From Tracy Sweeney’s session “Unleash Your iPhone’s Power for Stunning Portraits!” at last year’s iPhone Photography Conference, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how I use Burst Mode and Live Photos to capture fast-moving kids and real emotion—without missing the moment.

Capturing Fast Action with Burst Mode

This can be really effective if you’re photographing something like a child’s basketball game. You’re waiting for that perfect anticipatory shot, but you don’t know exactly when the moment is going to happen. That’s where Burst mode comes in. It’s ideal for fast-moving subjects because it gives you several options to choose from. Sometimes it’s a lot of junk, honestly—but the great thing is you can go in afterward and just select the one best image.

To use burst mode, open the Camera app and make sure you’re in Photo mode—not Video or Portrait. Then you simply swipe the shutter button to the left and hold it there. That starts taking a series of photos. When you lift your finger, it stops, and you’ve captured a whole succession of images in that instant.

Selecting and Managing Burst Photos

Once you’re done, head to your photo library and you’ll see the burst. In the upper left corner, you can see how many photos you captured. In this case, I took 71 images in a very short amount of time just by swiping and holding. When I lifted my finger, the burst completed. Now I can swipe through from the bottom to view all of my options and make selections of the images I like the most.

So for the photos I love, I don’t have to keep all 71 unless I want to. I’ll be prompted to either keep everything or keep only my favorites—maybe five. If you don’t want to miss a moment, and you’ve got tons of storage on your phone, go for it. But if you want to clean things up, you can just keep your top picks.

Now, another really cool feature is Live Photos.

Capturing Fast Action with Live Photos

Live Photos capture a moment in motion. When you take one, it records about one and a half seconds of video before and after you press the shutter button. So it creates this short animation that even includes sound. For someone like me who posts on social a lot for my business, this is really cool. My goal might be to create a still image, but then I can also use that same moment as an Instagram Reel or in a post where the image comes to life.

To take a Live Photo, open your camera and make sure you’re in Photo mode. Then check that Live Photo is turned on—you’ll see the icon at the top with the three circles that ascend in size. It’s on by default, but if you’ve tapped it off, just tap it again to activate it. Some people keep it off because the file size is larger, which I totally get.

To capture one, just tap the shutter button or use the camera control on your iPhone 16 or newer. To view it, go to your camera roll. You’ll see “Live” in the top left corner. Hold down on the image and you’ll see the animation play. You get the entire clip from before the shutter to after—it all gets pieced together into this really neat little moment.

This is especially powerful when photographing people. You’re not just capturing the moment—you’re capturing the emotion behind it. That sentiment is beautiful, and it gives us more creative options.

Editing Live Photos

The image itself has the photographic style attached to it. If I don’t love the look, I can edit and apply a different style that feels better. Everything is non-destructive, so I can edit to my heart’s content. Once I click Done, it’s still a Live Photo. If I hold it down, it still animates, which is really cool.

If I want to edit the animation itself, I need to save it as a video. Click the ellipses in the top right and choose Save as Video. Now it appears in my camera roll as a video and I can edit that clip. I won’t have as many options as I do with photographic styles, but I can still use filters like vivid, vivid warm, vivid cool, dramatic—these might already feel familiar since they’ve been on iPhones for a long time. And of course, I can still make individual adjustments throughout.

So between Burst mode and Live Photos, you’ve got some really powerful tools right in your pocket. Whether you’re photographing kids on the move, a game, or just those everyday moments you don’t want to miss, this gives you options. You’re not stuck with one frame—you can choose the best one, or even bring it to life. We’re not just capturing pictures, we’re capturing feeling and story. It helps you hold onto moments that go by way too fast.

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Make Every Shot Count

The iPhone Photography Conference is back March 9–11, 2026, featuring three days of hands-on tips, creative approaches, and editing techniques from top industry pros. You’ll walk away ready to capture images you’re truly proud of—anytime, anywhere.

iPhones Are Editing Tools, Too

Our phones are great tools, not only to capture, but also to edit. And I think styles is a great opportunity to showcase that.

Getting skin tones right is this really interesting dance between art, science, and preference. Sometimes it’s hard for us to trust our own eyes. So working with our subjects, using something like Photographic Styles, is easier than doing three or four rounds of edits where they’re saying, “It’s not warm enough” or “It’s not bright enough,” when what they very well could mean is, “My hair looks too dark,” or “My shirt looks too blue,” or just something feels off.

This gives us the opportunity to share something that’s easier for them to understand, less daunting, and lets us communicate quickly and work with them well.

What Photographic Styles Actually Are

So this is where Photographic Styles comes in. It’s a really interesting change Apple made that allows you not just to filter, but to actually edit how undertones are rendered per subject on an easy-to-understand scale.

If we go to Edit, you’ll see the Style option come up. One thing to point out: if you move to the left, you get undertones—you’ll see that denoted right here underneath Styles. But if you go to the right, you’re getting your normal Moods, which are kind of like your filters. As we move across, you’ll see each one changing our base colors, but unlike the moods we’ve seen before, this person’s skin tone isn’t changing drastically. It’s getting slight and specific changes to the color highlights in the image.

Now let’s go over to Moods real quick so you can see what I mean. As you scroll across, you’ll see dramatic changes in skin tone. They’re not as bad as some of the filters we used in the past, but they’re still more intense. I wouldn’t call them destructive, but they’re stronger. And that’s not always helpful if A) you’re not used to editing the skin tone you’re working with, and B) you’re not sure what your client actually wants.

Photographic Styles lets you zoom out, tap, move around, and make changes in a much more controlled way. You can dial in skin tone more easily and show it to them early. You can even set a style ahead of time. So if you’re working with a subject who’s less photo-literate, or you just want to make things easier, you can have them use this as an example of how they think their skin tone looks best in this kind of lighting.

This is a tool for everyone, but it really helps make your job as a photographer easier.

Editing With Tone and Color

Here’s a simple photo of my friend, Boo. We’ll start with Standard. If you’re wondering how I got here, just hit Edit again. On the bottom you’ll see (right to left) Cleanup, Crop, Adjust, Live, and Styles.

Note: If you don’t see the Styles option, your photo format for Camera Capture needs to be changed to High Efficiency (under Settings > Camera > Formats).

We start with Standard, and our axes are Tone and Color. We can adjust the tone of the shadows. You see our blacks down on the bottom of the grid, our lights up top. It’s kind of an X and Y axis. I know many of us aren’t big calculus people, but if you think about it, as we increase color left to right or alter tone north to south, it gives us the ability to move around more naturally.

I actually really like this edit system Apple created because it’s intuitive. As we move around, you’ll see numbers changing at the top. That means after you’ve made edits—or if your subject asks, “What photographic style do you like on yourself?”—they can literally tell you, “Hey, I like Standard, minus 11 tone, plus 15 color.”

That’s huge.

Your undertone options are Amber, Gold, Rose Gold, Neutral, and Cool Rose. Obviously you can alter tone and color for each. You can also use the slider under the grid to change the intensity of your palette. Slide it all the way down and you’re back to the original image. Slide it up and you get a full undertone look.

As we move across, we’re removing color and adding it back. Even while we do that, his skin tone is still warm like when we started, but the feeling of the image is different. That’s the really interesting part. It’s like some Apple Neural Engine magic, mixing localized edits on skin with global edits. The entire image changes, but locally, the skin tone still looks right.

Setting a Base Style for In-Camera

Open Settings, go to Camera, and then Photographic Styles. That gives you a chance to learn about it for the first time if you haven’t explored it yet. Here we’ll choose some images as reference to set a base style we can use in-camera.

We’re going to use a selfie from me and three pictures of Boo, because I like the mixed light on his face. This gives us an interesting opportunity. Something I really like about this is you can take four photos—yourself, family members, whoever—and pull them across to see how they look in Photographic Styles.

The reason I like doing that is it gives us a chance to pick a base style. That way, when you open your camera, you don’t have to change anything. That’s just what it renders at.

For me and Booba, we find a warmth we like. Maybe it’s a little too dark, so we move it over. Cool. I like how my skin looks. I save tone and color. Now when I go back to my camera, that’s what it’s set to. And you’ll notice the same Amber setting is ready for everyone. That’s really cool.

Using Styles as an editing tool is amazing, but it can also be an excellent reference—like a living, breathing white card. You and your subject can talk through edits live instead of going back and forth later. You can say, “Hey, how do you feel about this skin tone?” As they move around, you’ll see all the numbers changing at the top. The only one that doesn’t move is palette, because you change that separately. If you find something you like, screenshot it, save it, and use it later.

Using Styles With Clients

Coming in with this helps a lot. Let’s say you’re a street photographer. Or you shoot influencers. Or just beautiful people who say, “I want to hire you. Photograph me.” Now you already know: they like Cool Rose, they like Gold. So you make sure you photograph them in environments where that warmth works well with their skin.

You use this as a reference point to create better environments and better light to get skin tones right. Your subject has confidence in the edit you’re making because they understand it and helped choose it.

Giving people the opportunity to learn is really powerful. And the thing I love about Photographic Styles is that it’s a departure from the tech debt (legacy Western-centric calibration standards) we’ve seen in photography for years.

Final Thoughts

This gives us the opportunity to make edits at the source of the imaging pipeline. It helps us understand how we want our skin tones rendered—both as a matter of preference and as a matter of truth. I think that’s just awesome.

I hope you use Photographic Styles in a way that empowers your subjects and makes your life easier. Because honestly, you need things to be a little easier sometimes, too.

Thanks so much. See ya.

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Make Every Shot Count

The iPhone Photography Conference is back March 9–11, 2026, featuring three days of hands-on tips, creative approaches, and editing techniques from top industry pros. You’ll walk away ready to capture images you’re truly proud of—anytime, anywhere.

RAW Reality Check

First off, it’s important to note that there are two types of RAW files, right? You’ve probably heard of ProRAW. If you’ve got one of the newer cameras, like the iPhone 15 Pro or newer—basically anything from the last couple of years—you’ve got this ProRAW format. It shoots in RAW, but the file sizes are huge. Every time you press the button, it’s 75 megabytes. SEVENTY-FIVE MEGABYTES.

A JPEG is usually around one megabyte. Or Apple uses HEIF compression, which is about one megabyte. That’s nothing. A RAW file is 75 megs. So when in the world would I use that? If I press the button 14 times, that’s a gig. That’s a gig of data for only 14 photos. What if I do a burst and hold it down? Boom—gig. So what I do is I leave my camera set all the time to JPEG.

JPEG looks great. Files look fine. It’s what we’ve been using on our iPhones forever. There’s no real downside. Sure, if you want to edit in Lightroom it’s nice to have the extra data from RAW. There are advantages. But I don’t know if 75 megabytes per click is enough advantage for me.

My Rule for RAW

So I only turn on RAW when I’m somewhere, taking pictures, and I look and go, “Oh man, this looks really, really good.” I might want at least one image at that 75-megabyte, 48-megapixel level. So I switch it to RAW, take the shot, and I’m good. Then I turn it right back off. That’s it. I turn it on for one shot, then turn it off.

Now here’s the second thing you might want to consider. You don’t have to shoot 48-megapixel RAW. You can do 12-megapixel RAW. It’s a third of the size. It’s still RAW. It’s still ProRAW. But now it’s about 25 megabytes each.

12 Megapixels Is Actually Plenty

I know some people are like, “I don’t know, Scott…12 megapixels? Is that enough?”

Let me put it this way. In 2009, Nikon came out with a groundbreaking camera. I was shooting Nikon then and I went out and bought the Nikon D3. Revolutionary camera. Incredible quality. Best low noise of any camera at that point in history. Killer camera.

It was 12.1 megapixels.

What were people paying? Five thousand dollars. Body only. No lens. Five grand for a 12-megapixel camera. And today we’re like, “Is 12 megs enough?”

I took an image with that D3 that ended up being used in a campaign for Elinchrom lighting. It was also on the entire side of their booth as a giant print.

Then Nikon licensed the image from me. Here I am speaking at Nikon’s booth in New York, and right under the word “Nikon,” there’s the image as a massive framed print.

That was a 12-megapixel image. How big are you planning to print that you need more than 12? Trust me. Twelve megapixels is plenty.

Change It up on the Fly

Here’s how you set it up so you can toggle RAW on and off when you need it.

Step one: Go to Settings. Then go to Camera. Then go to Formats.

The default is ProRAW Max. Make sure ProRAW is turned on. This is where you decide—do you really need 48 megapixels, or can you get away with ProRAW 12 megapixel?

Now here’s the interesting thing. You’ve chosen 12 RAW, right? But you’re not actually shooting RAW yet. You’ve just told your camera, “I might shoot RAW in the future. Be ready.”

So when you’re ready to shoot RAW, look at the top right corner of your camera screen. You’ll see it says RAW and it says 12. But there’s a line through it. That means you’re still shooting JPEG.

Tap it. Line goes away. Now you’re shooting RAW.

When you’re done? Tap it again. Back to JPEG.

If you tap and hold, you can change it. Like if you suddenly decide, “This image is about to change people’s lives. I need 48 megapixels.” Tap and hold. The pop-up menu appears. You’re good.

There’s also JPEG Max. That’s a 48-megapixel JPEG. Much smaller than RAW, but still high resolution.

No RAW on Your iPhone? Here’s the Workaround

Most iPhones today shoot in RAW. But if you’ve got a model that doesn’t, download Lightroom Mobile. Lightroom Mobile lets you shoot RAW. Just tap up top where it says JPEG. A little file format window pops up. Choose DNG, which is Adobe’s open-source RAW format. Now you’re shooting RAW.

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Make Every Shot Count

The iPhone Photography Conference is back March 9–11, 2026, featuring three days of hands-on tips, creative approaches, and editing techniques from top industry pros. You’ll walk away ready to capture images you’re truly proud of—anytime, anywhere.

Your Dream Team Is Assembled

We’ve lined up a dream team of instructors — working pros across travel, street, portrait, landscape, commercial, and even astro photography — ready to show you how they make magic with the camera they carry everywhere. These creatives don’t just talk theory; they walk you through the real workflows they use every day to capture, edit, and deliver images that stop people in their tracks.

Learn to Make Images That Connect

Two high-energy days of live sessions, plus a bonus pre-conference day, will take you from “I want to try this” to “I just nailed it.” You’ll learn how to create expressive portraits with natural or studio light, shoot after dark (yes—even spectacular Milky Way and aurora shots), and capture magazine-quality travel images without lugging a bag full of heavy, expensive gear. We’ll cover composition, storytelling, and the latest editing workflows so your photos don’t just look great—they connect. From sweeping landscapes to macro details to documentary-style stories, our instructors will show you how to see differently, shoot smarter, and finish strong — starting with your iPhone and extending through mobile or desktop post-processing in Lightroom and Photoshop, and their favorite apps.

More Than a Conference — A Creative Leap

Whether you already shoot regularly on your iPhone or are ready to start treating it like a pro-level camera, this conference will push your mobile photography further than you thought possible. You’ll walk away with a skillset that works anywhere — giving you the confidence to capture sharp, striking, and fully realized images every time you pick up your iPhone.

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