How to Take Candid Photos with the Optimal Effect

Last Updated on December 5, 2022 by Peter Wood


A candid photo, by definition, is captured informally without notifying the subject in the picture, which may sound a little wired or illegal. It is just an effect that makes the subject in the picture look natural. Taking a candid image might be a selfie or capturing a wonderful moment. The big difference between a candid picture and an ordinary one is the subject or the character. The objects in a candid photo usually do not face the camera straight. They do what they do and seem to photograph accidentally. Shooting better candid pictures requires some skills. Follow me to take a better candid photo right now.

How to Take Candid Photo

Step 1: Why to Take Candid Photo

You should know why you want to take a candid photo. For example, you want to tell a story with a candid image on a magazine or social network. If you capture other people, you’d better let the subject know your reasons before or after taking photos. Most people will understand you use the image in the right way. But if the people do not let you capture, you should not use candid photos.

Why Take Candid Photo

Step 2: Where to Take Candid Photo

If you want to take a good candid photo, you should take your camera anywhere and take as many photos as possible. Public places are usually good places to photograph people’s natural state. Of course, the street is not the only place to take candid photos. Parties and even your home are all right places to shoot.

When you choose a location to take a candid photo, light is another thing you should consider. You can take pictures from different angles and find the best angle to reflect light to fill in the subject’s features.

Where Take Candid Photo

Step 3: When to Take Candid Photo

Timing is severe when you take a candid photo. There is no secret about when to press the shutter. The general principle is to photograph people doing things. It is the perfect time to shoot when your subject is concentrating on something but not posing in front of your camera, like walking on the street, talking to others, laughing at something, or even sleeping. So, sometimes, you may need to hold on to your camera and wait until people are distracted.

When Take Candid Photo

Step 4: Who to Take Candid Photo

You can photograph any people in your candid photo, but the best way is to shoot one or two characters one time. There would be many people in the image while focusing on one person. And other people are foreground and background. Or you can photograph two people are interacting. In a word, focus on one or two characters and do not make your candid photo clutter.

Who Take Candid Photo

Step 5: What to Take Candid Photo

Photographers take candid photos to tell stories, express feelings, or deliver something without words. A camera is only hardware. No matter how functional your camera is, it cannot tell anything about feeling, emotion, or affection. So, forget your camera and technology, discover the moment with your naked eyes. There is no lack of valuable moments in our lives; what is missing is the discovery of these moments.

What Take Candid Photo

Step 6: Postproduction for the Taken Candid Photos

The captured candid photos are not always perfect since most of the photos are taken without notifying the subject. It is the reason that postproduction is very important for the candidate photos. What is the best photo editor to fix imperfections easily? WidsMob AI Retoucher is a versatile photo editor to enhance photos with AI algorithms. It enables you to remove image noises, polish portraits, convert photos to cartoons/paintings/sketches, and even mosaic faces automatically with AI. Multiple filters enable you to tweak the light lenses, HDR effects, analog films, noises, textures, and more for candid photos.

1. Touch up the skin, shine, eyes, and blemish for portraits in candid photos.

2. Enhance candid photos via noise reduction, haze removal, and lowlight recovery.

3. Adjust HSL parameters, tweak light lenses, apply super nature HDR, etc.

4. Mosaic portraits for the candid photos automatically for private protection.

Win Download Mac Download

Step 1. Download and install WidsMob AI Retoucher, you can launch the program on your computer and click the Import button to upload candid photos you want to edit. Besides the JPEG files, you can also import the photos in RAW file format into the program for further editing.

Import Photos Retoucher

Step 2. Go to the AI Retouch menu on the left side and choose the Noise Reduction button to reduce noise automatically. It enables you to recover low light and remove haze automatically. If you are not satisfied with the effect, you can go to the Adjust menu to edit the parameters manually.

Reduce Noise WidsMob Retoucher

Step 3. As for the portraits within the candidate photo, you can choose the AI Face Clean menu as the portrait editor to touch up faces with some basic editing features, such as skin softening, skin whitening, shine removal, eye circles removal, blemish removal, and more to touch up candid photos.

Touch Up Portrait Retoucher

Step 4. To enhance the image quality, you can also click the Filter menu and choose the desired filters, such as Vivid, Soft Light, or Dark Light. Moreover, you can also render black-and-white films. Moreover, there are parameters in the Adjust menu you can apply to polish the photos.

Retoucher Photo to Candy Painting

Step 5. When you take candid photos that include other persons, you can also click the Face Mosaic menu to add blur or mosaic effect to the image. It enables you to choose the desired mask mode, tweak the strength, or select the desired shape. After that, you can click the Save As button to save the photos.

Add Face Mosaic Retoucher Win Download Mac Download

Conclusion

Based on the statements above, you might understand that a candid photo is more like art and creativity. Unlike simple images, a candid photo is more than a record; it can tell something through the recording. When it comes to taking a better candid photo involves seven steps, why, where, when, who, what, and postproduction. In a word, if you want to capture better candid pictures, you should take your camera anywhere and shoot at any time. As for picture quality issues, you can trust WidsMob AI Retoucher.