Upgrade Photos With These 3 iPhone Tricks
Stop taking flat-looking photos; you're missing these 3 built-in iPhone camera tricks.
1 Lock Focus and Exposure Instantly
Most people don't realize your iPhone camera is constantly adjusting focus and brightness as you frame your shot — and that's usually a problem. If the camera is tracking a moving subject or shifting light, your final image ends up blurry or weirdly exposed. The fix is simple: tap and hold on your main subject until you see 'AE/AF Lock' appear at the top of your screen. This freezes both autofocus and exposure, keeping your settings locked even if the scene changes, so you can recompose or wait for the perfect moment.
2 Shoot in ProRAW for Editing Power
Standard JPEG photos compress a lot of information into a small file, which means you lose detail in shadows and bright highlights. ProRAW captures much more color and tonal data, giving you way more flexibility when editing later — especially if you need to recover an underexposed sky or lift murky shadows. To enable it, go to Settings > Camera > Formats and toggle on Apple ProRAW; files are larger and use more storage, but for any photo you care about, the extra editing power is worth it.
3 Clean Up Distracting Backgrounds Easily
A photobomber, trash can, or stray person in the background can ruin an otherwise perfect portrait. Rather than retaking the shot, use your iPhone's 'Clean Up' tool to remove those objects automatically — just open the photo in the Photos app, tap Edit, select the cleanup tool (it looks like a bandage), and tap what you want to remove. The AI fills in the background for you, and while it's not perfect every time, it works surprisingly well on most unwanted objects, especially when the background is relatively simple.
Now that you know these three tricks, your photos will look noticeably sharper, more detailed, and free of unwanted clutter. Give them a try on your next shot.