Photography Tip: Live Photo, Friend or Foe?

Live Photo: Friend or Foe?⠀

For today's photo tip I want to talk about Live Photo. Live Photo is a feature of the iPhone that turns your photos into little movies in attempts to give you more control and options. If you have an iPhone, this feature gets turned on with each update or on a random Tuesday & many times we don’t even know we're using it - but should we be?⠀
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My short answer is NO! But there’s always an exception to the rule….⠀

The issues with Live Photo:⠀

😡It makes your photos a tiny bit blurry & not as crisp.⠀
🙄The files are a ‘specialty’ file somewhere in between a photo & a video & aren't supported by most programs. They become a .heic file instead of a .jpg.⠀
😵They are large files & take up a lot of space.⠀

The benefits & when to use Live Photo:⠀

🏃‍♀️When you need to catch motion. For pups or squirmy babies, this is a great option because you can choose the best shot instead of the camera choosing & only catching a single frame.⠀
🎥If you want to make a looping or short video, kind of like a gif.⠀

How to know if Live Photo is on:

👀When you look at a photo it will have that sunburst circle in the top right corner.⠀
👀If you hold down a photo and it magically starts moving like a video.⠀
👀If you’re in your camera & the sunburst circle is yellow or does not have a line through it.⠀

How to turn off Live Photo:⠀

👍Permanently: Go to settings, Camera, Preserve Settings & then turn the slider gray.⠀
📸In the camera: in the top right tap the circle icon & it will have a line through it to let you know it's off.⠀

How to use and edit Live Photos:

✏️To choose the frame you want, click edit & click the circle icon (bottom left), you can scroll over to choose the best shot and hit ‘make key photo’ (video sample below).⠀
🎥To make video: choose the arrow in the bottom left corner, select ‘save as video’.⠀
😍To make a gif: when you’re viewing the photo swipe up to reveal Effects ‘loop, bounce & Long exposure’.⠀(video sample below)

What if my photos are already alive?!

If you find that you took a ton of lovely, but live, photos there's a simple way to convert them to jpgs. The iMazing HEIC convertor is a free software that you can just drag and drop your live photos into and it will convert them quickly for you so you're able to use them in any project you have!

Want more tips for taking amazing photos?

Watch this free video sharing 3 creative photography prompts to inspire your shots!