We’ve all been there: You’re out and about running errands without a camera and come upon a striking scene that deserves to be photographed, so naturally you pull out your phone. But if you always shoot in Auto mode the images you capture won’t be as awesome as possible.

In the video below from MountMedia, an instructional site with up-to-date camera reviews and shooting how-tos, you’ll see how to dramatically improve your mobile photography by using powerful iPhone features that you’ve ignored in the past. By the end of this episode you may even think of your iPhone as a “real” camera after all!

Instructor Werner Plank covers a lot of ground, so we recommend having pen and paper handy to take careful notes for future reference. He demonstrates what he calls “15 amazing tricks”—many of which you’ll find yourself using over and over again from now on. Plank refers to Apple’s iPhone 14 and 14 Pro (Max) in this demonstration, but much of what you’ll learn is appropriate for shooting with other models too. And he provides links to more helpful information in the description beneath the video.

The “magical” tricks in this episode include everything from controlling the iPhone with Siri voice commands, and convenient hidden features of the shutter button, to capabilities of the robust iPhone Photos app. There’s also an interesting tip for using Live Photo to create impressive long-exposure effects.

Plank provides powerful advice for those interested in capturing motion. You’ll see how to create a gif from a burst, an easy way to convert a Live Photo to a video, and how to take photos and videos for the shared library. There’s also a quick method for shooting a Hyperlapse with your phone.

Several tricks are geared specifically for improving the quality of iPhone photos, including those for enhancing depth of field and taking the “perfect” portrait with the help of Live Photo. This is only a smattering of what you’ll learn, so grab your iPhone and note pad, and hit the “play” button now.

There’s much more of interest on the MountMedia instructional YouTube channel, so pay a visit when you have time.

You’ll also want to check out the tutorial we posted last month, with more mobile photography tips and tricks.

The latest versions of Photoshop include a wide array of tools that do tedious tasks for you automatically, one of which is an Auto Select function. This timesaver creates pretty accurate selections of objects within an image, with barely more effort than a click of your mouse.

Sometimes, however, you want to make selections yourself, and by doing so you retain control over the results. In the quick video below you’ll learn how easy it is to use Photoshop’s most popular manual selection tools to get the job done.

Instructor Sam Peterson regularly posts basic image-editing tutorials that help photographers confidently use the Photoshop toolkit with ease. In today’s episode he explains the ins and outs of using Photoshop’s Lasso Tool, Magic Wand, the Quick Selection tool and more.

In barely four minutes you’ll learn how these selection tools work, and gain important insight on choosing the most appropriate method for the specific task at hand. Peterson begins with the Lasso tool that he says, “is about as manual as it gets.”

Using this this tool is pretty much like drawing around the object you want to select—either with a mouse or the pen for a graphics tablet. If the result is a bit off, Peterson provides keyboard shortcuts for adding or subtracting from the selection, and refining or feathering the edges. As you’ll see, there are several variations of this tool that work in slightly different ways.

Another foundational selection feature is Photoshop’s very simple Rectangular Marquee tool. As the name implies, this one simply lets you create square or rectangular selections that you can modify with the keyboard shortcuts he provides. There’s also a related Elliptical Marquee tool for making selections that are round or . . . well, elliptical.

Peterson demonstrates a few other manual selection tools, and they’re all very easy to use if you follow his advice. You can find more Photoshop tips and tricks like these by visiting his popular YouTube channel.

We also encourage you to watch the related tutorial we posted from another expert, explaining how to “auto-mask everything” in a photo with a new “hidden” tool in Photoshop.

Photo By Ted Trafford

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Whitetail Soaring Through Sunset” by Ted Trafford. Location: Saskatchewan.

Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.

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