The other week, we took you through how to make the most of your camera settings in order to take the best possible photo, using the macro mode, changing the exposure value, and the ISO settings. Today, we’re looking at the rest of the camera settings on your Nokia Lumia.

Saturation

Nokia camera phones are built to produce as real to life photos as possible, but they may be times when you want to add more colour into your images. By using the Saturation option in the settings, you can fill your photos with lush, vivid colours, reminiscent of a fairytale. Or, turn it right the way down to add a certain dreary look.

With the saturation set to maximum, you’re often left with less detail on the subject as the colour takes over quite a bit.

Contrast

Should you want to, you can change the contrast of a photo before you take it. This is often an operation that’s easily achievable in desktop software, however, it’s good to have the option to change it on-board.

Flicker Reduction

This will only be useful when taking photos indoors and under certain lighting conditions. This reduces the flickering of lights – between 50Hz and 60Hz – that your camera might pick up on the photo.

Resolution

If you want to take photos in a different resolution to the standard one provided by your phone, you can. Choose between: 8MP 4:3, 7MP 16:9, 3MP 4:3, and 2MP 16:9.

Scenes

Changing settings in your phone can be daunting, especially when you’re looking at numbers and levels. If you’re looking for a simpler, and less scary, way to improve your photo taking, the Scenes section looks to be the easiest way. Using named scenarios like: Beach, Candlelight, Snow, or Sunset, you’ll know exactly what setting to use under different conditions.

White Balance

This is similar to the Scenes function. You can select a different option to reflect the lighting environment around you.

Metering Mode

This is a very clever function; let’s explain it with an example. Let’s say you’ve got a person standing against an empty sky, with the sun directly behind him, pressing the camera button will always absorb light from all of the image and mostly from the centre. This would cast a silhouette of the person and the glare of the sun would almost certainly engulf the subject. Changing the metering mode tells the camera to take light from another light-source.

If the bright sun is the centre of the screen and a person is on the right, pressing on the subjects sun-lit (but not as bright as the sun itself) face will absorb at that level – not the sun. This will give you more detail where you want it most.

Effects

Adding special effects after you’ve taken a photo is something we all do now. But you can add some effects before you’ve taken the picture, too. Admittedly, it’s not a big range of effects, but some basic ones we’re all used to: Black & White, Sepia, Negative, Solarise and Normal.

Whatever setting you’ve enabled or adjusted, don’t forget to press Save settings to make sure your next photo uses the desired effect.

Do you make use of the settings in your camera, or do you just point and shoot? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.