Watching a fireworks display and looking back at your photos from the night can be very different experiences. With excited ‘oooohs’ being replaced by flat ‘ohs’, and giddy ‘aaahs’ making way for disgruntled ‘arghs’, your snaps can highlight how tricky it can be to capture something special.

With a few choice apps and the correct techniques, however, you can capture attention-grabbing fireworks photos and sparkling sparkler snaps every time. Follow these tips and your images will make a bang when splashed across social media.

Before pointing your camera skyward, altering your camera’s settings can make a big difference to the resulting image. For both fireworks and sparklers, you’ll want to ensure HDR mode is off and Live Photos is turned on. Oh, and make sure that flash is off.

Why do you want Live Photos on? As well as letting you relive that big bang, it gives you the option of shifting time to select that perfectly crisp, clear still.

If your device is running iOS 13, launch the Photos app, open your desired image and tap Edit in the upper right corner. Now, at the foot of the edit menu tapping the Live Photos icon lets you can scroll through the row of stills that make up your Live Photo. Once you’ve found the ideal image, tapping Make Key Photo will lock this in as your still of choice.

Given their fast fizzle, it can be tricky to capture the perfect pop of a firework or arching sweep of a sparkler. Slow your camera’s shutter speed and not only will you capture that explosive action better, you will transform your static shots into motion-capturing works of art.

Using Slow Shutter Cam you can lengthen your exposure time from fractions of a second to a full minute – with a number of stopping points along the way. This is important as, along with intricate tweaks to your camera’s settings, it lets you track and capture the moving paths of light rather than a single snapshot of action.

We captured the above image by setting Slow Shutter Cam's capture mode to Low Light with Noise Reduction set to Medium, Shutter Speed to four seconds and the ISO to 25. Once you’ve got your settings dialled to your surroundings, you can start to get creative with what you capture.

Whether you’re photographing fireworks or shooting sparklers, you can give your image added pop with a subtle edit. Playing with your image’s brightness, contrast, exposure and vibrancy will let you bring out the colour and shimmer of your subject while throwing the night sky down into a deep black (or striking red caused by the exploding fireworks as we’ve done here). And Afterlight 2 lets you tweak each of these elements precisely.

Try reducing your image’s brightness to darken the night sky and hide some of the light bleed. Similarly, upping the contrast slightly can rid your image of distracting smoke reflections while using the app’s light curves lets you balance the image’s colouring while maintaining a natural yet impactful look.

To make sure you’re not taking things too far from the natural, pressing and holding on your edited image at any point lets you compare it with your original shot.