How to do it, step by step
- Open Settings, then Camera, and turn on Grid and Level The grid gives you thirds lines for composition; Level shows a horizon indicator that snaps yellow when the phone is straight. Crooked horizons are the most common fixable fault in phone photos.
- Turn on Lens Correction and leave View Outside the Frame off Lens Correction removes the barrel distortion of the ultra-wide and front cameras, which is what makes faces bulge at the edges of a group selfie. View Outside the Frame just clutters the viewfinder.
- Set Preserve Settings In Settings, Camera, Preserve Settings, turn on Camera Mode, Exposure Adjustment and Live Photo. Without this the app resets your choices every time you close it, which is how people end up shooting video by accident.
- Choose a Photographic Style and stop thinking about it On iPhone 16 and later, styles are re-editable after capture, so pick anything. On iPhone 13 to 15 the style is baked into the file, so choose Standard or a mild Natural and leave the intensity low.
- Set the format for how you actually shoot High Efficiency HEIF for everyday use at two to three megabytes a photo. Turn ProRAW on only if you edit, and use the ProRAW toggle in the camera per shot rather than leaving it on.
- Learn the three in-app habits Tap to focus, drag the sun icon to set exposure, press and hold to lock both. These three take a week to become automatic and improve more photos than every toggle above combined.
The settings worth changing, in one table
All of these live in Settings, Camera. The recommendations assume you want good photos with minimum fuss, not maximum control.
| Setting | Recommendation | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Grid | On | Thirds lines and a horizon reference. Costs nothing, fixes crooked photos. |
| Level | On | A separate horizon indicator that turns yellow when you are straight. |
| Lens Correction | On | Removes ultra-wide and front-camera distortion, which is what stretches faces at the frame edge. |
| Preserve Settings | Camera Mode, Exposure, Live Photo all on | Stops the app throwing away your choices between launches. |
| Prioritise Faster Shooting | Off if you care about detail, on for kids and pets | Trades some per-frame quality for shutter response when you shoot bursts. |
| Formats | High Efficiency | Roughly half the file size of JPEG at the same quality. Sharing converts automatically. |
| Photographic Style | Set once, keep it mild | Baked in on iPhone 13 to 15, re-editable on iPhone 16 and later. |
| Record Video | 4K at 30 fps | 60 fps doubles the file for a smoothness most people do not want in normal footage. |
| Macro Control | On | Shows the macro icon so you can stop the phone jumping to the ultra-wide when you lean in. |
| View Outside the Frame | Off | Adds visual clutter to the viewfinder for a preview most people ignore. |
Live Photos and HDR, the two people turn off by mistake
Live Photos. Keep it on. It records about 1.5 seconds either side of the shutter, so every photo is really a set of frames. That gets you three things: a key frame you can change to one where nobody blinked, Loop and Long Exposure afterwards, and extra frames for anything that picks the best shot from a burst. It costs roughly double the storage per photo, which is rarely the real constraint.
Smart HDR. Leave it on. It captures several exposures and merges them, which is why a phone can hold a bright sky and a shadowed face in one frame at all. The complaint that HDR photos look flat is usually not HDR's fault: it happens when the scene has a huge range and the merge lifts every shadow to the middle. Dragging the exposure slider down slightly before the shot tells the pipeline to stop rescuing and gives you contrast back.
The genuinely annoying HDR problem is display. iPhone photos carry a gain map that makes highlights glow on HDR screens, and social apps handle it inconsistently, so a photo can look punchy in Photos and grey or over-bright once uploaded. No camera setting fixes it: exporting an edited copy drops the gain map and makes the result predictable.
Photographic Styles, and why the iPhone generation matters
Photographic Styles apply a tone and colour treatment during capture, adjusting the pipeline itself rather than laying a filter over the top. That is why skin stays clean when a filter of the same strength would not.
The important detail is reversibility. On iPhone 13 to 15, a style is baked into the file and cannot be removed later, so a heavy Vibrant or Rich Contrast setting is a permanent decision made before you knew what you were photographing. On iPhone 16 and later, styles are stored so they can be changed or removed after the fact, including on photos already in your library, which makes experimenting free.
Practical settings: Standard, or Natural with tone pulled down about 0.2, gives you the most editable file. Anything with heavy contrast crushes shadow detail you cannot get back. If you want a strong look, apply it after capture, on top of an unmodified original, rather than burning it in. ShutterAI's Vault works on the same principle: the original file is kept and every look sits on top as a reversible recipe.
Formats, ProRAW and resolution
Four options, wildly different file sizes, and only one of them changes what your photos look like.
- HEIF High Efficiency, 24 MP. Two to three megabytes and the right default for almost everyone. Not lower quality than JPEG, just a better codec.
- Most Compatible, JPEG. Only if you move files to older software that chokes on HEIF. Bigger files, no quality gain.
- HEIF Max, 48 MP. Around five megabytes, full sensor resolution, still a processed file. Useful when you know you will crop hard.
- ProRAW, 48 MP. Seventy-five to a hundred megabytes each. A raw file with the Apple pipeline only partly applied, which means white balance, highlight recovery and noise reduction are all still fully editable. Worth it for mixed indoor light, high contrast scenes and anything you will properly edit. Wasteful for everything else.
Use the ProRAW toggle inside the camera app rather than leaving the format on permanently, so it is a per-shot decision. And for video, 4K at 30 fps is the sensible default; 60 fps doubles the file and gives footage a slightly hyper-real motion quality that suits sport and looks odd on a dinner table.
What to leave alone
Most of the advice about turning things off makes photos worse.
- Do not turn off Smart HDR. You lose the merge that lets a phone handle a bright window and a face at the same time. If HDR photos look flat, adjust exposure, not the toggle.
- Do not turn off Lens Correction. The distortion it removes is real optical distortion, not an effect.
- Do not turn off Live Photos to save space. The storage saving is small and you lose the ability to pick a better frame.
- Do not set Night mode manually unless the phone is braced. The automatic duration is calculated from how still you are holding it, and forcing ten seconds handheld smears every time.
- Do not shoot everything in Portrait mode. It restricts you to one lens, one distance range, and a synthetic blur with edge artefacts. Use it deliberately.
The habits that beat every setting
Three things in the camera app matter more than the whole Settings screen.
- Clean the lens. Pocket grease is the single largest cause of soft, hazy, low-contrast phone photos, and it is invisible until you shoot toward a light. Wipe it on a shirt before anything that matters.
- Tap, then drag. Tap the subject to set focus and metering, then drag the small sun icon up or down to set brightness. This is manual exposure control and it takes half a second.
- Press and hold to lock. AE/AF Lock freezes focus and exposure so you can recompose without the frame jumping. Essential for backlit subjects and for any burst you want to look consistent.
Two more that are not habits exactly but change results as much: use the main 1x lens for people, because the ultra-wide distorts faces at close range, and move your subject rather than your settings. Turning someone forty-five degrees toward a window will do more for a photo than any option discussed on this page.
Questions people ask
What are the best iPhone camera settings?
Grid and Level on, Lens Correction on, Preserve Settings on for camera mode, exposure and Live Photo, format on High Efficiency, and a mild Photographic Style set once. Leave Smart HDR and Live Photos alone. Everything else affects file size more than image quality.
Should I shoot in ProRAW?
Only when you intend to edit. ProRAW keeps white balance, highlights and noise reduction editable rather than baked in, which is invaluable for mixed indoor light. It also costs seventy-five to a hundred megabytes per photo, so use the in-camera toggle per shot.
Should I turn off Live Photos?
No. It gives you 1.5 seconds either side of the shutter, so you can pick a frame where nobody blinked and apply Long Exposure afterwards. The storage saving from turning it off is not worth losing that.
Why do my iPhone photos look flat?
Usually Smart HDR lifting every shadow to the middle in a high-contrast scene. Drag the exposure slider down slightly before you shoot and the pipeline stops trying to rescue the shadows, which gives the contrast back.
Do Photographic Styles ruin your photos?
On iPhone 16 and later, no, because styles are re-editable and removable after capture. On iPhone 13 to 15 they are baked into the file, so keep them mild and apply strong looks after the shot instead.