Let’s face it, we are living in a digital age. Just about everyone has an iPhone or an Android or a Blackberry or a [insert any other smartphone brand here]. And with photo editing apps GALORE, you can easily document your day or month or life with just a few clicks.

So how can you get the most out of your phone camera?

1. Treat your phone as if it were a $2,000 DSLR.

Keep your lens and screen clean. Use a case to protect it from dropping or sticky fingers or drool. Try not to drop it into the toilet.

Also? Clean your mirrors every once in a while. Ha.

2. Frame your shot on your phone just as you would frame it on your camera.

Remember the the rule of thirds, compose your shot, get down on children’s levels, eliminate background clutter … consider the things that you think about when you are behind your “good” camera.

3. Take just as many pictures from just as many angles.

When I’m shooting with my Canon, I’m always thinking of how to capture one moment in several different ways so I can see my children’s lives from many different perspectives. I don’t want to miss anything! I treat my phone camera the same way.

4. Utilize natural light and shadows just as you would with your DSLR.

While taking your picture, touch the screen area that you want to focus on and expose for … let your phone do the rest.

For this photo, I was sitting in Lucy’s room trying to get her to come in and take a nap. I touched the screen at the spot where she was standing, so my phone exposed for the natural light in the hallway, putting the rest of the room in semi-darkness. And after editing a little in Lightbox, I ended up with a more dramatic photo.

5. Take advantage of the ability to take your phone with you anywhere.

There are so many moments I would have missed because I wasn’t able to have my Canon with me, and I am so thankful for these moments on “film.”

sunrise and sunset as seen on different days back when I was training for a half-marathon – all I had with me was my iPod shuffle and my phone for GPS mileage tracking

the Oscar Mayer weiner truck was in a hotel parking lot, so we were able to pull in and get these shots

a mall bungee jump activity that Emma wanted to do – I didn’t have my “good” camera with me

amazing light on a morning run – I obviously don’t take my big camera on runs

6. Download and use photo editing apps.

All photos in this post were edited in either Instagram [my phone is an Android, so I use Dropbox to put all of my photos onto my iPad so I can use Instagram] or Lightbox for Android.

I know, great photographers take great pictures without editing, but when you can download most apps for free and have fun pictures in seconds? Why not?

7. Don’t use the digital zoom.

Digital zoom on a phone will ruin your photo, because it doesn’t actually zoom in – it just enlarges what you are seeing through your lens. Either try to get as close to your subject as possible or take a more wide-angle approach when composing your shot.

8. Get to know your phone camera and it’s capabilities.

I know that my phone takes horrible flash pictures, so I don’t use my flash often. I also know that it doesn’t do well with artificial light, so I try to use natural light as much as possible. But it’s very good at isolating light and shadows, so I work that angle as often as I can.

9. Don’t hesitate to get artistic with your phone.

I think many of us just assume that our phones aren’t really meant for the more artistic images, but we would be totally wrong.

10. Embrace the ability to take self portraits without needing a special lens.

I never take self-portraits with my Canon unless I’m using a mirror or a tripod, because I don’t currently have any wide-angle lenses in my arsenal. It’s nice to be able to take the occasional self-portrait with my phone, though.

Phones aren’t just for calling people anymore.

Favorite Android photo editing apps: Lightbox, Vignette, Pixlr-o-matic

Favorite iPad/iPhone photo editing apps: Instagram, Camera+

Feel free to share your favorite apps for editing photos on your phone!

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How do you get that vintage look?

How do you do that haze thing that’s on all of your pictures?

What you are using when you edit for your washed vintage look?

I get those questions (or a variation) once or twice a week, either on the blog or via email or on facebook.

I mean, you’d THINK that the most frequently asked question of me would be, “How did you get to be so awesome?” but strangely enough, no one has ever asked me that before.

Huh.

Anyway, I always blush whenever I read an email that says something along those lines. ALWAYS. I can’t even believe people look at my pictures, much less care about how I edit them! I still consider myself just a mom who likes to take pictures.

And I usually call Ken or send him an email saying, “Dude! You will NOT believe this!!!”

Yes, I call my husband dude. I call everyone dude.

It really just blows my mind and makes me giddy and flattered and blushy when I get an email or comment asking about my photography.

So it makes it really hard to say, “I can’t tell you.”

It’s not that I don’t WANT to tell you … it’s that I really don’t have a full-proof recipe. I truly don’t. I played around for years to come up with a handful of presets that I use regularly. And I guarantee you, what works on one picture does NOT work on another. So I still have to play around sometimes.

Here is what I will tell you …

• I edit in Lightroom almost exclusively.
• I use my own presets pretty much all of the time. (But I do love the new black and white presets from Kellie Hatcher).
• I’ve worked on my presets for a couple of years and am still working on some.
• I use a lot of yellow/tan/cream highlights and purple/royal blue highlights.
• I over-expose pretty much every single picture I take by a couple of clicks on the exposure bar (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, just hang tight for a week or two).
• I use all natural light when I can help it (unlike every picture in this post, which was taken inside of a paint-your-own pottery studio).
• I am not planning on selling or giving away my presets anytime soon. I’ve had them tested, but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten. I feel like they just aren’t good enough to put out into the world, especially when there are so many amazing presets already out there!

I know, that’s not really all that helpful.

But honestly? While I don’t think that my presets are “all that and a bag of chips,” I also want to be a little selfish and hang on tight to the things I’ve learned to do in Lightroom. I guess it’s a little narcissistic to keep people guessing, but … well, yeah. It IS narcissistic.

But if you follow me long enough, you’ll get bits and pieces of my editing "secrets” throughout my blog posts … on here and on I Heart Faces Fix-it Fridays.

Okay, this whole post has made me uncomfortable. I’ve been sitting on it for a while, because I just feel silly publishing this … like I’m some big shot who actually warrants a post explaining how I do things.

So here are some more things you need to know …

• I am not a big shot.
• I am a better photographer than I was last year, but I’m not as good as I’ll be next year.
• I love you for loving me.

All photos were taken at Emma’s preschool friend’s fourth birthday party – I won’t be sharing any other pictures, because they have children’s faces in them, and I am not their mother.

Beth asked …

I just got Lightroom. Teach me how to use it? (yes, that’s a question)

Also, Anna and Noah think you are super talented with your blanket/quilt making skills. Anna wants to know if she can lay on it. Can she?

I promise to start working on some Lightroom tutorials. I have a list already … just gotta find the time to write and screenshot and write some more.

And I hope Anna and Noah and Eli are all enjoying that quilt. I had a blast making it while thinking of your amazing family and your children. All five of them.

Sarah asked …

How the heck do you save all your photos once you finish editing them in PS?
Do you save the original version also, or only the edited version?
Do you have a way you file them so you can find them easily?
When you put a watermark on your photo, do you save an original without it in case you want to print it out one day? Or do you just take it off later? How do you do that if you save your pic as a jpeg instead of the photoshop version?

Oh good questions!! They all kind of tie into each other, so I’ll go through my workflow, and that should cover all of them.

I shoot in RAW format only – there are many reasons for this, so that’s a different post altogether. But let’s just start with that.

I upload my images into Lightroom straight from my camera or card and initially arrange them by date. Once they’re all uploaded, I go through them and delete the unwanted images. Sometimes, I do quick edits as I’m going through them, but most of the time, I just click through and reject/delete. [I will write a full post on how I do this very soon.]

Once I have the images I want to keep, I go through and edit them. I basically have a little folder with my favorite presets that I use all.the.time. Some of them aren’t anything more than a little boost in brightness & contrast while others completely change the tones of the image. If I have a bunch of images that were basically taken in the same light (i.e., Disney images) then I batch-edit using the same preset. [tutorial coming soon]

I don’t save originals straight out of my camera, because it is one-click to “reset” the image back to it’s original format in Lightroom. Plus, that would take up WAY too much room on my computer.

At this very moment, the images that I upload straight from my camera/card are on my computer (C and D drives) while I have my Lightroom catalog backed up on one of our servers. One of these days, I’ll get a separate harddrive just for my images, but the server is a great backup for now.

So once I finish editing in Lightroom, I send to PS for final edits, re-sizing, adding my watermark, making storyboards, etc. I export all images from Lightroom using JPEG format (I do not resize!) into a folder on one of our personal servers. I have them organized from there into about a zillion different folders.

Most edited originals go into a folder called “Lightroom Exports” – if I make changes in PS (adding textures, changing tones, etc), then I save it in that folder, as well. So if I need to go back and print an image, I pull the large file from that folder.

Once I edit in PS, I resize to no more than 1000px on the longest side and add my watermark. Then, I save that image into a folder called “Flickr” – I have subfolders there for various subjects (emma, house, vacation, etc.) All of these folders are also on our server, so the ONLY images on my computer are the originals uploaded straight from my camera.

The re-sized and watermarked images are the ones I upload to Flickr or to my blog.

As for organizing my photos, everything is organized in Lightroom by date, and I add tags when I have time. Outside of Lightroom, all of my images are organized into different folders that probably make sense only to me.

Did that cover everything? Please let me know if you have any other questions or would like to see more clarification.

Misty (a sweet friend from high school with the cutest little girl!!) asked …

When did you decide to stay home with Emma full-time? Did you leave for maternity leave and never go back or did you go back for a while and then make that decision? And how did y’all make that work financially (without me getting too much into your business)?

We decided while I was pregnant that I would leave my job and stay home with Emma, so when I left my job a week before she was born, we all knew that was it. I know a lot of people who do maternity leave and then don’t go back so they can get paid for it, but I just couldn’t do that, so my last day at work was my last day of getting paid.

Not to get too specific, but Ken bought our house while he was still single, so we knew that his salary alone could pay all of our bills/mortgage/groceries, etc. I made decent money at my old job, but I used to to joke that his salary paid the bill while my salary was the tip.

Since we made the decision while I was pregnant, we knew that we would be losing my salary, so we socked away a lot of money into savings, as well.

Then, in March 2008, Ken made the tough decision to leave his well-paying corporate job (due to stress and unbelievable hours) to start his own business. And all financial security flew out the window. I can’t even tell you how we made it the past couple of years … I truly have no idea how we paid our bills on what was in our bank account. It was more stress than I could ever imagine, and there were definitely times where we were borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, but we made it through. And due to an opportunity that he just couldn’t pass up, Ken is back in the corporate world. (Not for the same company as before)

I can tell you that we worked VERY hard to stretch our pennies, and that included using cloth diapers on Emma, menu planning and coupon clipping to save money on groceries, adjusting to lower/higher thermostat settings, using homemade cleaning products and detergent, shopping at Goodwill and consignment stores, making some of Emma’s clothes and cloth diaper covers, reading library books instead of buying new, renting movies from RedBox or the library instead of buying them, asking for clothes and shoes (for Emma) for birthdays/holidays, eating out was a luxury, just doing without.

But sometimes, it’s just not doable. I know many many moms who cry while driving to work, because they’ve calculated and calculated to no avail. Sometimes, doing without just isn’t enough. 

In the end, I have no secret formula … I honestly feel very blessed.

Casey asked …

Where did you get the headphones?

… from this post.

I think I originally told someone that the headphones came from Target, but I think they were actually from Walmart. The brand is Phillips, and the package says 6+ years, but they fit Emma just fine. They only had one color (blue/white) when I went, but perhaps they come in different colors? I assure you, we would have wound up with purple or pink if they had those options.

Tiffany Lee asked …

I love the color of your photos and am just curious how much of that is camera setting versus post-processing.On average how many photos do you post process? Do you typically batch process them? And when you are post processing are you manually adjusting your photos or typically using actions.

… from this post.

I actually emailed Tiffany back straight away, but I thought I’d post my answer here in case anyone else was wondering.

I post-process pretty much all of my images, even if it’s just a contrast or brightness adjustment. I shoot in manual, so hardly any of my images have the same settings, but if I have a series of photos that are all taken in the same light / same subject / etc. (like in my recent sidewalk chalk post) then I do batch-process in Lightroom.

Because I use Lightroom, I don’t use any actions, but I do use presets, and I pretty much always use my own that I’ve developed over the past year. I would love to try out some actions one of these days – I definitely don’t see anything wrong with manipulating images!! – but I still use Photoshop Elements, and I’m going to wait until I can purchase CS4 (or whatever the latest version is) before I start playing with actions.

***********************************

Okay, phew. That’s all of the questions I saw … if I missed one, please let me know! And thanks – that was fun!! I’ll have to do that again soon. :)

So I’m going to try answering some of the questions from this post (and if you missed it and want to ask me something, please feel free to do it here!)

Megan asked …

My questions are about newborns since that is clearly on my mind (and bladder, ribs, pelvis). What was the most challenging part of having a newborn in your life for the first time and what was the most wonderful thing?

Well, since Megan is already holding her hunka hunka burnin’ love, I’m sure she’s already figuring it all out and becoming a total expert. And if I remembered everything about the newborn stage, I probably wouldn’t be pregnant right now. I kid, I kid!! (Sort of)

The most challenging part for me was definitely our breastfeeding issue. I’ve never really talked about it here, but Emma never nursed. It’s a long story filled with many lactation consultant visits, a consultation with an oral motor therapist, minor surgery to correct tongue tie, and lots of pumping and crying (both of us) and beating myself up. In the end, we made the decision to go to formula, but it was still very hard to let that go without feeling terrible guilt.

Of course, the most wonderful thing was her. Staring at her. Snuggling her. Dressing her. Bathing her. Feeding her. Even changing diapers was an absolute dream. I loved every little thing about her, and once she was here, I wondered how I made it so long without her. (Doesn’t hurt that she was truly one of the easiest babies ever.)

Sara asked …

If you could pick one spot in your house that is your favorite spot to photograph your little one… where is it? & Why?

This is so funny, because I just noticed a couple of weeks ago how much I love the light in our master bathtub. It’s natural light that comes in from a large window right above the tub, and then the tub is white surrounded by white walls. So it makes the most beautiful reflective light.

But I obviously can’t put her in the bathtub every time I want to take a picture of her, so I just try to take pictures pretty much anywhere that I get a lot of light. We are very fortunate to have large windows in all of our rooms, so I can get a decent picture almost anywhere.

Having said that, I rarely “pose” Emma to take pictures … so if she’s playing in her playroom or helping me in the kitchen or jumping on her bed, I just try to use whatever light I have to get the shot. If I actually try to set her up for a picture, then we go outside.

Diana / Meme asked …

Do you delete photos after you upload and only keep the best/good ones? I take so many shots of something. upload and end up keeping all in my photos. I wondered if you know exactly which ones to delete or if you are like me and think you can crop, enhance, do whatever to any picture so you keep them all??

SUCH a good question! This is something I really struggled with until I started shooting in RAW format and purchased Lightroom. I used to save every picture I ever took, but then I started running out of room on my computer. And our server. And our backup server. So I had to start cutting WAY back on the number of photos I kept.

Once I got Lightroom and started using it as my catalog, that’s when I really decided to keep only pictures that I would either post (on my blog or on Flickr) or print.

At first, it was really hard. But then I remembered the folders and folders and folders of photos that have never been touched, and I realized that even though I may say I’m going to go back one day and edit all of those images, I barely have time to edit the current ones. So … I became the deleting queen. And it’s VERY easy to do in Lightroom, so that made it a lot easier. (Oooh, a tutorial idea – thanks!)

As far as deciding which ones to keep, I am an impulse deleter … if I can edit them in a few clicks, then they are keepers. If they are going to require a lot of work (too under/over-exposed, blurry, etc.) then I trash them. If I end up with a lot of duplicate images, then I keep my favorite one and delete the rest.

I had to learn to let go of that “connection” with every single image that I upload. Once I learned how to do that, the rest was fairly painless.

Jess asked …

How many photographs do you think you’ll take of the new baby each day? Just an average guesstimate is fine :P

Ha!!!! I have a sneaky feeling I won’t be able to take as many photographs as I would like … I hear having a newborn with a toddler in the house keeps a momma pretty stinkin’ busy. ;) But I’ll do my best to get at least one every day.

Joanna asked …

1. What is your dream lens?
2. What happened to the good ol’ Olympus?
3. How are you liking your 50d?
4. What are your favourite actions/textures?

Oooh, good questions, Jo!

1. My dream lens? I don’t know! I know that sounds terrible, but I really love the two that I have right now (Canon 85mm 1.8 & 50mm 1.8) but at the same time, I would like to have a zoom lens of some sort, because I miss being able to take pictures of certain things (like the condo rooms where we stayed in Florida or rooms in my house), and I’d like to one day have a wide-angle lens for landscape/urban shots. A fisheye would be fun. I’d also like a Lensbaby. So I don’t think I currently own my “dream” lens, but I’m not sure what it would be. Any recommendations?

2. The good ol’ Olympuses (I have 2!) are still with me. I have the E-300, which was my first DSLR ever, and I also have the E-520. I’m planning on donating the E-300 with the kit lens to someone or an organization in need. But for now, I’m keeping the E-520 as a backup, and I still use the Zuiko 50mm macro that I have for it since my Canon 50mm isn’t a macro.

3. I love my Canon 50D! Seriously all caps L.O.V.E. it. I rented a 5D Mark II when I was looking, but in the end, the 50D was what we could afford without going into debt – I thought I’d miss the Mark II, but I really love what my camera does, especially in low light situations, which was the one serious issue I always had with my Olympus. So far, the 50D has not disappointed me at all.

4. I don’t use actions but I love both sets of Florabella textures. I also use and love Patti Brown’s Kaleidoscope textures – they create an entirely different mood than Florabella, so it’s nice to have the variety. One of these days, I would love to try Beth Armsheimer’s textures – I’ve heard and seen amazing things from those, as well.

Mimi asked …

Yes Keli, I would like to know how you lick your elbow! Seems an impossible feat to me :)

Okay, I don’t really know HOW I do it … but I can. I think it has something to do with my shoulders being double-jointed?

Angie (who has a gorgeous picture in the new I Heart Faces website banner, btw!!) asked …

i am with joanna! what are your favorites?! lenses, actions, textures, photography website!

lenses/actions/textures – see above

Photography website – why, I Heart Faces, of course! ;) Actually, I do love I Heart Faces (I wouldn’t be a contributor there if I didn’t) but other than that, I adore Flickr. I’ve met so many amazing photographers on there, some of who I call my dearest friends. And then I have a seriously HUGE list of photographer blogs that I love, and there is no way I could list them all here, but among my favorites are Beth Armsheimer (I want to be her one day), Jasmine Star, Sheye Rosemeyer, and Simply Rosie. I also know like a gajillion photographers who are personal friends that I truly adore and constantly gather inspiration from, but if I tried listing them, I’d end up missing someone and hurting feelings.

I also enjoy constant inspiration from Shutter Sisters and The Maternal Lens.

Mrs. Soup asked …

1) How did you get to be so awesome?
2) How much do you love me?
3) If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
4) You are given a $50 gift card to anywhere and you HAD to purchase something for yourself and only for yourself. Where would it be for and what would you buy?

I was born that way.

A whole whole whole lot.

Where I live. No, seriously! I really do love living in South Carolina, and I think I’d miss it if I moved somewhere else. But places I’ve enjoyed visiting that could maybe beckon me away one day … Maui, Hawaii or Santa Fe, NM.

Oh this is so tough. Probably a pair of white Converse. I have a black pair that I love, but I really really want a white pair for spring & summer. Or two pedicures. Or maybe if I finagle on eBay, I could get a pair of Converse AND a pedicure. Awwww man, now I want $50.

I am going to have to come back and answer the rest of the questions later. I wanted to get them all in one post, but I have a ton of things to do today, and I know I won’t get around to it. Plus, the last few are photography-related and I want to be thorough.

This post has been sitting in draft form since late December just waiting for more pictures. But I just don’t have time to fill in the blanks like I really wanted to, so just let me know if you have ANY questions.

I got this email from an awesome blogger and thought I’d post a quick tutorial about this very subject.

Keli – I finally figured out how to get holiday lights bokeh but how do you get those pics where a face is in focus and the lights behind them are those beautiful bokeh circles? Thanks for your help. Jen

Basically, you just want to make sure your subject is closer to your camera than it is to the source of your bokeh, and then focus on the subject. Also, use a really large aperture (which is the smallest number). What that will do is make your subject the ONLY thing in focus, and then the lights in the background will go unfocused and turn into bokeh. The larger the aperture, the bigger the bokeh.

It’s best to try to get bokeh during the day, because using flash will change all of this. If you’re inside, you want to face your subject towards the natural light (say, coming through a window) and then you stand between your subject and the natural light source with the bokeh-creating light behind the subject.

So how do you “find” bokeh?

Outdoors, you can create beautiful bokeh by putting your subject between you and the limbs on a tree. The light coming through the leaves will create your bokeh. That is the simplest place to find bokeh, but once you figure out how to spot it, you’ll see it everywhere. ;) In the very simplest terms, it’s either a light or just light that is surrounded by something dark. So, in the case of trees, light coming through the leaves.

For example …

Also, reflective objects or buildings (or reflections in glass) make great bokeh.

But a super easy way to create bokeh is to use actual lights. Take a look at this picture right here …

And then look at my setup …

I just threw some Christmas lights over a cabinet and used the lights on the ground as my bokeh. I changed my angle of shooting to make it look like the bokeh was steam.

Other sources of bokeh:

reflective surfaces

car headlights

dew

The list goes on and on and on. You’ll see it if you look through your viewfinder, and just keep in mind, the larger the aperture (smaller the f/stop number) the better the bokeh.

So you know the tutorial that was written by me and featured on the Nickelodeon Parents Connect website?

Well, I just wanted to share the actual unedited tips I wrote for taking better holiday pictures of your kids.

I’ve you’ve been following my I Heart Faces series {part one, part two}, then you’ve seen most of these already, but they are good reminders, especially now when we seem to take more pictures than normal. And if you follow these tips, your pictures will stand out from the normal holiday pictures you’ll see all over Facebook next week. ;)

Tip 1: Take pictures on their schedule. Avoiding scheduling a photo session right before nap/bedtime or mealtimes. If you must, then give them a snack or lollipop.

Tip 2: Use props. Kids tend to be more relaxed and natural when they’re holding something in their hands. Around the holiday season, this can be candy canes, stockings, non-breakable ornaments or a present.

Tip 3: Give them downtime. If your kids don’t want to be photographed, don’t force it. Not only will you not get any good pictures, but you and your kids will get stressed out for no reason.

Tip 4: Use natural light rather than a flash. Open up those blinds and curtains and let the light in your house, then stand next to the window and aim your camera into the room. Take kids outside for family pictures. If they’re decorating cookies, sit them at the table next to a window.

Tip 5: Be silly, act crazy, make faces, sing funny songs, make weird noises. Do whatever it takes to get your kids to look at you and smile.

Tip 6: Don’t say, "Say cheese!" because when you take a picture of a child saying the word "cheese," it doesn’t look natural. If you can’t get a comfortable smile out of them, don’t worry. Natural images of a child not smiling is much prettier than an image of a fake smile.

Tip 7: Get down on their level. Squatting or sitting to take a picture of your child is a much more flattering angle than pointing the camera down while standing over them.

Tip 8: Don’t be afraid to get up close and personal. Get pictures of their hands unwrapping a present, or a close-up of their face while licking a candy cane, or their arm stuffed in their stocking pulling treasures out.

Tip 9: Take pictures of the everyday moments like hanging ornaments on the tree, putting sprinkles on gingerbread cookies, or writing a letter to Santa. They don’t have to be posed and looking at the camera to get a great holiday picture.

Tip 10: Take a lot of pictures. In this day and age of digital cameras, there’s really no reason to scrimp. Take as many as you think you need and then take 5 more. The more pictures you take, the more chances you have to get a great image.