| Cult of Mac

Make your selfies pop using this TikTok-proven formula

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Editing a selfie using TikTok’s recommended filters
There’s a lot of filters to brighten your pictures, but sorry, there’s not a filter that makes you look like you’re in your 20s.
Image: Levi Clancy/Wikimedia Commons/D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

Viral clips on TikTok show you how to edit your selfies for a more stunning, popping image on your iPhone. I live in a part of Ohio that’s perpetually overcast, but you would think I’m on my way to the beach with the warm hues this method gives your pictures.

Read on for detailed instructions on how to use TikTok’s winning selfie formula, apply the same filters in bulk on all the pictures from a photo shoot, and my recommended selfie stick for taking great group shots and landscapes.

How to take stunning selfies with the Apple Watch Camera Remote app

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The Camera Remote app with raise your selfie game
The Camera Remote app will take your selfies to a whole new level.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

Everyone knows Apple Watch is an excellent health and fitness companion. But did you know it’s also handy for taking selfies? That’s thanks to Apple Watch’s best kept secret: the Camera Remote app.

This indispensable watch app will raise your selfie game, enabling you to take more flattering shots, with better compositions, more interesting poses and much, much more.

I use it all the time to take photos for Cult of Mac, and I’ve learned a few tricks along the way. So here’s my definitive guide to taking better selfies with Apple Watch.

Would you buy a drone just to take selfies? Now you can.

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The Pixy drone can be your flying camera.
The Pixy drone can be your flying camera.
Photo: Pixy

If you take selfie photos constantly, maybe you’re ready to move beyond smartphone camera timers and selfie sticks for your pics. Is it time to start dabbling in aerial photography?

Sure, why not. Especially if Snapchat’s second-ever piece of hardware finds an audience when it goes on sale.

Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, unveiled a drone called “Pixy” last week. It said the little flying camera is designed for taking selfies.

Apple dreams up tech for a social distance group selfie

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iPhone X Portrait selfies
Social distancing and group selfies don’t mix. But Apple might have a solution: the synthetic group selfie.
Photo: Apple

Even in the age of social distancing, the group selfie doesn’t have to be an endangered species. For several years, Apple has been investigating automatically merging multiple images into a group selfie.

And now that the company has a patent on the idea, it could be part of iOS 14 or a later version.

Apple acts fast to trademark ‘slofie’

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scene from video for slofie
It sounded fun when we heard it, but Apple is all business about the word "slofie."
Photo: Apple

Apple thought itself cheeky when it used the word “slofie” to introduce the slow-motion feature on the iPhone 11’s selfie camera.

Now that the chuckles have subsided, Apple wants to trademark the name.

Meet the new head of testing for selfie cameras

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mannequin for selfie camera tests
Sienna never blinks.
Photo: DxOMark/YouTube

The automotive industry has crash test dummies. The lab testing virtually every kind of digital camera made has Sienna, a lifelike mannequin created to measure the quality of a smartphone’s selfie camera.

DxOMark has been an independent tester of conventional digital and smartphone cameras since 2008. Sienna is the newest addition to the team because the French lab only started testing front-facing cameras this year.

How to send selfies with stickers

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Who wouldn’t want to receive this totally non-creepy stickered-up selfie?
Who wouldn’t want to receive this totally non-creepy stickered-up selfie?
Photo: Cult of Mac

You already know how to take a selfie. It’s probably the first thing you did when you got your iPhone up and running. But did you know you can take a selfie and add stickers? Right there in the Messages app?

Your friends are already hungry for another one of your awesome selfies. Imagine how fired up they’re going to be when they see those stickers.

iPhone XS Max gets so-so score in selfies test

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iPhone XS selfies
Tim Cook gets ready to unleash the iPhone XS during the Gather Round keynote in 2018.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s iPhone XS Max has one of the best cameras in a smartphone – as long as you’re not pointing it at yourself.

The flagship handset tied the Samsung Galaxy X9 Plus for fourth place in a new set of test protocols from DxOMark Labs, which has tested and ranked digital cameras for 10 years.

Beautygate: Top camera developer debunks iPhone XS beauty filter

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Beautygate
Some people get better looking with age and some get better looking with the iPhone XS.
Screenshot: Unboxing Therapy/YouTube

Turns out the entire “Beautygate” controversy has been much ado about nothing.

Corners of the internet have been up in arms over a perceived flaw in the iPhone XS camera that makes people in selfies look better than they should. Apple is supposedly looking to “fix” the undisclosed beauty filter, but developers behind one of the best iOS camera apps revealed today that such a filter does not exist.