You could be taking way better photos on your phone

你其实可以拍出更好的手机照片

It takes a little more work, but phones can now legitimately rival point and shoot cameras. 虽然需要多花点功夫，但现在的手机确实已经可以媲美卡片相机了。

Your smartphone photos can look way better. If you’re willing to put in a little extra work, use third party apps and spend a bit of time editing, it’s possible to take photos that — under the right circumstances — can rival dedicated digital cameras. 你的手机照片其实可以拍得更好。只要你愿意多花一点心思，使用第三方应用程序并花些时间进行后期编辑，在合适的条件下，你完全可以拍出媲美专业数码相机的照片。

I post a lot of smartphone photos online, and “How do I take better photos on my phone?” is a question I get practically every day. It makes sense. As the saying goes, “The best camera is the one you have on you,” and we practically always have our phones on us these days. 我在网上发布过很多手机摄影作品，几乎每天都会有人问我：“怎样才能用手机拍出更好的照片？”这很合理。俗话说：“最好的相机就是你手边的那台”，而如今我们几乎随时都带着手机。

Over the last few years, smartphone camera sensors have gotten bigger, with better light gathering capabilities and higher resolutions. But even though the sensors have gotten bigger and better, the straight-out-of-camera quality through default camera apps hasn’t improved much, if at all. In some respects, smartphone photos have actually gotten worse — aesthetically, at least. 过去几年里，手机摄像头的传感器变得越来越大，感光能力更强，分辨率也更高。但尽管传感器在进步，通过默认相机应用直出的照片质量并没有太大提升，甚至可以说几乎没有改善。在某些方面，手机照片在美学上反而退步了。

The reason driving this is what people generally use their smartphone cameras for. Smartphone cameras are mostly optimized for information transfer — sending photos of menus, signs, faces and objects that are clear and easy to see. This means phones will usually pull down highlights and pull up the shadows, creating a flatter image that makes it easier to see more information in the frame. 造成这种情况的原因在于人们使用手机摄像头的初衷。手机摄像头大多针对“信息传递”进行了优化——即拍摄菜单、路标、人脸和物体，确保画面清晰易读。这意味着手机通常会压低高光并提亮阴影，从而生成一张更平淡的图像，以便在画面中呈现更多细节。

But showing more information does not automatically make a photo better. In fact, much of our perception of aesthetics in a photo has to do with its ability to present depth. A photo with too much information in the shadows and highlights will appear washed out. Phones also introduce artifacts like over-sharpening and noise reduction to compensate for their small sensors, which further contributes to the “muddy” smartphone camera look you’re used to seeing by now. This is less necessary now, but many smartphones still do it. 但呈现更多信息并不等同于照片更好。事实上，我们对照片美感的感知很大程度上取决于它呈现深度感的能力。一张在阴影和高光处包含过多信息的照片会显得苍白无力。手机还会引入过度锐化和降噪等伪影来弥补传感器尺寸的不足，这进一步加剧了你现在所熟悉的那种“浑浊”的手机摄影感。虽然现在这种处理的必要性已降低，但许多手机厂商依然在这样做。

But that doesn’t mean phone cameras are bad. The sensors in modern smartphones have actually gotten so good, many of them can rival dedicated point-and-shoot options on the market today. Knowing how to utilize those sensors is the part most people don’t know how to do, and it really comes down to utilizing some third-party camera and editing apps. 但这并不意味着手机摄像头很差。现代智能手机的传感器实际上已经非常出色，许多甚至可以媲美市面上的卡片相机。大多数人不知道的是如何利用这些传感器，而关键就在于使用一些第三方相机和编辑应用程序。

The apps

应用程序

There are plenty of apps available today that will give you an instantly “aesthetic” photo. Apps like Dazzcam and Hujicam try to emulate film aesthetics like light leaks and polaroid borders (and honestly, if that’s what you’re looking for, they do a fantastic job). There are also apps like Moment Pro Camera II and Halide that offer “Natural” and “Process Zero” modes, which apply far lighter processing than the default camera offers. 如今市面上有许多应用可以让你瞬间拍出“有质感”的照片。像 Dazzcam 和 Hujicam 这样的应用试图模拟胶片美学，如漏光效果和拍立得边框（老实说，如果你追求这种风格，它们做得非常棒）。此外，还有像 Moment Pro Camera II 和 Halide 这样的应用，它们提供“自然”和“零处理”模式，其处理力度远比默认相机应用要轻得多。

Those options are great if you want your pictures to look better instantly without needing to do any additional editing, but if you want the best possible photo, you’ll need to shoot RAW or DNG. 如果你想在不进行额外编辑的情况下让照片瞬间变好看，这些选择非常棒；但如果你追求极致的画质，你需要拍摄 RAW 或 DNG 格式。

RAW files are a bundle of practically all the information your camera collects, with extremely minimal processing. In most cases, RAW photos won’t necessarily look better than photos straight from the default camera app right away, but that’s because the default camera app makes a lot of creative decisions for you. If you want the highest-quality photo, it’s best to make these creative decisions yourself. RAW 文件包含了相机采集的几乎所有原始信息，且仅经过极少的处理。在大多数情况下，RAW 照片直出效果未必比默认相机应用拍出来的更好，那是因为默认相机应用已经为你做了大量的创作决策。如果你想要最高质量的照片，最好还是由你自己来做这些创作决定。

There are tons of apps available that let you shoot RAW, but the apps I use frequently and that I recommend to other people are Moment Pro Camera II and Halide on iOS, and VWFNDR and Zerocam on Android. 市面上有大量支持 RAW 拍摄的应用，但我经常使用并推荐给别人的应用是 iOS 上的 Moment Pro Camera II 和 Halide，以及 Android 上的 VWFNDR 和 Zerocam。

I wouldn’t recommend shooting RAW on every photo you take on your phone. Your phone camera is, after all, optimized for what you are probably taking photos of every day. I generally shoot RAW when I see a nice landscape or city scene that I want to share, or if I’m trying to take a portrait of someone and don’t want all the automatic computational phone processing to apply. Really, I shoot RAW when I’m trying to take a photo for artistic purposes, not for informational purposes. 我不建议你用手机拍每一张照片都使用 RAW 格式。毕竟，手机摄像头是为你日常拍摄需求而优化的。我通常在看到想要分享的优美风景或城市景观时，或者在拍摄人像且不希望应用手机自动计算摄影处理时，才会使用 RAW 格式。说到底，我是在为了艺术创作而非记录信息时才使用 RAW。

When you’re shooting, you’ll want to tap on your subject in the viewfinder to get the best possible exposure for it. If the rest of the image is a little bright, or a little dark, don’t worry too much. RAW photos retain a lot of information. I should note, though, that under extremely dark circumstances, RAW on smartphones won’t always be the best option. Physics is still physics, and sometimes it’s better to use the computational photography capabilities your phone offers, which mostly shine in low-light environments by stacking multiple frames to reduce noise. 拍摄时，你应该点击取景器中的主体，以获得最佳曝光。如果画面其余部分稍微亮一点或暗一点，不必太担心，RAW 照片保留了大量信息。不过我需要提醒的是，在极暗环境下，手机 RAW 格式并不总是最佳选择。物理定律终究是物理定律，有时利用手机提供的计算摄影功能会更好，它们通过堆栈多帧来降低噪点，在弱光环境下表现尤为出色。

You’ll notice that when you shoot in RAW, the apps will force you to stick to the native focal lengths your phone offers. That’s because RAW images are information straight off the sensor, and cropping applies processing. Photos from the main sensor will often be the best quality, since it usually has the biggest sensor on your phone, so I recommend shooting with it if you can. I do often shoot with the telephoto lens while traveling though, because sometimes you want a little more reach or a little more compression, and you can usually get good photos from that lens as well. 你会发现，当你使用 RAW 拍摄时，应用会强制你使用手机原生提供的焦段。这是因为 RAW 图像是直接来自传感器的原始信息，而裁切则涉及后期处理。主摄拍摄的照片通常画质最好，因为它通常拥有手机中最大的传感器，所以我建议尽可能使用主摄拍摄。不过，我在旅行时也经常使用长焦镜头，因为有时你需要更远的焦距或更强的空间压缩感，通常也能用长焦镜头拍出不错的照片。

Editing

后期编辑

After you take your photos, you’re going to need to edit them. Most phones won’t show RAW images in the camera gallery, so in order to get them in an editing app, it’s best to use the share sheet. 拍完照片后，你需要进行后期编辑。大多数手机的相册应用不会直接显示 RAW 图像，因此要将它们导入编辑软件，最好使用“分享”菜单。