Want to take your phone photography to the next level, or just take better selfies? Either way, these tips should help take you from zero to hero.

Lighting is one of the most important aspects in photography. If you think about it, all that you’re doing when taking a picture is capturing light. So photos that are well lit always look a lot better. Some easy ways to improve the lighting of your photos is to take a picture in front of a window or light. However, don’t take a picture with a window or light in the background because then the light source will appear blown and your subject will be even darker, which usually takes the quality of a picture down. Also it’s always better to have an under exposed or darker picture than one that’s over exposed or too bright, that way it’s easier to edit. But If you don’t get your lighting right when taking your picture, you can always fix it with an app or program like Snapseed or VSCO. In order to fix the lighting in these programs you need to adjust the brightness or exposure to your liking.

The second tip is composition. Your photo can be taken perfectly but if what’s in front of the camera is boring, the picture still won’t look amazing. Some easy ways to make your pictures catch people’s eye are some simple rules.

One rule is called “Rule of thirds”. You can think about the rule of thirds like a two by two grid of lines. Where those lines cross are called sweet spots. So when taking a picture you want to put your subject on or around where those lines intersect.

Next is what we call leading lines. Leading lines are used to direct your eyes to the subject. You can also see this technique in pictures that have a vanishing point.

Composition is the most important part of any picture because it’s what makes a picture worth taking.

Lastly is editing your pictures. You can use computer programs like photoshop, but those are a lot of work and tend to be pretty complicated. An easier and faster way to edit your photos is to download an app on your phone. The two that I suggest are VSCO and Snapseed. These apps allow you to edit whatever your skill level–whether you just want to add filters or go in depth and adjust everything from contrast to what color you want your highlights to be. These apps can give some very impressive results in an easy to use package.