Photography

Managing photos and albums on an iOS device has come a long way. iOS 7 gives mobile photographers many options to edit, organize and share images without having to copy files to a computer. However, adding iPhone photos to an existing album is a multi-step process that may not be obvious at first glance.

First off, to create a new album open the Photos app and navigate to Albums. Tapping the plus (+) icon and entering an album name will automatically bring up the photo selection screen. Once photos are selected, tapping Done will create the album. But how does one add more photos to this album at a later date?

Every photo taken by the iPhone contains Exif metadata, which details everything from an image GPS location to camera and exposure information. The stock Photos app in iOS 7 will organize photos by date and even display them on a map, however the Exif data is hidden. Viewing all of the Exif metadata or GPS coordinates for a particular photo requires a third-party app.

Exif Wizard is free on the App Store and covers the basics with a simple interface. To view Exif photo metadata on the iPhone, first install Exif Wizard. Once installed, run Exif Wizard and when prompted, give the app permission to access your photos.

Despite the incredible quality of the iPhone camera, some basic editing functions are not included in the stock Photos app. For example, while cropping an iPhone Photo is pretty straightforward, there is no built-in way to resize an image. Emailing a photo may provide the preset options small, medium and large, but what about a custom size?

Luckily there are plenty of options in the App Store when it comes to resizing photos on an iOS device. The six free apps mentioned here mostly provide the basics for a one-time resize or infrequent use. There are also five paid apps listed, which often provide more features and a more polished (and ad-free) user experience. The third-party apps here are just a sampling of similar offerings on iTunes, which reduce the megapixel size of an image.

Flipping an image horizontally or vertically with the stock iOS Photos app is not possible. Pictures can be rotated with the Edit function, however getting a mirror image of the photo requires third party software. Fortunately, there are many free options on the App Store. One versatile example is Adobe Photoshop Express.

Click here for instructions on how to rotate (spin) a photo around.

To flip a picture you have taken vertically or horizontally, install and open Photoshop Express. Give the app permission to access the Camera Roll, then tap Open from Camera Roll to import the image you wish to modify. The image will load.