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

What a Ban Would Actually Mean for DJI Drone Owners and Holiday Shoppers

What’s the secret to a very un-merry shopping season? A brand new, unusable drone.

With Thanksgiving wrapped up and the Black Friday shopping sales here, if a DJI drone is on your holiday wish list, you might want to hit «buy» immediately. The company has issued a stark warning: Its drones could be banned from sale in the US, and the deadline is looming.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-0 at the end of October to «close loopholes» that allow tech deemed a «national security risk» to be sold in the US. In plain English, the US government is clearing the path to give DJI the same treatment it gave Chinese phone-maker Huawei, effectively banning its products from the American market.

The US government has deemed DJI, which is based in China, a security risk. It’s also considering a separate ban on TP-Link routers.

DJI is already sounding the alarm, posting on Instagram that a «deadline that could decide DJI’s fate in the US is just 43 days away» (now 19 days away). The company is warning that without an audit, its products could face an «automatic ban.» The US government has long labeled the Chinese drone maker a security risk, and it looks like the hammer might finally be coming down right before the holidays.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

The vote isn’t the end of the road, however. Future bans would need to target specific products and would require a period of public consultation. But it appears the groundwork is being set for the FCC to block sales of future and some existing DJI drones from US shores, as well as products that use DJI technology.

The government has called for a DJI audit by the end of the year, but if that doesn’t happen, DJI drone products could be banned for sale by default under a national security law.

DJI asks for a security audit before any ban

A representative for DJI told CNET that while the FCC vote references a rule change that doesn’t currently apply to DJI specifically, the National Defense Authorization Act deadline in December would put Chinese companies like it on the FCC’s ban list, «without any evidence of wrongdoing or the right to appeal.»

Adam Welsh, head of global policy at DJI, said the company has repeatedly said it would be open to audit, but that «more than 10 months have now passed with no sign that the process has begun.»

«The US government has every right to strengthen national security measures, but this must go hand in hand with due process, fairness, and transparency,» Welsh said.

Welsh said DJI is urging the government to start the audit process or grant an extension.

Will DJI drone owners need to give them up?

Because the ban would apply to new sales, not drones that have already been sold, a DJI drone you already own would still be legal to use — at least under current rules.

Government agencies, however, are prohibited from purchasing or using drones from Chinese companies, including DJI.

DJI’s drones consistently rank high in their product category. In January, they dominated CNET’s list of best drones for 2025. But some of the company’s newest products, such as the DJI Mavic 4 Pro, haven’t been available for sale in the United States.

Even DJI products that are not yet banned may be hard to find. The website UAV Coach has posted a guide to the bans and reports that, due to inventory issues, most DJI drone models are sold out at retailers regardless of future FCC action.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 29 #636

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Nov. 29, No. 636.

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

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a real puzzler. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: What a piece of work!

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: You can build it in a shop.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

CREW, REAM, LANE, WHEE, DELL, CANE, PULL, REVEL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

WHEEL, AXLE, LEVER, WEDGE, PLANE, PULLEY, SCREW

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is SIMPLEMACHINE. To find it, start with the S that’s three letters to the right on the top row, and wind over and down.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 29, #902

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Nov. 29, #902.

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 is tough. If you need help sorting them into groups, you’re in the right place. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now 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: Middle of the body.

Green group hint: Fill-in.

Blue group hint: Nice place to hang out.

Purple group hint: Card game.