The tiny camera sensor in the iPhone (even the iPhone 4, as you can see here) doesn't handle high-contrast situations very well. Here is a shot from my back deck that includes a lot of shadow and a generous helping of bright cloudy sky. It's pedestrian to say the least. I could probably take it into Photoshop and make it a little better, but it is a JPEG and not likely to have much detail in the clouds or the shadows, no matter what I do.
One of the benefits of having thousands of very smart software developers trying to make a buck off of my iPhone app addiction is that there are some really cool solutions to a wide variety of problems. It just so happens that there is one for this crummy shot, too!
What if I could take a shot that exposed the sky real well...
...and then exposed a frame that emphasized the shadow detail...
...and then combined them with some magic that aligned the two shots and took the best parts of both photos. Viola! Instant Masterpiece!
It's called High Dynamic Range photography and there are a boatload of expensive programs you can run on your desktop or your laptop to do it, but the above gem was processed in an easy-to-use little iPhone app called Pro HDR. $2 will get you this wondrous bit of magic that, with a few seconds of help from you, turns your pedestrian shots into keepers.
At iTunes App Stores everywhere iPhones are sold.