. I mean, this is something where it's visual and to your taste. You're the artist so make it what you want. Noise Reduction, especially in low light, you're going to want to address this. When you're shooting in low light conditions, the camera adds a little bit of noise to the image. It's just how the sensor reads the light hitting it. So, you can play around with this. This was actually not a very noisy image, so I'm going to go ahead and keep it the way it is. I can also rotate and flip right here in the RAW Lab or I can click on my Options and click Sharpening, Lens Correction. If I do Lens Correction, it'll help with that wide-angle aspect. I shot a square object with a wide-angle lens so it'll help with that. But then, I can go ahead and press Develop. And at this point, it's made the RAW adjustments to the image and I can go into the editing area and edit the image even further. So, I can crop, do details, things like that, all the conventional stuff that you guys already know when it comes to editing your images in a software. But those RAW adjustments need to be done in a software like Camera+, or Pro Camera, so that it can actually read the data, read that file format. But when shooting with RAW images and then processing them and printing them later, you're going to have all that data to work with, which is just going to make a higher quality, more beautiful image. We've talked about so many cool new features with the Apple iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus. So if you're thinking about upgrading or maybe you already have, hopefully, this class is giving you some good nuggets on how you can use these features to take more amazing images. Well, I want to wrap up with some fun things to do with your images and to talk about printing in a mobile world. First of all, apps. There are so many amazing apps out there that you can use to do amazing things with your images. Photogene, of course, is a wonderful one. That's a good, advanced, almost professional level image editing software. We discussed Camera+ in the last lesson. Pro Camera and Hipstamatic, Rhonna Designs. You can add graphic design to your images for cool advertising images, and banners and graphics for your website. Snapseed, of course, is wonderful. Pic-Tap-Go, Wood Camera, Mextures will allow you to put textures on top of your images, After Focus, and of course, TiltShift Generator, which gives some very cool effects. So explore these, look at them in the Apple iPhone store, and see which ones might be fun for you to check out. The photography world, the digital photography world, especially when it comes to portable devices, has become so amazing with a lot of cool people doing artistic stuff with different apps out there, so check those out. But most importantly, guys, keep it all on the phone and back it up to the cloud. We take so many images, I mean, I think I have 2,000 or 3,000 images on this iPhone. And I'm so the shoemaker whose kids have no shoes, it is so hard to think about backing all this stuff up. Because can you imagine, I mean, how many of you out there have lost your phone, or stepped on it, or crushed it, and gone, "All my pictures." Or worst yet, I'm totally guilty of this, dropping it in the toilet. I could have killed myself. Well, if your images are backed up on the iCloud, you will never have to worry again. And there are features in the camera settings of your iPhone, you can actually make it automatically back up to the cloud at all times. I highly recommend doing that. Now, will it cost you space for storage? Yes. But it's better than the cost of losing all those images when something happens to your phone. But most of all, guys, print. This is the most photographed generation ever with nothing to show for it. Because so many people just keep the images digitally on their phones, or on hard drives, or on the cloud, and there's nothing printed on the wall to show your families or your kids. There's no albums. And that's part of what makes a photograph beautiful. What's the point of taking an image if you're not going to display it and show it off? So I strongly encourage you to print. It's important to note that digital files are not archival, they're extremely sensitive. There are research studies going on right now to figure out how to make digital documents archival. Even our Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, there's no way to make that stuff truly archival. So the safest place for your digital files is to actually print them, because we can always scan a print and make a new digital negative from it. We can't print from a corrupted file. So it's critical that you take those images that you truly love and do something with them, actually put them into paper format. Digital files can be very difficult to store over a long term. They're easily lost and easily corruptible. So, you can print from this mobile world that we're in. A print is archival to 100 or 150 years if it's done professionally, with proper coding and preserving techniques. It's almost permanent. They are literally indestructible unless of course you throw it in the water like you would your phone, drop it in the toilet so to speak. Don't do that. But what I'm saying is is that prints, when they're framed and beautifully preserved, they will last a long, long time. They're easy to store as long as you keep them in a cool, not exposed to direct sunlight kind of place. And they're easy to enjoy and basically, built to last. A print, you can walk by it every day in your home and enjoy it. So remember, you can always make a new negative digital file from a print. You can't print from a corrupted digital file. And that's super important when it comes to preserving your images. So how do you print from your phone? Well, there's a couple different places out there that make it super easy. They have apps in the App Store that you can download and basically send images directly from your phone to a printing company. You can type in your credit card inside the app and, bam, a few days later, those prints show up on your front doorstep. Artifact Uprising is a great company that produces beautiful albums. Mosaic Books, same thing. BooksTo.Me will take your Instagram feed and actually produce a book out of it for you automatically, every quarter if you want, every month if you want. Mpix is a wonderful, professional-level lab where you can upload images to. And again, they'll be at your door in a couple days. Postal Pics and Print Studio are also wonderful places to get your images printed. So, if you've got that gorgeous shot of your little kid on your phone, even when you're on vacation on the beach, heck, use your LTE service, send it to the printers, and by the time you're on that airplane on the way home, it will be a print in your mailbox, waiting for you to frame and enjoy from your vacation. So, don't forget to download our freebie that we're giving out to those of you who are watching this class: The Hidden Secrets of your iPhone 7 and Adobe Camera Raw Basics. We'll go through processing your images in Adobe Camera Raw, what all those different sliders mean. We've touched a little bit on it here today in this course, but we go much more in depth. So go to Jewel-Education.com/iPhone7 to get that freebie download and learn some more new, hidden things about your iPhone that you're probably not using. Features that have long been there, but are you really taking advantage of it? That's what this document will help you out with. And then, finally, if you want to have some fun on Instagram, here are some wonderful accounts that I follow that actually display beautiful imagery on a daily basis. Everything from dogs to cool sunsets and scenery, to a couple who travels around the world, the "Follow Me To" series from Murad Osmann. He and his girlfriend travel the world taking gorgeous images of their love. And as they journey together across the countries, they just take amazing images. And Jermzlee, a pug's life, who couldn't love looking at a pug every day of their life. So, fun Instagram accounts to follow that will definitely brighten your day every time you open your Instagram feed. If you want to find me, this is where to do it: Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest, Twitter, of course, Instagram and Periscope. I'm always there posting images and having fun with my iPhone as well. So hopefully, this course gave you some good tools to use with your Apple iPhone 7 or 7 Plus. Maybe it helped you figure out if you want to upgrade or not. But most of all, I hope it inspired you to go out and take images with whatever device you have. Be it your iPhone, your DSLR, a point-and-shoot, it doesn't matter. What matters is that we preserve our memories, not only with the digital device that we have, but we that we get them on paper so that everyone else, including ourselves, can enjoy them.