How to apply native effects to your moving photos (Live Photos)

From the 6s model, the iPhone started to bring a function that allows taking pictures with movements, which Apple calls Live Photos. When you strongly touch the image, it moves, recording a few seconds as if it were a video.

IOS 11 then included a few different effects, which expand the potential of Live Photos and make it even more useful. If you haven’t explored these effects yet, we’ll show you how to do this.


There are three special effects, which are applied to the image without you having to touch it, as they already appear in your library when they are viewed.

To start the process, open your photo library and search for one made with the feature Live Photo activated. Pictures like this have the symbol at the top of the screen.

TIP: The iOS Photos app has an automatic album that separates Live Photos for you.

With the photo on the screen, drag your finger from bottom to top to view the effect options to be applied.

You will then see the options Loop, Back and forth and Long exposure. We detail each one below.


Loop

The effect Loop, as its name suggests, makes a Live Photo repeat itself endlessly, giving the idea of ​​movement. It’s like an animated GIF, but of better quality and with a much smaller file size.

It is ideal for pictures of landscapes and moving water, as long as the camera is fixed at the same point.

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Back and forth

This effect is one of those that only looks good in certain photos, in others it looks strange. It makes the image go back and forth indefinitely.


Long exposure

This is the most interesting and useful effect for those who like to take more elaborate photos. The iPhone camera is great, but the native app is quite limited and does not allow the user to manipulate more technical settings, such as the exposure time at the time of the photo. It is true that there are great apps on the App Store that solve this, but those who use only the native app, could not. IOS 11 solved this partly, allowing the use of Live Photos to increase the exposure time at the moment the photo is taken.

This is great for photos where you want to record movement in a still image, such as car headlights at night or water flowing in a river.

The effect Long exposure joins several versions of the same image, forming a single photo.

The ideal, in this type of photo, is to fix the iPhone on a tripod or else support it on something fixed, so that the rest of the image is not blurred and out of focus.

Also try taking photos of night landscapes with Live Photo and applying the Long Exposure effect. You may be surprised at the result. ?


Transform Live Photo to GIF

At Live Photos can only be viewed on iOS, macOS and some sharing services, such as Tumblr and Facebook. If you send the image to someone using another platform, via WhatsApp or email, the person will not be able to view the movement. Therefore, many people ask how to turn a Live Photo into an animated GIF, so that you can post anywhere or send it to other people.

IOS does not natively export the image to GIF, but there are some apps that do this in a practical and easy way. One of them is the Motion Stills, Of google.

Motion Stills - GIF, Collage Motion Stills - GIF, Collage

But it is always good to remember that animated GIFs turn into very large files and usually take up a lot of storage space (more than normal videos). So use them sparingly.