Online photo booth: how to make a 4-shot strip on your phone
Amanda Lee ·
The four-shot strips from Korean photo booths have become the keepsake of every night out. You don't need to find a booth: your phone and its browser make the same strip, with your frame, your words and the day at the foot.
What a Korean photo booth strip is
It's the format of Korea's photo booths (인생네컷, "life four cuts"): four poses in a row, a few seconds apart, printed on a 1:3 vertical strip like a booth's 2 × 6-inch print. The frame has a colour or a pattern, and at the foot, small, the day and the time.
How to make one on your phone, step by step
Open Bada's online photo booth and pick a layout: the classic strip, a 2×2, one big shot with three beside it, or six shots. Press once and pose: there's a three-second countdown before each shot, and the screen flashes as it's taken.
Then you pick the frame, type what you want at the foot (a name, a date, a short line) and save it or share it straight to Instagram. If the browser won't let you use the camera, pick the photos from your camera roll and the strip comes out all the same.
19 frames, each a flavour
The frames are named after flavours: from classic black espresso and white cream to liquorice, a black-and-white negative with its frames numbered down the edge; cola, a roll of film with its sprocket holes; caramel, with a disposable camera's orange date burnt into the last shot; gummy, with hearts on the corners; or sea salt, signed 바다.
Tips for a good strip
Face the light, a window for instance, rather than having it behind you. Prop the phone at eye level so nobody is shot from below. Agree on the four poses before you start: three seconds go fast. And keep the front camera: the photo comes out as you see yourself on the screen, like a mirror.
Your photos stay on your phone
The strip is made in the browser: the photos aren't uploaded anywhere and only leave your phone if you share them. It's free, with no sign-up and no watermark over the photos; only Bada's address, small, beside the date.
And if it's for a party
At a wedding or a birthday, make an album on Bada and share its QR code: every guest uses the booth from their phone, with 11 of these frames, and every strip lands in the same album, with the album's name at the foot. Up to 3 guests is free.