How to Take Better Interior Design Photos with your iPhone
Are you an Interior Designer looking to take better design photos with your iPhone? This blog post is for you!
While I personally believe professional photography will always yield the absolute best results when it comes to documenting and archiving your interior design work, it’s entirely possible to take lovely photographs of your projects using your phone.
In this post, I’m breaking down the photography techniques I would use if the only camera I had with me was the one that’s bulging out of my back pocket most of the time. I’m a Dallas Interiors Photographer, so I make a living taking beautiful photos for my clients.
I’ve always been a proponent that the technique is more important than the equipment, so I’m going to share how I would take interior photos using only my iPhone. I could honestly talk about photography all day long, but I decided to condense this down to the handful of things I would do first before taking any photos with my phone.
Tip #1 - Wipe The Smudges Off Your Phone & Make Sure To Clean Your Lens:
Ensuring your phone and lens are both wiped clean and free of dirt and smudges will give you the best photo result, so make sure to take a few seconds to wipe it down. Using a glass cleaning cloth is ideal, but I’ve honestly used a cotton t-shirt in a pinch, sacrilege, I know.
I always like to test the before and after, so snap a photo before wiping your lens down, give the entire phone and lens a good cleaning, and take another photo to compare and see if your images look sharper and clean afterward. I bet they will.
Tip #2 - Turn off All Overhead Lights:
Overhead light fixtures in this boutique in Oak Cliff gave off an unflattering glare on this really fun wallpaper.
Same image quickly edited in the Adobe Lightroom app, straightened verticals, and slightly cropped the image to remove the arm of the guy in the right of the photo frame.
Natural light is the go-to light source, so turn off all overhead lights if you can. While it feels counter intuitive to keep the lights on to brighten the room, you’ll achieve the best results if you take the photos with the lights off and add supplemental professional flash or strobe light after.
Overhead fixtures can give off unflattering artificial color that will take away and distract from the picture. Use natural or professional photo lights whenever possible.
Tip #3 - Make Sure Your Verticals Are Straight
Unedited; lens distortion caused bowing across the top, which I was able to fix in my editing app. I slightly underexpose photos in full sunlight, so I retain highlight details and then bring back colors in editing.
Edited in my Adobe Lightroom app clicking the auto button, I reduced the highlights, slightly increased the exposure, did the necessary lens corrections, straightened my vertical lines, and de-saturated the blues.
One of the hallmarks of good interior photography is that your vertical lines are straight, so the best way to ensure you’re lining up your shots well is to turn on the grid in your camera. The grid follows the classic composition principle, the rule of thirds, which if utilized correctly will give you a strong composition and straight vertical lines.
If you have an iPhone, this is how to turn on the grid:
Go to Settings
Scroll down and click on Camera
Under Composition, You’ll see a Grid Toggle Button, turn it on (it should be green)
While you’re here, you might as well turn on the settings that allow you to shoot in RAW. (Only available on newer Pro models of iPhones)
Click the Formats button at the top of the Camera menu
Make sure to turn on your Photo Capture is Apple ProRAW
And turn on your Video Capture is Apple ProRES
Et Voila, you’re done. Apple ProRAW will allow you more control in editing and allow you to change white balance in the Adobe Lightroom app.
Tip #4 - Once You Choose Your Focus Point, Manually Adjust the Exposure Slider to Your Liking:
Taken on auto, which shows the window (the brightest part in the frame and the floor is overexposed and blown out.)
Right photo: I slightly lowered the exposure allowing the details outside the window to be properly exposed. Lowering the exposure also allows you to create a moody image.
Tapping your screen will bring up a square that will set your focus point, and immediately to the right of the square box you’ll see the exposure slider that you can drag up or down.
The camera can automatically choose exposure for you, but if you want more control you can drag it up for brighter images, or down for darker moodier shots. I recommend taking a few at a couple of different exposures and start playing around with them in your favorite editing app to see which ones you like the most.
I find it’s better to slightly underexpose in this scenario, because you can always bump up the exposure to brighten the image, but it’s challenging to recover highlights.
Tip #5 - Hold Phone with Both Hands to Stabilize:
Steady, crisp photos are the name of the game here, so I hold the camera using both hands, and I walk backward and forward until I’m happy with the composition.
I don’t use the zoom button, because I’ve found it can lead to blurry shots. I just walk closer to (or sometimes back away) from the scene I want to photograph.
Once I like the framing I hold the phone in both hands, check to ensure my lines are straight, set my focus point and take a base photo. I’ll quickly review it to see what I want to change, make those adjustments (if there are any) and take a few more shots for good measure.
And that my friends, is how I would photograph interiors using only my iPhone. If you found this helpful by all means let me know in the comments below, and conversely, if you’d like to see a tutorial on how I edit my iPhone photos using the Adobe Lightroom app let me know that as well.
Stacy Markow is a former sommelier turned Interiors & Commercial Architecture Photographer servicing design clients across the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. Not only can I capture the beauty of your next interior design project for your portfolio, I can also help you celebrate reaching the finish line by choosing the perfect bottle of Champagne.
For more information on Stacy’s photography services, or to see more of my beautiful work, you can visit my website at www.stacymarkow.com
