iPad:
Using the camera
This animated course shows how to make the most of your iPad's camera and the Photos app. We have tips on accessing the camera, taking, editing and deleting photos and selfies, and sharing photos with friends.
Watch our animation by pressing the Play button below, or click on the handy Chapters icon in the video playbar to go straight to the information you want to see, such as how to:
- open the camera from the Lock screen
- take and review a photo
- use a photo as a wallpaper background
- take a selfie
- view your photos in the Photos app
- delete a photo
- edit a photo
- share a photo.
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Transcript
Welcome to the "iPad: Using the camera" course. In this course, you'll learn how to quickly access your iPad's built-in camera, how to take a photo and use it as a background image. You'll also learn how to take a selfie, how to delete a photo you don't like, and how to edit a photo and send it to a friend.
If your iPad has a physical Home button, some of the steps might be slightly different, but you can still follow along.
The camera works whichever way you hold the tablet and for this demonstration, we'll be using portrait mode. To get started, let's look at how to quickly access the camera on your iPad when it's locked. With your iPad showing the Lock screen, simply swipe left to open the camera app.
When you open the camera app from the Lock screen, your iPad is still locked. You will be able to take photos and see the photos you've just taken, but you won't be able to use any other features of your iPad until you unlock it.
Opening the Camera app activates the camera. Here you can see a preview of what the camera can see. It's not recording video or taking photos just yet. It's just showing a preview of the area that would be captured if you were to take a photo, or video. To the right of the camera preview area is a list of all the different types of photos and videos you can capture on your iPad. You can explore these options by swiping through this list. But for this demonstration, we're going to select photo.
To take a photo, you simply have to tap the middle Capture button. The photo will be saved to your iPad's photos app and we'll look at that in more detail later in this course.
You can view the last photo you've taken by tapping the square under the Capture button. Tap on it to see your photo.
Let's look at how you can personalise your iPad using a photo as your background.
For this demonstration, we opened the camera app from our Lock screen so we've not yet unlocked our iPad. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to return to the Lock screen, and swipe up again to enter your passcode and unlock your iPad.
To change the background image, find the Settings icon on your Home screen and tap it to open the Settings app. Scroll down the list of options on the left side of the screen until you find Wallpaper. Tap on Wallpaper to see some wallpaper options on the right side of the screen. Now tap on choose a new wallpaper near the top of the screen to open the Choose page. Look for recent, which is the option under All Photos. Tap Recent. The last few photos taken on your iPad will appear here as a thumbnail, which is a small image preview of a photo. In this demonstration, we just have one recent photo. Tap on it to choose it as a background image. The screen will change to show a preview of how the photo will look on the Lock screen. You can tap and drag the photo around the screen, until you find a position you're happy with. Then, from the bottom right of the screen, tap Set. Some options will pop up asking you if you want to set the Lock screen, set the Home screen or Set Both. In this demonstration, we're just going to set the photo as our Home screen wallpaper. So, we'll tap on Set Home Screen. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to return to your Home screen and see your new background.
Your iPad can have several pages of Home screens, depending on how many apps you have. If you can't see the new background photo clearly on the first Home screen, swipe left to see it on the next one.
Now, let's swipe the Home screen back to the right and look at another kind of photo called a selfie. A selfie is a photo taken using your device's front-facing camera. It's called a selfie because it's usually a photo of yourself and anyone else who can fit in the shot.
Let's open the Camera app again. You could tap the camera icon on the Home screen, but there's also a shortcut you can use to open the camera at any time, regardless of which app or website you have open.
For this demonstration, we'll open it from the Home screen. This shortcut uses your iPad's built-in Control Centre. To open the Control Centre on your iPad, swipe down from the top right of the screen. The swipe should begin with your finger in the bezel, which is the area that surrounds the screen. Look for the Camera icon, which is in the last row of icons in the Control Centre. Tap it to open the Camera app.
Now find the Switch Camera button to the right of the screen. It looks like two round arrows in the shape of a circle. Tap it to activate the iPad's front-facing camera. Your face should appear on the screen. You might need to hold the iPad out at arm's length and at a bit of an angle to compose the perfect selfie photo.
Tap the Capture button to take your selfie. Take as many photos as you like to practise. It can be a good idea to look directly at the camera, which is at the top of your iPad when taking a selfie.
The photos you've taken are saved in the Photos app. Let's take a look at them now. Swipe up from the bottom of the iPad to return to the Home screen. Find the Photos icon on the Home screen. and tap it to open it. The Photos app can present your photos in a few different ways and you can explore these options in a menu near the top of the screen.
For now, we'll use the All Photos view. This shows a grid of all your photos with the newest photos at the end, including the selfies we just captured.
Tap one of the selfies to view it in full-screen mode. Swipe right to see the previous photo. Swipe left to see the next photo.
If you find a photo or a selfie you don't like, you can delete it from your iPad. The delete button is at the top right of the screen and looks like a garbage can. Tap it to delete your photo. From the options that appear, tap Delete Photo. The photo is now deleted and the screen will show the previous photo in the Photos app instead.
You can also do some basic photo editing using your iPad's Photos app. Let's explore that now.
With a photo open in full-screen mode, tap Edit, which is in the top right of the screen. Some icons for different editing controls will appear. It's worth coming back and experimenting with each of these controls later, but for this demonstration, we're going to crop the edges off our photo.
At the left side of the screen is an icon that looks a bit like a box with arrows around it. This is the Crop button, and we'll tap it to go to cropping mode. Some white lines will appear around the photo and you can use these to adjust the edges. Tap and hold the white line on one of the corners and slide it in the direction you wish to crop the photo.
When you are happy with the new composition, take your finger off the display. The view changes to show how the photo looks after cropping the edges. If you're not happy with the changes you've made to the photo, you can tap Cancel. Then on the options that pop up, tap Discard Changes.
To have another go at cropping, let's follow the steps again to edit our photo. Tap Edit. Now, let's tap the crop control again. When the white crop controls appear, drag the corners as before. Have a play with how the crop controls work. When you're happy with the result, tap done in the top right of the screen. The cropped selfie has now been saved and has replaced the original as a new photo in the Photos app.
If you want the original selfie back, tap Edit in the top right of the screen once more. Now at the top right, look for Revert and tap it. Tap Revert to Original to restore the original photo.
Once you have the perfect selfie, let's finish this course by sending it to a friend. We're going to send the photo using the Messages app.
First find the Share icon, which is in the row of icons at the top left of the screen. It looks like a square with an arrow pointing up. Tap the Share icon to continue. The Share menu pops up. There are lots of options here, but we're going to use the Messages app.
Tap the Messages icon. The New Message screen appears, showing your selfie already in the body of the message ready to go. At the top, the To box is already selected for you. Type the name of the contact you wish to send the photo to. A list of contacts will appear as you type. Tap a contact's name in the list. To add a message, tap on or near the selfie, then start typing. To send the message, we're going to tap the Send arrow at the bottom right of the selfie.
If your friend has an iPad or an iPhone, this arrow will be blue. For this demonstration, our iPad does not have a SIM card. It is connected to the internet over a Wi-Fi network, so we can only send messages to other Apple devices like iPads and iPhones. Luckily, Margaret has an iPhone, so we'll tap the Send arrow to send our message.
The message screen will close, returning you to the Photos app.
Now, swipe up from the bottom of your iPad to close the Photos app and return to the Home screen.
You have now learned how to use the Camera app on your iPad to take, edit, save, and send your photos. Your iPad's Camera and Photos apps have lots of other options for taking and editing pictures, and you can experiment with these to get the most out of your photos.
If you're unsure about any steps, you can rewind the video or click the chapter headings to jump to the start of a chapter. If you're ready to move on, there are many other courses to explore on Be Connected.