Live photos of iphone 5s. How to create live photos on old iPhones. Live Photo as a feature for long exposure photography

Live Photos is a feature that allows you to create live photos on your iPhone. For the first time this option was implemented in the sixth line of smartphones from Apple. Working with live photos is available to all users of IOS 9 and newer firmware versions.

IPhone 5 users need to have a working jailbreak and the "Enable_Live_Photos" tweak to work with Live Photos.

The function of creating live photos is available in the settings of the standard “Camera” application and in the menu of third-party programs from the AppStore. Let's take a closer look at how to take live photos on an iPhone, how to edit such media files and transfer them to other devices.

Differences between Live Photos and Videos

The principle of operation of live photos is similar to conventional videos only at first glance. In fact, they are two completely different functions. Live Photo works like this:

  • The camera shoots 1.5 seconds of video before taking a photo;
  • Next, a photo is created;
  • After the characteristic sound of the camera, the application once again records 1.5 seconds of what is happening.

Further, all the obtained photos and "live" frames are combined, creating an animation effect. In the gallery, photos are stored in their usual form, to view the animation, click on any part of the photo in full-screen view.

When adding a live photo to Instagram or another social network add the file as video. If he is attached to a post like a regular photo, the animation will not be displayed.

At the software level, the animation is provided by archiving files with the JPG and MOV extensions. Document playback speed is 15 frames per second. The display time of a live picture is 3 seconds.


Shooting live photos

To start taking a live photo on your iPhone, follow the instructions:

  • Open the main menu of the iPhone and click on the standard "Camera" application;
  • At the top of the screen, click on the Live OFF button, which starts the animated wallpaper shooting mode. Wait until Live ON appears;
  • Now point the camera at the desired object that is in motion. Click on the capture button to automatically create a live photo.

Note! Live photos are created along with sound. You cannot turn off the recording of the audio track, and it will be played every time an animated file is played on a smartphone or other device.

Live photo editing

IOS 10 and IOS 9 lack the ability to edit created Live Photos. You can only adjust brightness and contrast in the camera options list before shooting. Basic editing is available in IOS 11. The full version of the new OS will be released this fall, so users will have access to improved settings for the "Live Photos" function.

In iOS 11, the following options are available for editing Live Photos:

  • Image cropping and playback time;
  • Adjusting brightness and contrast;
  • White balance slider;
  • A slider for adjusting sound quality and volume.

View Live Photos on different devices

Due to the special settings of Live Photos, they can only be viewed on the following gadgets:

  • In the desktop version of OS X El Captain and newer;
  • On smartphones running IOS 9 and above.

When trying to transfer a media file to a device that does not support showing MOV animation, the user will only see a photo in JPG format.

Live Photos is a software technology in iOS that lets you take live, animated photos on iPhone 6s and newer. Photos that come to life when touched allow you to capture emotions and memories more vividly and memorably.

How to Take Live Photo on iPhone

  1. Launch the Camera app on iPhone 6s or later.
  2. Then, in the Camera app at the top of the screen, tap the Life Off icon.
  3. Then press the button (standard white shutter button) to take Live Photo.

Live photos on iPhone are made quickly and easily, after you press the button, the camera records 1.5 seconds. video before the picture is taken and the field is recorded for 1.5 seconds. When viewing such a photo, the picture comes to life thanks to 3D Touch technology. This is why this functionality is not available on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5s.


How to Take Live Photo on iPhone

Apple is positioning Live Photo as a photo, not a video file. Live photography includes a combination of a JPG file and a MOV file. Consists of 45 frames and plays back at 15 frames.

We think you will also be interested in our article about that. Step by step instructions, tips and tricks for the iPhone camera.

How to edit Live Photos

IOS 11 adds Live Photo editing tools on iPhone. Now you can crop and apply different effects.

Having taken a “live photo” you can now change the main photo. This can be done by clicking on the "Change" button and then select more suitable frame for the main photo. You can also crop frames, for this press the same edit button and a tape with frames that you can crop will appear under the main picture.

Also in the eleventh version of the operating system, you can add different effects, to do this, swipe up the picture or click on the inscription "Details".

  • Live is a standard Live Photo (this option can be applied if you want to return to the original format);
  • Loop - allows you to make the animation loop (that is, repetitive);
  • Bounce - this effect allows you to play the video in reverse order;
  • Long Exposure - This effect allows you to simulate long shutter speeds similar to DSLR cameras.

Live Photos in iOS is a unique feature. Similar solutions were invented long before Apple, Lumia smartphones created live photos, and HTC had something akin to Live Photos.

Why, among all smartphone manufacturers, Live Photos have caught on only with Apple? First, the ecosystem allows them to be played across all your devices without additional settings, secondly, to create a live photo, you don't need to do anything at all, the smartphone creates them by default. You just take pictures, and after a while, going to the photo gallery, you find that all the pictures you have taken can be "revived"

With the arrival of iOS 11, Live Photo will become a powerful tool for photographers. Now I have iOS 11 public beta on my iPhone 7 plus, and I use Live Photo every day, which partially replaces burst shooting and other modes that I used to use in third-party programs.

How does iPhone create Live Photos?

To understand how Live Photo creates an animated event, you need to dig deeper and see what the file consists of when shooting live images.

When you press the camera shutter, the iPhone, in addition to the photo, records a 3-second piece of video, and then the file system understands these two files as a whole. It would seem that this approach is not rational from the point of view of the memory used. But here comes into force the following weighty argument, which is on the side of Apple. In iOS 11, Apple introduced support for the new HEIC image formats. This image format does two things: it either reduces the file size using its own compression algorithms, while not "crippling" the quality, or it allows you to save more information in the usual size.

What happens if you transfer a file with Live Photo to your computer?

When copying such a file, macOS itself will split it into two parts, separately discard the image, separately video in MOV format.

Here's an example, a HEIC file is just under a megabyte at 4032 × 3024 pixels and comes with a 1.5 MB video at 1440 × 1080 pixels. In iOS itself, it all looks like one photo file, moreover, if you copy this file to any application or decide to transfer it over the air, then it is immediately converted into the usual JPEG.

Using Live Photo as an alternative to burst shooting.

In iOS 11, you can perform various actions with Live Photos in the Photos app. For example, choosing a suitable frame on the timeline in the same way as it was done before with continuous shooting. In fact, you have the original photo and video clip.


The video is recorded at a frequency of 15 frames per second, if the photo has an embedded video of 3 seconds duration, then you are offered a series of 45 (3 × 15) frames.

The system uses the original photo file with a 4K resolution, after the selected successful frame from a video with a resolution of 1440 × 1080, you get a combined frame in the same usual 4K resolution.

Of course, the process itself looks much simpler, I only superficially described to you the internal mechanism of how this happens.

Live Photo as a feature for long exposure photography.

IOS 11 added the ability to take long exposure shots using Live Photo. Choose a photo, make a "swipe" up and get into the function selection menu. There are several new effects here: Loop, Pendulum, Long exposure.


All manipulations will be done by mixing a photo and video. And for a long exposure, this is just right, if the picture has information accumulated over 3 seconds, albeit in video format, then with a competent approach you can achieve a cool effect. The main thing to remember is that for good long exposure shots, your smartphone doesn't have to move when taking pictures. Ideally, use a mobile tripod.

This is how Apple subtly improved an already cool and easy-to-use feature. Live Photo is no longer just a tool for memories, but also a tool for further creativity. Convenience lies in the fact that even old photos with the Live Photo function enabled can be processed in iOS 11. If you have a lot of Live Photo shots on your iPhone and you did not force this function off in the settings, then now you will definitely have something do at your leisure.

Read us in the Wylsared Telegram channel, we update regularly, but without straining.

Live Photos (Live Photos) is a software feature in iOS (Camera app) that allows you to get animated photos on iPhone.

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What devices support Live Photo shooting

Live photos can only be taken on devices that support 3D Touch (Touch Force Detection), which are:

  • iPhone 6s;
  • iPhone 6s Plus;
  • iPhone 7;
  • iPhone 7 Plus;
  • iPhone 8;
  • iPhone 8 Plus;
  • iPhone X.

How Live Photo works

“Live Photos” work very simply - after you start taking a photo, the iPhone camera records 1.5 seconds of video before the shot, and then 1.5 seconds after it was taken. As a result, a valuable "context" is added to the photo, information about what was happening around, and the output is a kind of mini-video. The animation is shown by 3D Touch-clicking on the photo.

Apple has already said that Live Photo - not a video file, but a combination of a 12MP .JPG photo with a .MOV file. TechCrunch journalist Matthew Panzarino reports that "live photography" includes 45 frames, and is played back at a speed of 15 frames per second (which is just 3 seconds).

The combination of the two formats - .JPG and .MOV - also results in internal storage Live Photo takes up 2 times more space than a regular picture. Panzarino notes that he got successful Live Photos - pictures, but the function as a whole is still "damp":

“In my case, Live Photos were perfect when it was necessary to capture the 'atmosphere', but not the movement. Since the frame rate is quite low, moving the camera during shooting means problems in the picture. But if you shoot a still image with a few moving elements, the effect is amazing. "

1 ... Open the app Camera.

2 ... Enable the option Live Photosin the top menu. The icon should be yellow.

3 ... Press the shutter button (white centered) to take a picture Live Photos.

Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal, however, calls Live Photos "One of the best features of Apple smartphones." You can see several "live photos" of Joanna.

How to remove audio, crop and apply effects on Live Photos in iPhone

In addition, on macOS High Sierra and later, the Photos app also includes Live Photos editing tools ().

Live Photo on iPhone is a software feature in the built-in Camera app on iOS that lets you create animated snapshots. If you have seen the films about Harry Potter, you will immediately understand what it is: the heroes of the photographs, of course, cannot leave them, but they are able to wave their hand at you.

Devices supporting technology

To create Live Photos on iPhone, 3D Touch support is required. This is a technology for determining the force of pressing the screen. It is only available on the latest iPhone models:

IPhone 5S, iPhone SE, and other models don't have this technology, so you can't take a live photo.

Principle of operation

Live Photo in your iPhone is not magic, but a combination of 12 megapixel photography with a video file in MOV format. The technology works as follows:

  1. After shooting starts, the camera records 1.5 seconds of video.
  2. After 1.5 seconds, a photo is created.
  3. After taking a picture, video is recorded again for 1.5 seconds.

As a result of this trick, information about what was happening around is added to the photo. The animation turns on after 3D Touch-clicking on the picture. In total, a live photo turns out to be 45 frames, and its playback speed is 15 frames per second.

The combination of JPG photo and MOV video results in the file taking up 2 times more memory space than a regular photo. But if you learn to shoot correctly, then this drawback will immediately become insignificant - because it turns out very cool.

How to create a Live Photo

To take a live photo:

  1. Open the Camera app on iOS.
  2. Activate the Live Photos option on the top bar. The icon should be yellow.
  3. Press the shutter button as if you were taking a regular photo.

The feature is turned on by default on iPhone 6S and later. To take a regular photo, click on the Live Snapshot icon in the top bar and make sure the option is turned off.

Users who actively create live photos say that the function is still damp, but this does not interfere with getting good shots under the right conditions. In Live Photo, it is difficult to capture movement, but you can capture the atmosphere - for example, you are standing, and the clouds are floating across the sky. You shouldn't move the camera during shooting, as a low playback rate (only 15 frames per second) will lead to problems in the picture.

Live photo editing

We've figured out how to shoot Live Photos, but that's not enough to fully understand the technology's capabilities. The footage can be edited - for this you need to know how to edit Live Photos in iPhone. With the release of iOS 11, the developers have added live editing tools to the Photos app.

After creating a photo, you can go directly to the editor by clicking the "Edit" button. At the bottom of the display, you will see a slider that allows you to select the main photo - it will be displayed by default. You can crop, rotate, apply filters - in general, standard actions are available with photos on mobile devices.

You can also add playback effects by clicking Edit and swiping the photo up until an additional menu appears. There are three effects available:

  • Loop - animation looping.
  • Pendulum - play in reverse.
  • Long exposure - simulate long exposure.

To get rid of the effect and reset the live photo to its original state, select Live.

If you want to mute the video, click on the speaker icon in the editor and confirm to delete the audio track.

Play on other devices

Owners of the latest models of devices with iOS 9 and higher have no problems with working with live photos. But how to use Life Photo in an old iPhone? You can't create, but maybe you can at least see if someone else sends a Live Photo?

Unfortunately, you can't see it either. If you send a live photo to an unsupported device, the MOV component is removed and only the JPG photo remains. There are a few exceptions - for example, on iPhone 6 with iOS 9, the animation will play, although you cannot create Life Photos on this model.