A small iPhone settings tweak made me like my selfies better

mirror-selfie

A selfie in default mode (left) versus a selfie with Mirror Front Camera turned on (right). 


Alison DeNisco Rayome/CNET

Apple’s latest iPhone operating system, iOS 15.1, is now available to download (and iOS 15.2 is just around the corner). The iOS 15 update brought features like ProRes for iPhone 13 Pro
and an upgraded version of QuickTake for iPhones. But one smaller camera feature, which has been around since iOS 14, may make the biggest difference for your selfie needs: a setting called Mirror Front Camera. 

Read on for everything you need to know about the Mirror Front Camera feature, and how to use it to up your selfie game. 

What exactly does Mirror Front Camera mean? 

You may have already come across this setting in your camera preferences and wondered what it was. When you turn it on and change to your front-facing camera, it will snap a photo that’s your mirror image, instead of flipping it as the camera usually does. Some people find this jarring because the photo you take doesn’t match the image you see in the viewfinder. 

Ultimately, it may not change your selfie much, but I prefer the more familiar reversed version of my face that I see in the mirror. Just keep in mind that other people — who primarily don’t see your face in a mirror — might find those selfies a little strange because it’s a flipped version of what they’re used to seeing.

How to use the Mirror Front Camera feature on your iPhone

With iOS 14 (or 15) installed, the Mirror Front Camera setting is disabled by default. Here’s how to turn it on:

Go to Settings > Camera. Under Composition, toggle Mirror Front Camera on. Head back to your camera app, turn the camera to face yourself and snap a selfie. The saved image will appear as you see yourself in the mirror, instead of flipped as it usually is. Note that your front camera automatically mirrors the front camera viewfinder, so this setting only affects the image that’s saved to your photo library.

Here, you can see the side-by-side comparison of a regular selfie and one taken with Mirror Front Camera turned on. 

iOS 14 camera mirror selfies

iOS 14 gives you the choice of mirroring your selfies (right) or keeping them inverted (left).


Patrick Holland/CNET

You can follow the same instructions to turn Mirror Front Camera off and go back to the default selfie setting.

For more, check out how to FaceTime with Android users in iOS 15, iOS 15 settings to change and everything we know about the iOS 15.2 beta.


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source: cnet.com