Technologies

Got a New iPhone? Here’s How to Take Your Best Photos Ever

Whether you have an iPhone 14 Pro or an earlier phone, these pro tips will help you get your best ever photos.

We gave Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro a CNET Editors’ Choice award for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest was its awesome triple camera system. It can take beautiful photos that comfortably rival shots from the best camera phones out there, including Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra and Google’s recent Pixel 7 Pro. It takes great photos at night, too.

The iPhone’s powerful combination of gorgeous image quality, software processing and advanced features, such as Apple’s own ProRaw image format, means the iPhone’s images can look like they were taken on a professional-level camera.

Then there’s the wide array of amazing photo editing apps available on iOS that can help turn even a regular image into an eye-catching piece of digital art.

But simply having a great camera isn’t the only thing you need to take award-worthy images. Knowing the tricks of the trade will make the difference between coming home with some fun snaps and coming back with beautiful photos you can’t wait to print and frame for your wall.

Here, then, are my top tips for better images, techniques that I use every day as a professional photographer, from working with the light to using more-creative angles to polishing up your shots in editing apps. Many of these tips will apply on any recent phone you may have, including the base iPhone 14 or older models like the iPhone 13 and iPhone SE and even many Android phones. Looking for a new phone for taking photos? Check out our guide to the best camera phones.

Know when to use the different lenses

fishing boats — By switching to the ultrawide lens, I was able to capture this mooring rope as foreground interest, which ties the scene together.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

It’s easy to stand in front of a picturesque scene and flick between the normal, super wide and zoomed views on the phone, but it’s more difficult to understand exactly why one might be better than the other for a particular composition. To figure it out, you need to take an extra moment to look at what’s important in the scene in front of you.

Is there a particular subject — perhaps a statue or an impressive building — that’s surrounded by lots of other elements like trees, sign posts or street lights? Using the iPhone 14 Pro’s 3x telephoto zoom here is a great way of isolating your subject and eliminating all those distractions. You may need to move back a bit and then zoom in to keep it in frame, but simplifying your scene like this will help your subject stand out.

But perhaps it’s those extra surrounding elements that really add to the scene and provide context for where you are. In that case, using the standard zoom will allow you to keep those items in the shot. Switching to the super wide view will capture even more of the surroundings. So to avoid your subject getting lost in the frame, you might want to move closer and find interesting foreground objects (a patch of flowers, a cool-looking rock) to add to the composition.

Revisit at different times of day

Edinburgh at sunset — Waiting until the evening for this shot really paid off, with an incredible fiery sunset.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

Edinburgh on a cloudy afternoon — Only 10 minutes earlier, this was the same scene. Fine, but with none of that Edinburgh sunset drama.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

The awesome low-light skills of the iPhone 14 Pro mean you’re not limited to only taking photos at midday when the sun is at its highest. Sunrises and sunsets will typically be darker, but may reward you with beautiful colors in the sky and great contrast in the light being cast. Landscape photographers know that getting up before dawn can often yield the best results and it’s something that’s always worth keeping in mind, if you can stomach the early rises.

If you’re willing to try a sunrise shoot at least once, visit the spots you’ve already shot and see how they’re transformed by the different light. It’s this that will separate your images from the hundreds of others on Instagram who just took a snap after their morning coffee.

Don’t be afraid of the dark

boats on a quay lit up at night — Night mode allowed me to capture a vibrant and sharp shot here, despite it being the middle of the night.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

Don’t think that once the light goes altogether you need to stop shooting. The iPhone 14 Pro has one of the best night modes on any phone and can take astonishing night-time photos. City scenes, with car headlights, vibrant shop window displays and even festive holiday decorations can provide superb fodder for night shots. And don’t worry if it rains. Those wet streets will now reflect all of those lights, which can look amazing.

Check out our tutorial If you want to get even better results from your night-time phone photography.

Shoot in ProRaw, edit your shots later

a photo of two people climbing stairs, one version in color, the other in black and white — The original image on the left is a fair snap, but with a moody black and white edit it has a lot more atmosphere and works much better as a shot.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

A few careful tweaks in editing apps like Adobe Lightroom can make all the difference between an everyday snap and a beautiful piece of art. Thankfully, Apple has made this even better with the introduction of ProRaw.

ProRaw is much the same as shooting in raw on regular DSLRs; it doesn’t save all the image data, allowing you to change white balance and alter colors much more accurately after you’ve taken your shot.

It also captures more detail in the shadows and highlights of your images, giving more scope for rescuing those bright skies with the highlights slider or bringing back a bit more visible detail in the darker shadows. You’ll see the raw button in the top corner of your screen when you’re in the camera, so make sure it doesn’t have a line through it if you’re taking an image that you know you’ll want to polish up later to look its best. You can edit JPEG images too. I’s just that you won’t have quite the same level of flexibility.

I use Adobe Lightroom Mobile for most of my phone editing. It’s a professional tool and has a lot of granular control over color and exposure, while also syncing my images to the cloud so I can pick up my edits later on my iPad or my desktop computer. If you don’t fancy the monthly fees, Google’s Snapseed is free and also has a lot of superb features for getting the best from your shots, including a variety of film effects that give some beautiful color toning to your photos.

If you want to get a bit more wild and creative, you should check out apps like Bazaart and PicsArt, which provide a variety of tools and effects for compositing images to turn them from photos into often bizarre pieces of modern art. Take a look at my roundup of image editing apps for more ideas.

Remember that there is no right or wrong way to edit your images, and applying creative effects doesn’t mean deleting the original file — so you can always go back and try again if you don’t like the result. My advice is to get a cup of tea, sit back in a comfy chair and spend some time playing with your editing app of choice and seeing what you can create. You may be surprised at what you can come up with, even from images you took some time ago.

Technologies

Tim Cook Riffs on Retirement Rumors, AI, Phone Addiction and Trump

The Apple CEO discussed a range of topics on Good Morning America.

Tim Cook isn’t going anywhere just yet — not during Apple’s 50th anniversary celebrations, not with the company preparing to introduce its first foldable phone, not while the tech giant is trying to figure out how to beat the AI race.

In a sit-down interview with Good Morning America host and Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Strahan this week, Cook, who turned 65 in November, said there was no truth to the rumors that he is considering retiring from Apple. He became CEO of the company in 2011, 13 years after joining from Compaq.

«I love what I do deeply. Twenty-eight years ago, I walked into Apple, and I’ve loved every day of it since,» Cook told Strahan. «We’ve had ups and downs, but the people I work with are so amazing. They bring out the best in me, and hopefully I can bring out the best in them.»

Strahan interviewed Cook during the Apple CEO’s visit to Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing & Visual Arts in Harlem, where students use Apple technology through the company’s partnership with the nonprofit Save the Music.

Speculation about Cook stepping down has been circulating since last November, when the Financial Times cited unnamed sources saying that Apple was preparing to usher in a new CEO «as soon as next year.» Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman threw water on that report, saying he «would be shocked if Cook steps down in the time frame outlined by the FT.»

During Cook’s tenure as CEO, Apple’s revenue has nearly quadrupled, with the tech giant adding dozens of new iPhone models, several more iPads, and updated Apple Watches and AirPods. This year, Apple has launched several new products, including the MacBook Neo, which at $599 has disrupted the budget laptop market. The company’s first foldable phone could come later this year.

Touch some grass

The GMA interview was short but wide-ranging, including Cook’s thoughts on how much people use their iPhones. Many studies estimate that people across most generations spend at least 4 hours a day on their phones, with millennials and Gen Z spending 5 to 6 hours.

When asked what he worries about most regarding Apple products’ impact on society, Cook weighed in, telling Strahan he doesn’t want people using iPhones «too much.»

«I don’t want people looking at the smartphone more than they’re looking in someone’s eyes,» Cook said, «because if they’re just scrolling endlessly, this is not the way you want to spend your day. Go out and spend it in nature.»

More on Apple from CNET:

AI and privacy

Cook told Strahan that AI «can be so positive,» but his response when asked whether he was «worried» about it was fairly flat.

«Technology doesn’t want to be good, and it doesn’t want to be bad,» Cook said. «It’s in the hands of the user and the hands of the inventor.»

Strahan questioned how much of iPhone users’ private lives are feeding Apple’s AI learning machine. Cook told him that because the smartphone is encrypted, Apple doesn’t have access to it. He went on to say: «When we can’t answer a question on your device, we send it to something called private cloud compute, which is essentially a big device in the sky that has the same kind of security and architecture as your phone.»

On its website, Apple says that it «does not use our users’ private personal data or user interactions when training our foundation models.»

To date, Apple has been cautious in diving into the AI scrum. While Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft are spending nearly $700 billion combined on AI tech this year, Apple is «only» investing $14 billion.

Trump and tariffs

Cook has been criticized for being too cozy with the Trump administration: donating $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inauguration; giving him a 24-karat gold plaque; and attending a White House screening of Melania, a film about the First Lady.

The Apple CEO told Strahan that he’s «not a political person» on either side.

«I’m kind of straight down the middle, and I focus on policy,» Cook said. «So, I’m very pleased that the president and the administration is accessible to talk about policy.»

One of those policies has been tariffs, which Trump has imposed on many nations to varying degrees during his second term in office, purportedly to pressure companies to shift their manufacturing to the US. The president has largely spared Apple, which promised to invest $600 billion over four years to make more products in the US.

Cook told Strahan that the glass for the front and back of an iPhone will come out of Kentucky by the end of the year, and that 100 million chip engines will be manufactured in Arizona this year. He also noted that 20 billion semiconductors will be made in the US. «We’re a very proud American company, and we want to do as much here as we can,» Cook said.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for March 19, #1012

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 19 #1012.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle features another tricky purple category, where words hide inside the clues and you have to dig them out. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Children’s stories.

Green group hint: Lucky charms.

Blue group hint: One color, then the next.

Purple group hint: Hidden words relating to music.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Folk tale characters.

Green group: Good luck symbols.

Blue group: Things that change color.

Purple group: Ending in music genres.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is folk tale characters. The four answers are Chicken Little, Frog Prince, Gingerbread Man and Goldilocks.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is good luck symbols. The four answers are evil eye, four-leaf clover, horseshoe and rabbit’s foot.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is things that change color. The four answers are chameleon, mood ring, sunset and traffic light.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ending in music genres. The four answers are baby blues, pet rock, scrap metal and soda pop.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for March 19, #542

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 542 for Thursday, March 19.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is tricky. Remember that many athletes’ surnames look like common words, so if you’re having trouble sorting the answers, think about whether a particular word could be someone’s last name. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Football division.

Green group hint: They catch the pigskin.

Blue group hint: College hoopsters.

Purple group hint: Where’s the glass slipper?