The Verge

Tom Warren goes into great depth on the new Nokia Lumia 925. First starting with comparisons with the previous Lumia models, then talking about the aluminium frame, while leading to camera features and everywhere in between.

Full of photos, opinions and even a sample video, The Verge say this:

“Nokia is leading the pack in Windows Phones”

CNET UK

While looking very closely and the Windows Phone 8 OS, the screen resolution and 1.5GHz dual-core processor, Andrew Hoyle provides lots of detail about the Lumia 925.

He tests out the Nokia Smart Camera, the display and also the built-in Nokia apps, such as HERE Maps.

In reference to the dual-core 1.5GHz processor, Andrew writes about the responsiveness of the Nokia Lumia 925:

“Swiping around the interface is extremely smooth and responsive and switching between open apps in the multitasking window is free of any delay”

Gizmodo

Gizmodo’s headline simply reads: Nokia Flagship 925 Review: Finally, a Proper Windows Phone Flagship

Chris Mills takes the camera for a spin, writing that:

“Bar Nokia’s 808 PureView, the Lumia 925 has the best phone camera out there right now.”

Who are we to argue?

Trusted Reviews

In Andrew Williams’ review, he writes about how the Nokia Lumia 925 is much lighter than the Lumia 920, and that’s due to the lighter aluminium frame.

He also mentions HERE Maps and HERE Drive, and why you should use these apps when travelling and getting from A-to-B:

“The reason to favour them over Google Maps is that they let you download whole countries, or continents to use offline. Roaming charges begone”

Engadget

Matt Smith from Engadget writes about the differences between Nokia’s more colourful Lumia smartphones, such as the Nokia Lumia 920 and the more subtle tones of the new Nokia Lumia 925.

The new aluminium frame and polycarbonate back has Matt talking about a ceramic feel:

“There’s an almost ceramic texture to the phone that improves the grip and also lends it more of a flagship feel”

Neowin

Andy Weir’s review of the Nokia Lumia 925 throws in an unboxing for good measure, with lots of hands-on photos.

He brings to attention the AMOLED screen and the fact that it’s HD, providing beautiful colours, with crisp fonts and images.

In a similar vein to the Engadget review above, Andy is enjoying the materials that have gone into producing the Nokia Lumia 925?

“The smooth aluminium frame is as good to touch as it is to look at, while the matte polycarbonate rear ensures a luxurious feel. The Lumia 925 doesn’t just look good; it feels good, it feels expensive, it feels like a handset that you want to show off”

All About Windows Phone

Rafe Blandford begins his review with an unboxing. This appears to be the first part in a series of reviews, but for now the video is the review.

In the video, Rafe takes us on a whirlwind brief of all of the immediately obvious features and designs, which also includes an exclusive Nokia feature not available on any other Windows Phone 8 smartphone:

“Another new software feature is Nokia Glance Screen, essentially that’s an always-on clock. Very useful when you get the phone out your pocket, you can immediately see the time”

Have you bought a Nokia Lumia 925 yet? Share your thoughts and experiences with your new phone, using the comments box below.

“So far we have represented the world through maps from a top to bottom point-of-view. With street level we then brought it to 1st person perspective. With LiveSight we actually use your own sight and the world itself becomes the interface. We strip away complexity to reveal what’s important from your own immediate perspective.”

LiveSight is part of the HERE platform

Download HERE Maps

1. Press the Search button on your Nokia Lumia and then tap Vision
2. Scan the QR code
3. Tap on the link when it appears on the screen
4. Install the application from the Windows Phone Store

Using a fleet of camera, radar and sensor filled cars, we’re building a 3D model of the world. From this data and imagery we know precisely where individual buildings are, how tall they are and whether you can see places nearby or whether other buildings hide them.

All of this data goes into the HERE platform, which powers LiveSight, and if the platform receives an update, so does everything else that’s plugged into it.

“LiveSight can be activated as a map mode, in exactly the same way that you can switch from satellite, public transit, traffic and the normal map view. So, LiveSight is part of the map canvas: wherever there is a map, there will be LiveSight.”

Integrating LiveSight into HERE Maps

“Because the nature of HERE Maps is all about finding locations, we wanted people to do that in the way they’re already familiar with. But we also wanted people’s experience of LiveSight to be a familiar one, too.”

To fully help you get a better sense of where you are, you can tilt your phone upwards to see the world through the camera or tilt down to see the map. Smooth transitions allow you to see the same content without losing orientation while switching between views.

“Each view has its purpose. In bringing both views together, we convey one world where the same content is shown from different perspectives according to your needs.”

Overcoming user experience and design challenges

When LiveSight is activated, it makes use of the GPS, the compass, the accelerometer, the gyroscope, and the camera.

While all of these sensors combined create a great experience, the HERE team understands that it won’t be used every time – it wouldn’t be optimal for battery life to have these always switched on.

André mentions something quite interesting when referring to the camera:

“When you’re trying to get a reading from a sensor inside a mobile phone, the measurements given are in a constant state of flux – it ‘wobbles’ a lot, because it’s sensitive. When showing a POI (Point Of Interest) on the screen, that needs to remain static.”

“To overcome these ‘wobbles’ we combined the sensor input to image tracking. The camera looks at the world around you, such as buildings, roads, etc. and makes continuous adjustments to movements so that everything is stable or in the correct position.”

André explains that not only does LiveSight need to accurately show you what you’re looking for, but those POIs must be easily seen in any lighting condition, no matter what background they’re laid onto.

While some device-specific features help with this, such as the 4.5″ AMOLED screen of the Nokia Lumia 925, the LiveSight markers have been designed to really stand out.

With LiveSight, the background can be absolutely anything, depending on where or what the user is pointing the phone at. Not only that, but you want to be able to identify what type of place is signified at a glance.

“To overcome this, we used colour coded categories to make it easy for people to distinguish between different types of venues at a glance. If you look down the street and see lots of green markers, you know that’s where all the eateries are. Look up the street, however, and see nothing but red markers, that’s the way you should head if you’re looking for sightseeing hotspots.”

During testing, André and the team discovered that people mostly use AR when the phone is at about nose height, in an almost upright position. They’ll also likely be stationary at this point, too, as opposed to walking.

HERE Maps with LiveSight is all about making your journey easier, quicker, and as reliable as possible.

As the name suggests, Word is where we all write down whatever it is we need to write down. It’s mostly used in formal situations, such as at work or at school, colleges or universities. For personal note-taking however, OneNote should be your go-to program of choice – we’ll talk more about that in a future post.

We use Word here at Conversations for writing our articles. And in fact, I’ve written this entire article using Word Mobile on my Nokia Lumia 620.

Word Mobile is useful when away from the your desk and you need to write a document in a standard format that’s used and recognized around the world.

To create a new Word document, head to Office on your Nokia Lumia smartphone – it’s available as standard on all of them. Press the plus (+) symbol.

Then, you’ve got the option of creating a new document from scratch, which I did to write this very article, or use one of the templates provided.

The templates are a great place to start if you’re creating an agenda, an outline or a report for the first time using Word Mobile.

These templates also include a fair amount of formatting that’s already been added that you may find useful. But in the interest of testing all the functions, try creating a new blank document.

Creating a title

Firstly, write a title and then tap one of the words within that title. Either side of the word you’ll see two little circles that when pulled in either direction, expand the highlighted box.

Once the entire title is within the highlighted box, pressing on the format (paintbrush) icon will bring up the formatting options, such as; bold, italic, underline, strike through, font size up and down as well as font color options.

When it comes to writing the rest of your story, thesis, report, etc. just use the on-screen keyboard to write as you normally would when writing a text or email, for example.

One advantage over using Word Mobile rather then Word on your PC is the auto-correct function on your Lumia smartphone.

Needless to say, we all make mistakes, and I certainly made a few when typing this article just as I do when typing a text. However, no matter the typo, I just continued and let the phone auto-correct for me as I went along.

For the most part, the phone got it right. A few tweaks were needed here and there, though, when I truly missed the correct keys.

One thing missing from Word Mobile, though, is the ability to add indents or list formatting. For the time being, this can only be added using a desktop document editor.

Having said that, the templates available within Word Mobile offer these features – they were obviously made on a computer, but still editable on mobile device.

As with all Office documents, you can choose to save them locally on your Lumia, or on your SkyDrive account.

The latter is always the best option as that way you can access the document when you get back to your desk.

Collaborating tools

If you ever need to send a Word document to other people for collaboration, you can also do this from Word Mobile.

For instance, I may want to leave a note for a colleague of mine within the document, without adding to the text itself.

By highlighting a word or a piece of text and pressing the comment (speech bubble) icon, I can add a separate comment.

Once the document is on your SkyDrive account, it can then be shared directly with other people who can freely edit it – should you permit, of course.

Sharing

As with most tools on your smartphone, the ability to share is vital.

When you’ve completed the document, save the file to SkyDrive for later viewing and sharing, or share it via your email accounts or Tap&Send.

Have you used Word Mobile on your Nokia Lumia smartphone? Share your experience with us, below.

We previously caught up with Christopher Westerholm to find out how he created a stunningly beautiful cinema-style video, shot entirely on a Nokia Lumia 920.

While filming may be Christopher’s passion, he likes to take time away from behind the camera, as his Start screen reveals.

What apps do you use to pass the time?

When I’m not taking photos or recording videos, I’m mostly playing music. When I travel by train or bus I watch a lot of YouTube videos to pass the time, and my app of choice for that is Metrotube. If I want to watch trailers of upcoming big budget movies, Nokia Trailers is the one to get.

I’m also using the Tumblr app to update my blog and for looking at others.

I like to keep a close-eye on the weather, and I use Weather Flow for that as I think it’s one of the best looking weather apps out there.

Because I take a lot of photos, I like to show them to people, and for this I use Photobeamer as I can show my recently taking photos on other people’s mobile or computer screens.

Then there’s gaming, of course. I love to game.

What is the last app you paid for, and what does it do?

It was the game Mass Effect: Infiltrator, which is a great game. The controls are amazing for a touchscreen device and the graphics are really good. As I said before, I’m a big gamer.

I play Xbox 360 at home and one thing that pushed me over to Windows Phone was the fact that I can earn achievements when playing on the move and it will update my gamer score (currently 31,296) on my 360.

Which app(s) is your guilty pleasure?

My guilty pleasure is trying to earn more achievement points than all of my Xbox friends. Therefore, I play lots of games on my Lumia.

My favourite games that I play right now are Mass Effect: Infiltrator and Mirror’s Edge. Both are spin offs of great games on the Xbox 360. They are both pretty hardcore, too. And then there are more casual games like Rocket Riot and Bejeweled LIVE + which are both worth my time and money!

What’s on your Start screen? What’s important to you? Let us know, below.

Sonic CD – $4.99

If you were a gamer in the 90s, one of the most memorable characters was Sonic the Hedgehog. Let’s face it, those bold blue spines aren’t easy to forget.

And we all remember Dr. Eggman, right? Right? He was the round-bellied, top-heavy, orange-moustached evil genius that was Sonic’s nemesis.

In Sonic CD, Sonic the Hedgehog travels through time to defeat Dr. Eggman and stop him from controlling the future.

Obviously, there are dangerous mechanoids that’ll try their best to stop you. However, curling up into a ball and whizzing around the screen and around loop-the-loops often does a very good at knocking them over.

Watch out for Metal Sonic, though; he’s a toughie.

Rayman Jungle Run – $2.99

Rayman was a character that had no arms, no legs, and no neck, yet somehow managed to control his hands, feet and head without much problem.

This was convenient, though, as those hands of his often came if useful when attacking an enemy at great distance.

While Rayman Jungle Run isn’t the exact same game we played in the 90s, it’s still as playable as ever – only with improved graphics.

The 50 new levels will keep you entertained as you unlock new powers along your journey.

Play as either Rayman himself, or Globox, who we first saw in Rayman 2.

Earthworm Jim HD – $0.99

Jim was a normal worm, minding his own business, when one day a spacesuit fell from space landing on him. Naturally, it was a magic spacesuit and it transformed him into a superhero.

This is a direct remake of the Earthworm Jim, but jazzed-up with some high-def content for the modern eye.

Armed with a new intelligence, Jim must defeat Psy-Crow, Evil the Cat, Bob the Killer Goldfish and Queen Slug-for-a-Butt on missions that take him through space to rescue Princess What’s-Her-Name.

Civilization Revolution – $2.99

For those of you who spent your 90s playing strategy games – that’s me – you’ll be delighted to know that you can yet again spend hours playing Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution.

The aim of the game is to become a great leader and conquer the world. Needless to say that other empires must fall for this to happen, but that’s of no concern to us strategy addicts.

Travel across un-discovered islands, sail the seas, and talk to local tribes to find out about nearby enemies.

Did you game in the 90s? Have you found any more 90s classics? Share your memories, or games with us below.

Image credit: Staffan Vilcans

Splashtop 2 – Client free until August 31

If you’re at a meeting and you’ve forgotten to bring that PowerPoint presentation with you, load up Splashtop 2 and find it on your PC, or Mac.

From there, attach it to an email using whatever email client you use and email it to your laptop or your phone and you’re ready for business.

Of course, there’s more to Splashtop than just digging out PowerPoints, you’ve got access to anything that you’ve got stored on your computer and you’ll see it in the exact same way as if you’re sitting at your desk.

With full audio and HD video streaming, Splashtop 2 gives you an almost perfect computer experience right from your Lumia. And if you’re a gamer, it even supports 3D gaming via your phone.

Connection to your computer is conducted over Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G, using using SSL with 256-bit AES encryption for added security.

One happy customer is Vincent who gave Splashtop 2 a five star rating:

“This app is great. Considering it’s free, it’s very well developed. Never thought about this particular feature in a remote client, but being able to stream the sound from the PC to your phone is cool, especially for watching video that’s already on the PC.”

RemoteDesktop – £1.49 / $1.99

In terms of appearance, RemoteDesktop may not be glitzy, but it has all the features of a good remote desktop app.

With advanced settings for configuring port numbers and changing screen resolution, as well as backing up and restoring from SkyDrive, you’ll get exactly what you want out of this app.

Backups are also encrypted to keep everything secure and safe.

Will connect to Windows XP, Vista, 7, 2003 Server or other Windows computer running at least Professional.

ConnectMe – £7.99 / $9.99

This app may cost a lot, but it does a lot, too.

Once installed, you can either connect to your computer over the LAN (local area network) or across greater distances over the Internet.

As with any remote desktop app, once connected, you’ll have access to the computer’s files. Any of which can be transferred to your phone, or vice versa. If it’s a media file, such as a song, you can also play that straight through the connection.

If you need to type anything once inside your PC, your Lumia’s on-screen keyboard will transform into a familiar PC keyboard with shift, alt, ctrl keys, and of course the Windows start key.

Navigating around your PC is easy when your Lumia touchscreen becomes a touchpad.

And if you want to access more than one PC at a time? ConnectMe supports that, too.

One of the reviewers at the Windows Phone Store is Tracy, giving it 5 stars:

“Ridiculously well featured app for remote desktop and great for server management. Nice work!.”

PC Remote – Free – (Pro £2.29 / $2.99)

This app is a little different to the others listed above as it’s more of a remote control than a traditional remote desktop app, but you can still access your PC with your phone.

PC Remote is probably more ideal if you’re at home but away from your computer. For example, you may be in the kitchen preparing dinner but want to play some music through your entertainment system you’ve got running through your PC. Rather than leaving the kitchen, you can control your PC with your phone, no matter where you are in the house.

The only caveat is that your PC and Lumia need to be connected to the same network, via Wi-Fi.

Additionally, if you’ve hooked up your PC to run through your TV in the lounge, using your Lumia to access your PC while on the sofa is a lot easier than getting up and getting the keyboard and mouse; then there’s the problem of using the mouse on your lap.

The Lumia screen becomes a touchpad with multi-gesture support.

Abel gave the pro version five stars:

“Awesome. I really like the Windows 8 charms that show up on the phone. One of the best apps I have bought to date.”

Try these out today on your Nokia Lumia smartphone and let us know how you get on with them, in the comments below.

Image credit: Rupert Ganzer

Rooms are a really useful way of being able to share private information with a select group of people.

For instance, you can share calendars, notes (via OneNote), photos, your location, and send private messages between every member in that room; some of these options aren’t possible when using Groups.

Let’s think about the different groups of people that might benefit from the added interactivity of a Room:

• Family
• Closest friends (BFFs)
• Study group
• Colleagues
• Sunday Football team
• Carpool group
• School run
• Local residents association

Creating a Room for any of these groups will be an advantage for a variety of reasons.

If you’re always trying to juggle your work and home life in order to meet family requirements, then create a shared calendar in a ‘Family room’. Now, rather than phoning or texting everyone to find out where they’re going to be, and when, just look at the calendar.

And, if something crops up, as it always does, send a message to the family and change the calendar so everyone knows.

If you’re still at school and studying for exams, create yourself a ‘Study room’, or ‘The Library’, if you want to get creative. Invite the people in your study group so you can stay better organised.

Again, sharing a calendar is going to be important to keeping your after-school activities in sync and so you know if your friends are coming to yours, or vice-versa.

As any student will know, making notes is just a part of learning. Notes are easily created right from inside the Room by tapping the plus symbol in the Notes section. This will open OneNote where you can add lists, to-do lists, images, or audio recorded from your phone. These notes will automatically be shared with the entire Room.

If you’ve got a tight group of friends and you like to hit the tiles at the weekend, a ‘BFF’ or ‘Mates’ Room is perfect.

With all of you in one room, you’ve got yourself a 24/7 private ‘ruckus room’. Feel free to chip in with the banter, the jokes, the insults, as you would with your closest friends. Did one of you fall asleep in the taxi on the way home? Don’t forget to share the photo amongst yourselves for a good laugh.

These are just a few ways of getting the best out of Rooms, we’re sure each and every one of you has a unique way of putting it to use.

Creating Rooms

To get started you’ll need to head to your People Hub and swipe left or right until you find the Together pane. Tap on the plus symbol at the bottom and select Room.

Give your Room a name. It can be as exciting, or as strait-laced, as you want it to be; it’s up to you.

Next, you’ll need to find the people you want to invite into this room, and you do that by tapping the plus symbol on the screen and picking people from your People Hub list.

The other features of Rooms are self-explanatory. The Chat area is where you send SMS-style messages (including your location, if you want) to everybody; Calandar is where you add a new calendar event, Photos for photos and Notes for notes.

If at any point you want to add more members to the Room, you can do this in the Members section.

It’s also here that you can give the Room a unique background image, by pulling up the bottom menu. You don’t have to change it, of course, but it does give the room an extra-personal feel.

With a Room(s) created, make sure you pin it t your Start screen so that you’re only one tap away from all the latest news, gossip, schedule, or photos.

You can have five Rooms on your phone, and each Room can have 10 members.

Has making a Room made your life any easier? Let us know, below.

Image credit: Kevin Marsh

Track your spending

Microsoft Office in all its different versions has been around for over 20 years, and throughout that time has become the default ‘go-to’ for getting productive with millions of people using it on a daily basis. It’s this deep-rooted familiarity that makes using Microsoft Office Mobile incredibly easy.

While the Microsoft Office Mobile apps may be ideal for work purposes, Excel Mobile is also very useful for people who like to be productive in their personal lives.

For instance, if you have a joint account with your partner, keeping tabs on who’s spending what can be a challenge. One way to solve this problem is to create a monthly budget spreadsheet where you can include the balance of the account and keep an eye on the incoming and outgoing funds.

This same spreadsheet can be shared with your partner, with editing privileges, via SkyDrive and both of you can make edits as and when you add or deduct funds from the account. You’ll see an updated version of the Excel spreadsheet every time you open it up on your Nokia Lumia smartphone.

Adding functions to the spreadsheet will also make it easier for you to see how much money you’ve been spending, or have left in your account without having to calculate it each time.

How to create Excel spreadsheets within Excel Mobile

You can create your own spreadsheet right from within Microsoft Office Mobile.

Within Microsoft Office Mobile on your Lumia, tap on the plus symbol (+). You’ll notice there are a few templates already saved here, and you could use those if you like. However, if you want to make a new one, select Excel under the blank document category.

Think about the type of data you want to track. If you want to track figures against dates, line up the dates along the left of the screen cascading downwards in ascending order.

At the beginning of any new Excel spreadsheet, A1 is probably already selected with the keyboard on show. Type in a date, such as ’1 jun’ and press return. Automatically, Excel knows you’re entering a date and formats the cell for such an input so that all the dates conform to a norm within the spreadsheet.

Enter as many dates as you need.

In the B1 cell, tap the back button on your Lumia to remove the on-screen keyboard.

Bring up the menu bar at the bottom and find Format cell… You’ll see a few formats available, such as bold, italic, underline, calendar, currency and percentage. If you want to use the B column for amounts of money, tap the currency icon.

If you plan to make all of the B column, or any other column for that matter, the place where you’ll make a note of your money, pressing on the top B cell will highlight the entire column; apply the same formatting rule to the entire column for ease and time saving.

Once you’ve entered several numbers, you can add a function to automatically add it all up for you.

Highlight the relevant cells by tapping on the top one and dragging the box to the last cell you wish to include in the calculation and hit the Autosum icon at the bottom.

You’ll be shown with several calculations based on the contents of the highlighted cells. You’ll be presented with the sum, average, max, min and count. Select which one you’d like to add to your spreadsheet and it will appear directly to the end of the highlighted cells.

If, however, you want more advanced functions, tap the Function icon located at the top left of the screen. There are lots of functions to choose from in here, so decide carefully.

With the ability to type in functions or commands manually, you can really start to personalise your spreadsheet and get some unique results.

Want a graph in your spreadsheet? Simply highlight the cells you want to include on the graph and press the Chart icon at the bottom. Then decide if you want a column, line, pie, bar, area or scatter chart.

While Excel Mobile can produce fully functioning spreadsheets, you don’t get the same level of personalisation when it comes to aesthetics. The only font colours available are black, red, brown, and green. If you want to fill an entire cell, Red, yellow and green are available to you.

For further personalisation, we recommend you use Microsoft Office Excel or Microsoft Excel Web App on your PC and access the spreadsheet via SkyDrive.

Downloadable budget templates

If creating your own budget spreadsheet sounds like too much work – don’t worry – we’ve created a simple ‘Joint Account’ template for you to download onto your Lumia.

As you can see in the embed above, you can add some figures into the In and Out (D12, E12, and F12 downwards) sections and the figures in the top box are automatically calculated for you.

If you’ve downloaded this template, you can do any of these edits when you’ve finished at the checkout in the supermarket, or while waiting for a bus, right from your Nokia Lumia smartphone.

Pin that spreadsheet to your Start screen to make it even easier.

If you don’t have a joint account, how about a spreadsheet just to keep a track of your own spending?

We’ve created a template for that, too. Go ahead and download it.

As you can see, it’s similar to the joint account, but designed for one. The same principles apply, though.

Are you a spreadsheet or data junkie, or just somebody who likes to stay organised in both your personal and work life? Let us know if you’ve found this useful in the comments section below.

Image credits: Quazie

This power pack keeps your phone juiced-up when you need it most. Although, the Nokia Asha 501 has a 48-day standby time, it’s always good to have that little bit extra – for those emergencies.

In fact, the Nokia Asha 501 supports USB charging, and going forward this will be the norm.

Jarno Piironen, Director, Audio and Inbox accessories told us why this would be the case:

“We want to keep the phones juiced up so that people can stay connected. Last year we did an industry first by bringing wireless charging to mass market. We just launched the Nokia Asha 501 with an insanely long standby time, complemented it with DC-18 to provide power when most needed and enabled charging through millions of standard Micro-USB plugs out there.“

Made of a smooth, natural feeling plastic, the neon red square – which measures just 57mm x 57mm – fits neatly in your pocket or at the bottom of your bag, ready for when you need it.

To charge your phone, you’ll initially need to charge up the power pack. After that, whenever you need it, plugging in the Micro-USB will transfer the power from pack to phone.

In order to know exactly how much power you’ve got left in the DC-18, there’s a handy battery indicator positioned right on the front of the box.

Moreover, not only does the DC-18 work on the Nokia Asha 501, it’ll also work with other devices that support USB charging, such as all the smartphones in the Nokia Lumia family.

Do you like having as much power as possible? Will you be buying this power pack? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

Download Cinemagraph for WP8

1. Press the Search button on your Nokia Lumia and then tap Vision
2. Scan the QR code
3. Tap on the link when it appears on the screen
4. Install the application from the Windows Phone Store

Plan ahead

Because Cinemagraphs are a combination of still and animated images, you can’t just pull your phone out of your pocket and snap away. To wildly shoot anything that passes in front of your camera lens will almost certainly leave you with a disjointed, wobbly result; and that’s not a great Cinemagraph.

To create the perfect Cinemagraph, a little bit of planning is recommended! Think about what you want to achieve and imagine it in your head. Do you want something to vanish from screen, or do you only want one part of the screen to move?

Remain as still as possible

In order for a Cinemagraph to look its best, the sections of the image that move must be in the right place. Otherwise, you’ll have hair that seems to detach itself from the head, roads that rise and fall, or buildings that appear to warp – again, not a good look.

Ideally, grab yourself a tripod with a phone mount such as the HH-23, or ‘ground’ yourself against something solid.

For instance, if you’re filming outside you might want to lean against a wall, or a tree. If you’re indoors, find a table, or even lean against the doorframe. Whatever it is, it must be stable.

Take your time

Creating the perfect Cinemagraph may take a few attempts, so don’t give up if you don’t get it right on your first try, especially if you’re outside and using things you can’t control, such as birds, people or even clouds moving across the sky.

Focus on the area and start your Cinemagraph. If something wanders into view, it might add a little action to your animation, but if it doesn’t, take your time to film again.

Edit, edit, edit

When it comes to picking the part of the Cinemagraph you want to animate, choose carefully.

Don’t animate the entire screen; otherwise you might as well have filmed it. Instead, pick a small part of the screen and fine-tune the movements.

Use the add animation option to increase the area, while removing the animation in others. It’s hugely important that you get as close to the subject as possible using these tools.

If you want somebody to focus on the hair blowing in the wind, make sure that there’s nothing else moving, as it’ll distract people.

It’s all about the timing

The animated sections of Cinemagraphs play on a short time loop. You can either have it play to the end and then reverse, or play continuously from start to finish.

Whichever method you choose, time it perfectly by using the loop slider at the bottom. If you need to, snip some of the ending or beginning to ensure that whatever is on screen moves smoothly and naturally.

Share it

While you can just save the Cinemagraph on your phone, it’s always fun to share it with all your friends on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Twitter is especially great for sharing as it shows your wonderful creations with people who you’re not necessarily friends with and amongst the Cinemagraph community.

Cinemagraph is free to download and is a great app for creating truly unique memories. Download it today and start creating.

We often search Twitter for Cinemagraphs taken with Nokia Lumia smartphones and RT the good ones we find. Will we be sharing yours next?

Image credit: Adam Fraser