Smartphone cameras for PR?

By Adrian Toon, Director of a2n.

A client recently approached me with an image taken of a premium aluminium residential installation requesting if I could work on the image to make it presentable in photoshop.

He was hoping to use the image to promote his business. I knew the image was taken with a phone, a new Blackberry I believe, so I decided to take a look.

I won’t go into all the technical jargon, but I must admit I was amazed at the quality of the image. At 3,000 x 4,000 pixels, and using a print resolution of 300 dpi, this equates to an image print size of 250mm x 340mm, more than adequate for a full resolution A4 print. The picture was taken well, in full sunlight, something most phone cameras are tuned to offer the best results.

While the image was stored with JPG compression, the quality was very good with good colour, well-balanced exposure, little distortion, and very good focus. This was an excellent example of what could be produced with today’s phone cameras.

Now before we all throw our DSLRs in the bin, a phone camera does have some limitations, but as these phone cameras move into taking lossless RAW image formats, you do wonder why anyone who is not a camera enthusiast would need a separate camera or an expensive DSLR.

So good enough for PR photography? Certainly, these top-end phone cameras are, and they can only get better over time. But like most bits of kit, for all of us, practice is key to getting the best results.