Do you ever find yourself wishing that your Instagram pics had a little more to them? Then you may need to change some of the following six iPhone camera settings.

Social media content creator Niki Victoria, who boasts a combined following of 2.8 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, has shared a video revealing how to spruce up your photos. “The reason your photos still look like garbage is because your phone settings are all wrong, so listen up,” she says.

1. Turn off HDR (High Dynamic Range)

“First, we’re turning off HDR for both photo and video because it literally makes my eye twitch,” she says to start the video.

With HDR, whether you want it on or not is more up to preference really and will depend on the type of photo you’re taking.

For example, if you’re taking a selfie in a well-lit area, you likely won’t need HDR turned on.

But if you’re trying to capture a photo of some picturesque landscape at dusk/sunset, where the sky is still bright but the ground is covered in shadow, this is where HDR comes in as it can help to keep detail in both the dark ground and bright sky.

In the video, Niki demonstrates turning off ‘View Full HDR’ and this can be found by heading to Settings > Photos. However, his setting only affects how you view photos after they’ve already been taken.

You can also turn off ‘Smart HDR’ in your iPhone ‘Camera’ settings menu. This may actually be more effective as this will change the look of the photos as they are taken.

Turning off this setting will stop the phone from automatically using HDR when taking photos or videos – instead giving you the option to toggle it on and off while using the camera. If you’re unsure of which to use, experiment and see which works best for you.

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2. Turn on Grid

Up next, Niki recommends turning on Grid which can be found in the ‘Camera’ section in the settings.

“Grid is going to help you never have a crooked skyline again,” the TikToker explains.

As the name of this setting suggests, this will bring up a grid of lines that separate the screen into thirds which are designed to help you better frame your photos.

3. Turn on Mirror Front Camera

If you hate that taking selfies on iPhones with the front camera flips the image around, then you’ll definitely want to turn this setting on as it makes the image appear as if you’re looking in the mirror.

As Niki explains it, “Mirror Front Camera is going to help your selfies look better because it’s not automatically going to flip the photo and you’re going to look like how you look in the mirror.”

4. Turn on Prioritize Faster Shooting

If you often take lots of photos at once, say if you’re at a concert, then this setting will help to intelligently adapt the image quality for each image so you don’t need to go back and re-focus for every photo.

“Prioritize Faster Shooting is going to help your phone not freeze when you’re taking like a billion photos,” explains Niki.

@nikiivictoria
this video will legitimately SAVE your photos. #phototips #igpics #iphonetricks
♬ original sound – niki

5. Turn on Lens Correction

This setting may not be available on all iPhone models as it will depend on which camera lenses your model has.

As Niki says, “Lens Correction is going to help fix the photo if it’s like weirdly distorted.”

6. Instagram settings

And lastly, this setting is actually one you’ll find on Instagram rather than in your iPhone camera settings.

“These are the settings you should have on Instagram for all of the content you post to be the highest quality,” Niki explains.

To ensure that the images and videos you post to Instagram are looking their best, you’ll want to make sure ‘Upload at Highest Quality’ is turned on.

To find it, on the Instagram app, head to settings (three lines in the top right corner when viewing your own profile) and then scroll down to ‘Media quality.’

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