How to Combine Photos on Your iPhone

If you’re a heavy iPhone camera user, you’re probably someone who loves sharing your photos with other people. But as we all know, there’s nothing worse than getting bombarded with thirty vacation pictures all at once. Merging them into an artistic collage can be a good way to consolidate and organize your favorite photos and make them more fun to look at.

Currently, you cannot combine photos on your iPhone through the iOS camera app. Thankfully, there are many free third-party applications that allow you to stitch multiple photos together that are available for download on the App Store, as well as higher-end premium apps.

The free image editing applications provide helpful tools for basic photo stitching and combination, but those looking for more in-depth editing capabilities should look into purchasing a premium app. Most of these apps don’t require much technical knowledge, like that required of Photoshop, so you can rest assured that you’ll be able to easily combine your photos in no time.

Can You Combine Photos on iPhone?

The camera quality on iPhones has always been superb, and if you own one, chances are that your camera roll is filled to the brim with pictures. At some point or another, you had probably wanted to create a collage, or just simply combine two related photos into a single image. Here are a few ways that you can do this on an iPhone.

Collages

Combining multiple photos into one seems like it would be included in the basic functionality of a smartphone, but surprisingly it is not. Merging photos on an iPhone requires you to download an image editing app from the App Store, as image combination and collage creation is not natively supported on the current iteration of the iOS 13 camera app. There are a plethora of great apps to choose from, and some of the best free image editing apps available are:

Layout
Google Photos
Pic Collage
Adobe Spark
Canva

All of these have their own unique features, but all are capable of easily combining multiple photos together and saving them to your camera roll. These new multi-photo photos are perfect to share on social media, and even just with close friends, because you only need to share one photo to share multiple. In a way, it is the Trojan horse of image sharing.

Layout is especially well-suited for tailoring images to social media because it was created by Instagram, and it has the capabilities to upload directly to Facebook or Instagram; though, Adobe Spark is also able to do this. Notably, though simple to use, Pic Collage adds a small watermark to your collages, which might be undesirable to some.

Combining photos in any of these apps is a breeze. All you have to do is open the app, select your preferred grid layout, select the photos, and you’re done. You can then choose to save the new photo to your device or start over and create a new collage.

Some apps even allow you to upload your newly created collage to a cloud storage app, like Google Drive or Dropbox, or share them instantly with your contacts. Of course, once a collage is created it cannot be reversed, so make sure you are satisfied with it before deleting the original pictures.

If you are someone who loves scrapbooking, making digital photo collages is a great way to satisfy the artistic urge without having to print physical photos and purchase a bunch of materials.

Scrolling Screenshots

Instead of making a digital scrapbook of puppy photos, you maybe instead want to create what is called a scrolling screenshot. One example of a scrolling screenshot is a screenshot of an entire web article that does not completely fit in the size of your screen, and therefore you have to scroll through it. Vertically stitching together photographs is also unsupported in iOS, but like everything, there’s an app for that.

The most popular app used to create scrolling screenshots is Tailor. Using it cannot be any easier, as it automatically detects the latest string of screenshots in your camera roll when you open the app and stitches them together seamlessly and accurately. You can find it free on the App Store but does have in-app advertisements in addition to a watermark. Both can be removed if you purchase the premium version for $2.99.

How to Make a Great Collage

Making a collage is a fantastic and fun way to creatively present your photos, but the sheer amount of options that confront you many seem difficult to navigate. With countless layouts, colors, filters, and photo combinations, where do you even start?

When putting together a collage, the first thing that you’ll want to do is decide on a theme, whether that be nature, vacation, or just food photos. A collage is first and foremost a work of art, so cohesiveness is important. It should be easy to grasp what kind of story or message your collage is trying to convey.

Next is arrangement. You will possibly be showing people your collage, so it is imperative that it is easy on the eye. Decide on a pleasant color scheme that fits well with the overall theme. You can choose to leave space between your photos or have them side-by-side but try to stick with whichever choice you decide on for the entire collage. In general, stray away from harsh colors and unsymmetrical layouts, unless of course that’s what you’re going for. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

If you like to use filters on your photos, make sure that all of them in the collage use the same one, or at least that the different filters don’t clash with each other in order. Use photos that contain similar or complementary colors for a very pleasing effect.

You can also get creative with the shapes of your photos by cropping them; hearts, circles, and triangles are a few popular choices, but try and see what else you can come up with!

Some people also like to add text to their collages, which if used well, can help make your collage look more professional. Some examples of text that you can put on your collage are titles (Dave’s 21^st Birthday, Rocky Mountain Ski Trip 2020, etc.) and quotes/proverbs. If you use the latter, try to avoid being too cheesy.

Try a Slideshow Instead of a Collage

Maybe you have too many photos to fit well in one or two collages, but you still want to share them with your friends and family. A slideshow can be a great way to present pictures in an engaging and enjoyable way.

They are especially conducive to story-telling, which makes them perfect for vacation photos or anything chronological. One benefit of using a slideshow is that you can add music to them, allowing you to set the mood for each picture, therefore communicating your experience more vividly to those watching.

In the end, there is no limit to what you can create with your photos, so the most important thing to identify before starting is your final goal. Am I creating something for myself, to show others, to post on social media?

The answer to this question will likely influence your stylistic and artistic choices throughout the process. The above tips are more than enough to get you started, but feel free to break any or all of them. After all, isn’t that what art is?

Optimize Using Your iPhone Camera

Apple has been upgrading the camera on each year’s iPhone consistently, and many flock to this flagship smartphone for the reliable and high-quality photography that it enables. According to Tom’s Guide, the 2020 iPhone 11 Pro Max has the best camera of any phone currently on the market.

It boasts three 12 megapixel lenses (wide, ultrawide, telephoto), each included for a specific use and situation. The 12-megapixel front camera is also impressive, given that it usually is of lower quality than the rear camera.

Moving from hardware to software, Apple has made significant upgrades to the digital processing capabilities of their iPhones that really sets them apart from the pack. This includes Night Mode for low light and Smart HDR, which incorporates machine learning for autonomic exposure modifications.

In addition, all of the rear cameras can record 4K resolution video at 60 frames per second, which is extremely remarkable for a cell phone, given that 10 years ago the iPhone 4 only had a measly 5 megapixel rear camera.

How to Take Amazing Pictures on an iPhone

The first step before creating your photo collage is taking some great pictures to go in it. Aside from recognizing the components that make up a good picture, knowing your way around the iPhone camera app and the different features can take your photography to the next level.

Familiarize yourself with the different camera modes (Photo, Square, Panorama) and which situations they work best for.
Follow the rule of thirds using the grid option found in Settings > Photos & Camera. This rule states that an image is evenly divided into thirds (horizontally and vertically), and your image subject should be placed along one of those lines or at an intersection.
Turn off flash and use natural lighting. At night you use the exposure slider to allow more light to enter the camera.
For rapid-fire shots, utilize Burst mode by tapping and holding down the shutter or volume up button.
Enable HDR. This allows you to take good photos with a bright light source against a dark background.
Press and hold a spot on your screen to lock focus. You’ll know you’ve locked when a yellow AE/AF Lock alert appears.
Use the exposure slide to adjust the brightness or darkness of your image by tapping to focus and sliding the sun slider up or down.
Use the volume button to take photos instead of the pressing on the screen to avoid shaking.

If you have a newer generation iPhone, even more camera options are available to you. Some of these include:

Portrait Mode: allows you to adjust the depth of your photo.
Stage Light Mono: creates a black & white photo with a black background
Telephoto lens: gives the photographer longer reach to their subject, making them appear closer to the camera

Should I Use a Third-Party Camera App?

While the stock iPhone camera app probably has more features than the average person will use, professionals and those more used to standalone cameras may find them limiting in terms of their ability to alter the quality of images. If this sounds like you, you may find using a manual camera app opens up a whole new world of possibilities in your photography. Popular choices include:

Halide: Perhaps the most powerful camera app on the market, Halide gives photographers all of the abilities and manual control that a full-sized DSLR camera would have, including exposure, focus, ISO, and shutter speed.
Obscura 2: Built around the philosophy of minimalism, this app provides a simple and functional interface that greatly expands your command and creativity over your photos. Obscura 2 also comes with the ability to post-process images in the app with over 19 filters to get you started.
VSCO: Available in both a free and premium version, VSCO is extremely popular as a photo editing app, but also allows you to take stunning pictures.
ProCamera: Some may want more features and control over their video quality, and ProCamera comes with a plethora of features for exactly that, including focus, stabilization, file encoding, and geotagging.

Using a manual camera app gives you access to an overwhelming amount of settings, different combinations of which that can have a drastic effect on your photography. Many common settings are not available in the stock iPhone camera app but are in third-party apps.

Shutter Speed determines how long light is allowed to enter your camera before a photo is taken. This determines how motion is portrayed in your images, as longer shutter speeds shows more motion through blur, while shorter speeds freeze motion.
ISO Speed controls how sensitive your camera is to light. Lower ISO gives less sensitivity and therefore smoother images, while higher ISO produces more digital noise in images, but performs better in low light.
White Balance levels dictate how “warm” or “cool” an image is.
Focus & Exposure Separation simply lets you focus on one area of an image while exposing a different area.
RAW Formatting saves your photos in with a higher quality than normal JPEG files, which also enables better post-processing.

Many manual camera apps also have image editing built-in. This allows you to alter your photos after taking them with regards to elements such as exposure, color, and sharpening, in addition to simpler tasks like cropping, rotation and perspective correction.

Some apps also allow you to add filters to your photos, which in essence are image editing presets so that you do not have to manually tweak each setting, though you still have the option to even after adding a filter.

Learning how to use a professional camera app can be a great learning experience for the budding photographer. Delving into the different controls and experimenting with them can acquaint you with the technical side of photography and give you taste before making a larger investment in it as a hobby or aspiring professional.

Final Thoughts

Combining photos on your iPhone is extremely simple and rewarding, as it helps you organize, share, and preserve your most precious and important moments. It can be a fun artistic endeavor and a great way to bond with those around you. Making photo collages also allows you to delete individual photos, so you won’t have to think twice before snapping off one more shot.

Throughout your journey as an amateur photographer, you will learn a lot about your craft through trial-and-error in your compositions, but what separates good photos from great photos is much more than picking a good subject.

Photography is as much a science as an art and learning how to manipulate your camera’s settings in order to get the image you want takes time, and you might get discouraged along the way, but persist and you will find that the payoff is worth it. Like the old saying goes, the first step to being good at something is being bad at it.

Although paying for premium camera and image-editing apps can be worth the investment for those more serious about photography, there exist some amazing free apps too, and these will most likely be more than enough for what you need it to be.

Going through and editing your photos can be a lot of fun and a great way to perfect your photos, but best tool for taking a great photo will always be having a good eye for it, and no amount of filters and color correction can make up for that.