How to make a Double Exposure Picture with an iPhone

Are you wanting to learn how to make a double exposure picture with an iPhone? First we’ll learn how to make a double exposure picture and explore double exposure photography which will lead us to our favorite multiple exposure app for an iphone.

Hi there! I’m Katherine Cobert of Cobert Photography. When Erin reached out to me about guest blogging for Sixth Bloom, I was completely shocked and honored. We talked and decided I would blog about the photography technique – double exposure. Here is a sampling of some double exposures using various techniques. Follow me over on Instagram or Facebook

You can also find Katherine’s Additional Tutorials here:

Video Tutorial: How to Make a Double Exposure Picture in Photoshop

Tutorial: How to Shoot a Double Exposure in Camera

How to make a Double Exposure Picture with an iPhone

What I believe started as an accident – exposing the same film slide twice (by the camera malfunctioning and not advancing the film) – has now become a fun and artistic technique. I honestly haven’t done a lot of double exposures. Years ago, when I shot film, occasionally I would accidentally get a double exposure at the end of the roll of film. It was never intentional though. Fast forward to the last few years, I’ve only dabbled a bit with it. My camera did not have the capability of doing double exposures, so I was left to do them with my iPhone or in Photoshop. Only within the last few months did I upgrade my camera which now has the capability. Let me tell you, in camera double exposures are the easiest, in my opinion, and quite addicting.

So let me begin with this tutorial. I’m going to start with how to do them with your iPhone. I have the app Snapseed and prefer to use that. (I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m kind of cheap and don’t like to spend money on new apps. This was one I already had.) I apologize right now as this blog post will be heavy with pictures. I want to make sure though that I am very thorough with the instructions.

First off, decide what picture you want to take. I like to use silhouette pictures as they work nicely for double exposures. Keep in mind, think of it as film. You’ll be exposing the film with your first shot. The areas that are less exposed (in that first shot) will be where your second shot will show through best (as that area of the film did not get exposed with light as much). Any area of your first shot that is overexposed will not record any new information from the second shot. So think about the areas of your second picture that are underexposed as this will allow your first picture to show through. The reason being there will still be some exposure left since it was not completely burned.

Once you have taken your picture, open Snapseed. You will see this screen.

Basically follow the directions and tap to select your photo. You can choose a photo you have already taken, or take one right then. When your picture loads, you’ll want to tap TOOLS at the bottom. This list options will pop up:

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the list and you will see “Double Exposure”. Tap it.

It will give you a new menu bar at the bottom. You will click the image icon with the plus sign. It will open your library of photos. Choose the one you’d like to use.

Now I didn’t like this double exposure. So I clicked the center icon (I’m honestly not sure what it is. To me it looks like a tent LOL, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what it is.) This will give you some different options of how you want it to double expose. I chose the “Add” option.

Then you can adjust the opacity with the water drop icon. You can zoom your second photo in and move it around. Once you have it the way you like it, you will click the checkmark and choose “Save a copy”. It will then save it to your camera roll.

Be sure to play around with your image choices and the double exposure editing options. You can create some very unique looks. You can even pull the image into another app to paint out any area of the image you may want to remove. Here is my final image: