How to take photos and movies with Snapchat
By Mikah Sargent Thursday, Feb Two, two thousand seventeen at Four:30 pm EST
Snapchat is all about snaps, and that means photos, selfies, and more!
Alright, you’ve signed up for Snapchat and proven you’re not a robot — excellent work! You should now be observing a live camera view with a bit of instruction on how to take a photo or record a movie, and several icons surrounding the framework.
How Snapchat’s top toolbar works
Let’s commence with the toolbar at the top. It includes four buttons (menu, low-light mode, flash, and the camera switch) and the Universal Search Bar.
- Menu: Tapping this button takes you to the main menu in Snapchat where you can add fresh friends, adjust settings, and share your Snapcode (more on that later).
- Low-light mode: This button (looks like a crescent moon) toggles Low-light mode, which adjusts the settings on your camera to take a brighter photo in low light. Low-light mode will activate automatically if Snapchat senses a dark photo.
- Flash: Tapping this button turns on or off the flash, whether that be from your phone screen (for a selfie) or the actual flash on the back of your phone.
- Camera switch: Tapping this button toggles inbetween the front-facing camera and the back-facing camera.
The Universal Search Bar is a powerful instrument for searching across the entirety of Snapchat — your contacts, their stories, Detect, users, etc. You can learn everything you need to know about Snapchat’s Universal Search Bar here:
How Snapchat’s bottom toolbar works
At the bottom there are two buttons with a giant shutter button inbetween them.
- Talk button: Tapping this button takes you to a list of your Snapchat Talk messages.
- Shutter button: Tapping this button takes a photo. Holding this button takes a movie.
- Stories button: Tapping this button takes you to a list of Snapchat Stories and Snapchat’s Detect feature (more on both of these later).
And that sums things up. Snapchat’s main screen is essentially a hub for all your snapping activities, with a concentrate on, well, snapping photos. You open up the app, and it’s ready to take a photo. It only requires a few taps or swipes to access other menus and settings within the app.
How to Take Photos on Snapchat
When it comes to taking and sending photos, you can keep things elementary, or you can get creative.
- Tap the camera switch to toggle inbetween selfie and photo mode.
- Line up your photo (you look superb, by the way!).
- Tap to set exposure and concentrate and activate Snapchat lenses.
- Tap the shutter button to take the shot.
Once you’ve snapped the photo, there’s a few things you can do:
- Tap the Delete button (looks like an X at the top left) to discard a snap if you don’t like it.
- Tap anywhere in the middle of the screen to add a caption — throw in some emojis if you’d like. (You can tap and haul the caption box to switch its position on screen.)
- Tap the stopwatch icon at the bottom of the screen to choose how long it takes for your photo to vanish, from one to ten seconds.
Tap the downward arrow to the left of the stopwatch to save your photo to your camera roll.
To share your snap:
- Tap the arrow in the bottom right corner of the screen and choose to whom you’ll be sending your photo.
- Tap on the names to select one person, or numerous people.
- Tap that arrow one more time and your photo’s on its way.
How to take movies on Snapchat
Capturing movie on Snapchat works a lot like taking photos. Instead of tapping the shutter button, however, you hold it down.
- Tap the camera switch to toggle inbetween selfie and photo mode.
- Line up your movie (good scene!).
- Tap to set exposure and concentrate and activate Snapchat lenses.
- Tap the shutter button to begin the movie.
You’ve got ten seconds to shoot your footage. You can monitor your time limit by keeping an eye on the shutter button — the circle fills up as time runs out.
Snapchat will play your movie on loop so you can see if you like what you shot. Once you’ve got your movie, you have several options:
- Tap the Delete button (looks like an X at the top left) to discard a snap if you don’t like it.
- Tap the Speaker icon at the bottom left if you want to include audio in your snap.
- Tap anywhere in the middle of the screen to add a caption — throw in some emojis if you’d like. (You can tap and haul the caption box to switch its position on screen.)
- Tap the stopwatch icon at the bottom of the screen to choose how long it takes for your movie to vanish, from one to ten seconds.
- Tap the downward arrow to the left of the stopwatch to save your movie to your camera roll.
Sending works the same as photos:
- Tap the arrow in the bottom right corner of the screen and choose to whom you’ll be sending your photo.
- Tap on the names to select one person, or numerous people.
- Tap that arrow one more time and your photo’s on its way.