Family photos on a phone

The single biggest improvement you can make to a family photo taken on a phone is to move everyone into open shade and shoot with the light behind you. That one change fixes more photographs than any camera setting, any app, and any amount of editing afterwards.

Phone cameras are extremely good now. What they cannot do is invent light that is not there.

Open shade is the best free lighting there is. The shaded side of a building, under a tree, a covered porch. It is soft, even, and puts light in everyone's eyes without making them squint.

Overcast days are excellent, not a disappointment. The whole sky becomes a softbox.

Direct midday sun is the worst common case. It puts hard shadows in eye sockets and makes everyone squint. If you have no choice, turn everyone so the sun is behind them and tap the screen on a face to expose for it.

The hour before sunset is flattering but tricky — the light is warm and low, but it moves fast and it is easy to end up with silhouettes.

Turn the grid on. Free, and it stops the horizon tilting.

Use the 1x lens, not the ultra-wide. Ultra-wide distorts faces at the edges of the frame, which is exactly where children end up.

Step back and zoom slightly, rather than standing close. Standing close with a wide lens enlarges whatever is nearest the camera — usually a nose. Two or three steps back and a small zoom is more flattering for everyone.

For a photograph you intend to turn into a portrait later, the arrangement barely matters — it gets replaced. But for the photograph itself:

• —Get faces on roughly the same plane, so one is not sharp while another is soft
• —Put shorter people in front rather than at the ends
• —Have people stand close enough to touch. Gaps between people read as distance
• —Shoot from slightly above eye level. It is more flattering for nearly everyone

The photographs people keep are almost never the posed ones.

Take the posed shot first so everyone relaxes, then keep shooting for another ten seconds. The frame immediately after everyone thinks it is over is usually the best one.

With children, forget "smile" — ask them a question. Any question. A child answering something looks alive; a child performing a smile does not.

And take more than you think you need. Burst mode costs nothing. With five people, someone is blinking in most frames.

Portrait mode is unnecessary if you intend to turn the photo into a portrait later — the background is going to be replaced, so artificial blur adds nothing and sometimes softens the edge of someone's hair, which is worse.

Filters are actively unhelpful. They bake in a look that has to be undone.

Matching outfits do not matter for a monochrome portrait. Colour coordination is a colour problem.