Photography

Freelensing is a technique where you remove the lens from the front of your SLR or interchangeable lens camera, and hold it in position rather than locking it in place in the lens mount.

Tilting the lens back and forth gives you an effect that looks somewhat similar to that of a tilt-shift lens or a selective focus lens like a Lensbaby. Expect light leaks and lots of bokeh, or blur, thanks to the shift in the plane of focus.

A word of warning, freelensing is not for the faint-hearted, as you could drop your lens or get dust and … Read more

Editors' note: This guest post kicks off a five-week series of Photojojo's best photography tips. Check back every Tuesday for the latest guide to making the most of your shutter.

Your phone isn't just another camera.

It's a tool that can make your life easier when you're out shooting with your non-phone camera. Maybe that's a top-of-the-line dSLR, an old-school 35mm film camera, or a slick micro-four-thirds device.

Regardless of your camera type, there all kinds of factors to take into account before, after, and during shoots, including location, lighting, copyrights, and numbers.

The good … Read more

NoCrop, no more. After writing about the iPhone app NoCrop last week that let you post rectangular photos on Instagram, I have uninstalled it in favor of Squaready and InstaSize. Like NoCrop, these two apps are free and let you post an entire rectangular photo to Instagram. Unlike NoCrop, these two apps don't repeatedly hit you over the head with obtrusive ads. Instead, Squaready and InstaSize satisfy themselves with simple banner ads at the bottom of the screen.

First up: Squaready. The app lays out a simple, three-step process, but first I would recommend muting the app's strange … Read more

TitleFX is similar to another universal iOS app that I covered last month called Over HD. Both apps cost $1.99 at the moment and let you add cool-looking titles to your photos before sharing on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. The apps are similar to one another, but if there can be only one, I'd go with TitleFX.

For starters, it's easier to use than Over HD and its menu wheel. For another,TitleFX also lets you angle text so that it's on an angle or vertical instead of always horizontal. On the other hand, TitleFX … Read more

If you find yourself at an event -- party, wedding, huge snow storm -- with a bunch of iPhone-wielding friends, Albumatic will let you create a social photo album. Granted, as The Verge points out, it's probably easier to use Instagram and an agreed-upon hashtag to share photos, with the added benefit of including the Android users in your midst. Whether Albumatic finds an audience is a question that remains to be answered, but the app itself is slick. And free and ad-free.

Launch Albumatic for the first time and you'll need to create an account via e-mail … Read more

NoCrop is not an app you will want to use with any regularity. The barrage of ads is unyielding, but this free and universal iOS app is useful for those times when Instagram's framing constraint doesn't mesh with the composition of a rectangular photo on your phone.

For such instances, NoCrop lets you share the entire rectangular frame on Instagram. It pulls off this feat by adding a white border on either side of portrait-oriented photos or on the top and bottom of landscapes.

When you first launch the app, you'll need to allow it access to … Read more

If Instagram and Vine had a baby, they'd name it PhotoBlab. This free iPhone app lets you create and share short photo slideshows with audio.

After launching the app and signing up for an account with an e-mail address, the app will ask you to add a profile picture or you can choose to do this later via settings. At the bottom of the app are four buttons: Create Blab, Blab Feed, Popular Blabs, and Settings.

You can get some PhotoBlabbing ideas by browsing the Popular feed, while the Blab Feed lets you view so-called Blabs you've sent … Read more

Ready to add a little spice to your Instagramming ways? Over HD is a slick and universal iOS app that lets you add text to your photos before sharing them on Instagram or other social networks. At the time of this writing, it's currently offered for half price at 99 cents.

Launch the app and you'll see thumbnails of your recent photos, which you can tap on to edit. To load an older photo not in view, scroll down or tap the Camera Roll button. You can also take a photo using the app

When you load a … Read more

Some of us use our camera phones to take photos and edit them on the fly. Some others prefer to use a real camera and edit them professionally, using a photography software on their computers. Whoever you are, there is a solution out there for you, but this special giveaway I'm running today is specifically for PC users -- a free copy of Cyberlink PhotoDirector 3. What does it do? Well, good question - as the software title states, it puts you in the director chair and helps you manage your photos, edit, enhance and so much more.

Rated … Read more