Do you ever end up in a place where you wish you had your camera? Maybe you have a camera, and just didn’t realize it! Does your cell phone have a built-in camera? If so, you don’t have to miss out on that great photo opportunity!
Take the Shot
If you don’t have your regular camera nearby, don’t be afraid to pull out your cell phone and take that shot.
On my birthday, my husband and I went to one of our favorite restaurants, Tucanos in Salt Lake City. I didn’t bring my camera, but instead I pulled out my iPhone and asked the waitress to take a shot of us together. It was a good photo of me, and those are rare, so I was really glad we did that!
Mary's Birthday Photo
Get your Photo off your Cell Phone
Of course, if you have a high-performance phone like an iPhone or a BlackBerry, you can get those photos off your phone when you sync with your computer.
The easiest way to get one photo off your phone is to email it to yourself. To do this, you’ll need to be sure you have a data plan with your camera. Just browse to your photo, and look for “tools” or “options” icon or link.
If you don’t have a data plan but can send your photo over text messaging, “text it” to someone whose cell phone has a data plan, and ask them to email it to you.
Email your Cell Phone Photo
Touch Up your Photo
Cell phone photos are not going to come out like a professional-level DSLR photo will come out.
It will most likely have a resolution of 72ppi (pixels per inch), so if you go to print out a 4″x6″ at a resolution of 300ppi your photo won’t be as clear as you will like. Also, your cell phone will often focus on the wrong object in your photo and get the lighting a little bit wrong.
So you’ll want to touch up your photos in an editor such as Picasa, Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements. For the photo below, I went into Photoshop and used Images > Adjustments > Curves and then Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask.
Unsharp mask does a lot to sharpen up a photo that was taken on a cell phone.
Mary's Birthday Photo (touched up)
Use your Photo in your Layouts
Now that you have your cell phone camera on your computer and touched up, you can use them in your layouts and share them with your friends and family!
To be completely honest, I did the layout below at 72 ppi because I don’t plan on printing it out. I’m sure it would be fine if I print it out, though maybe a bit fuzzy.
Mary's Birthday Layout
It’s my hope that this little post helps you feel empowered to take photos using your cell phone when you don’t have your camera with you. It’s great to not lose out on recording those memories.
This is the second in a series.
- Choose your Digital Camera for Digital Scrapbooking
- Use your Cell Phone Camera for Scrapbooking
- Use a Point-and-Shoot Camera for Digital Scrapbooking
- Use an Entry-Level DSLR Camera for Scrapbooking – Choose your Digital Camera
- Use a Mid-Level DSLR Camera for Scrapbooking – Choose your Digital Camera
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Tags: Birthday, Cell Phone, Photo Opportunity, Photos, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements
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