New Apple operating systems klaxon! As always, Apple has provided a bunch of new toys for people who spend their time taking photos, editing photos and possibly taking photos of themselves editing photos like they’re in some kind of Christopher Nolan movie. Anyway! Tips: You want them. I have them. Below are the best tips I’ve found so far for photography in iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and MacOS 27.
Those living room essential guide to the latest software updates from Apple
Use new camera controls
In Camera for iPhone, swipe the screen to the left to access Siri mode. Press the shutter and you can ask your iPhone what it sees. Apple also moved the tool menu next to the shutter and made it thumbable, improving on its previous location: a button about the size of an atom right at the top of the screen. Even better, tap Edit and you can choose which controls stay permanently on the screen. Weeeee!
There are also a lot of nice new bits for iPhone 18 Pro owners, but I didn’t write about them because the iPhone 18 Pro isn’t out yet and Apple doesn’t take kindly to journalists sneaking into Apple HQ under the cover of darkness to pilfer a new phone for testing.
Try Clean Up
In Photos, edit an image and select Tools. Select ‘Clean Up’. You still drag over elements you want gone, but there is now a ‘High Quality’ option which – in theory – improves the result. (In my experience it is… not always.) Note: use Clean Up in front of other AI tools – or ‘intelligent changes’, as Apple calls them!
Expand and reframe a photo
Use the new Extend and Reframe tools to add new content around the frame and adjust a shot’s perspective, respectively, all with standard drag and pinch gestures. I would strong recommend using these sparingly, however, to stick to subtle changes and adjustments. Otherwise, the results can look terribly fake.
Make a slideshow
Addicted to slideshows or, for that matter, putting your nearest and dearest through slideshows? Good news (for you): on iPhone and iPad you can now vote anyone Photos from your library and go to ‘…’ > ‘Start Slideshow’. (This was already a thing on Mac via File > ‘Play Slideshow’.) Tap Customize to adjust the transitions and music or go to ‘…’ > Share > ‘Save Video’ to start it on anyone who isn’t currently nearby.
Save video stills
You know when you capture the perfect moment in a video and then either screenshot it or fiddle with editing software to extract a still? Don’t do that anymore. Instead, go to ‘…’ (Image on Mac) > ‘Save Video Frame as Photo’. Handily, the timestamp and location metadata match the original video.
Enable video subtitles
Speaking of personal videos, if you’ve ever shot one and wanted to watch it in a very quiet room and/or show it to someone who’s hearing impaired, you can now tap the subtitle button in the playback bar for instant live subtitles. At least if you use US English. Otherwise you can’t (yet). Bouch and Geiss, etc.
Sync photos instantly
Until now, iPhones often took their sweet time syncing your latest snapshots, pretending they were busy “optimizing system performance”. You can now temporarily overcome this irritation. In Collections, tap your profile picture and set ‘Sync now’ to ‘For today’. And then wish there was an option ‘For Ever And Ever And Ever’.
Rate your snapshots
Marking a handful of snaps as favorites isn’t granular enough for some people. If you’re ‘some people’, long press on a photo in your library or collection and select ‘Set Rating’, or use the Dinky Star Rating menu when viewing a photo. Choose between one and five stars and you can then filter your view by rating. Inexplicably, this feature seems to be limited to iPhone at the moment.
Add keywords to photos
In the information window of an image, use ‘Add keywords’ to find the image more easily later. Keywords cannot (yet) be applied to multiple photos at once, but existing keywords will at least appear quickly as you type. On iPhone or iPad, go to Collections, tap your profile and select ‘Manage keywords’ to edit keywords or add them to favorites to use as a filter. On Mac use Windows > ‘Key Manager’.
View a selection
On iPhone or iPad, in your library or collection view, tap Select, select multiple photos, then tap Show Selected. You will see your images in a pop-up window. Tap the button at the top left to switch to gallery view, which allows you to swipe through your selection. Tap photos to deselect them if you want, before returning to the main view to perform an action on whatever is left, using the ‘…’ menu.
Find identity documents
Again on iPhone or iPad, go to collections. Select ‘Identity Documents’ from the Utilities section. (On iPad, this can also be found in the sidebar.) Photos show all appropriate snapshots of documents such as passports and driver’s licenses. Or, in my case, a recent parking ticket. Not sure I could use that for an international flight…
Upgrade shared albums
Long press or control-click on a shared album and select to upgrade. Change the shared album and you will see new options. You can set a key photo, per-user permissions, whether the album is public, whether the album should be temporary (30 days), and whether access requests are allowed. Just be aware that everyone don’t running the latest Apple operating systems – or on Android or Windows – must interact with updated albums on iCloud.com.
