iPHONE PORTRAIT PHOTO GUIDE

Take amazing portraits by day or night

- GEORGE CAIRNS

WHEN IT COMES to capturing stunning portraits of the people in your life, your everpresent iPhone is most likely going to be your best camera, both for instant access and quality.

This feature is packed full of tips, tricks and techniques to help you make the most of the iPhone Camera app's many shooting modes.

We'll also look at how your iPhone's various built-in lenses quickly give you a wide range of compositional choices (without having to pause and swap lenses like you do with a bulky Digital SLR camera).

During the long winter nights you'll face the challenge of shooting people in low light, so we've devoted two pages to capturing colorful low-light portraits. We also recommend some third-party gadgets (such as portable LED lights) to improve the quality of low-light shots, as well as adding three-dimensional "modeling" to a subject's face.

Your iPhone is a one-stop shop! As well as capturing portraits it enables you to change their colors, tones and composition in its digital darkroom - the Photos app. We'll explore a wide range of post-production techniques (such as adding background blur) to help make your portraits look more like the work of a professional photographer. Your edited portraits will then catch the eye of friends and followers when you share your shots via social media.

THE CAMERA APP INTERFACE EXPLAINED

1 Portrait mode

To guarantee a flattering background blur, select Portrait mode. This mimics the professional "bokeh" effect produced by a DSLR lens. Thanks to iOS 17, it's also possible to add blur to some portraits when shooting in Photo mode (see p55).

2 Focus reticule

Your iPhone recognizes and tracks a subject to keep them in focus, courtesy of this yellow focus reticule. When editing a Portrait mode image in Photos you can change the focal point by tapping on a background object (iPhone 13 or later).