How to send pictures or video in Snapchat

1. Tap to shoot, hold to record video.

Once you’re on Snapchat’s main screen, taking a picture is pretty easy for those who have ever used their phones’ cameras before. If not, here’s a quick guide: Tap an area of the picture you want your phone to focus on. Tap the big round circle to take a picture. Hold the big round circle to take a video.

2. Save your own shots.

The icon to the right of the timer, a downward-facing arrow, allows you to dump the shot you just took into your phone’s traditional gallery. It’s useful if you want to save your shot for future purposes, as there’s no other way to do so once you’ve sent the picture out.

3. Set picture time limit.

Tap on the stopwatchlike icon in the lower left and you can set the specific time that you want your picture to be available for a friend to view. You can go all the way from a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 1 second to a maximum duration of 10 seconds.

4. Add a caption.

Tap in the middle of the picture, and you can add text on top of your photo or video. Tap on the T icon to change the caption from a line to text to a larger brick of text. After you've written a caption for your snaps, you can move, pinch and zoom that text to place it just where you want. Before you can pinch and zoom your caption, you'll need to have set the text to the larger font, by tapping on the T icon.

If you’re feeling a little nostalgia for "Draw Something," you can also tap on the icon in the upper-right corner of the screen to draw directly onto your image with varying colors of a virtual pen.

5. Send your snaps.

Click on the arrow icon in the lower right to get your shot ready to send. Up pops your friends list; select everyone that you want to receive your image, take one final breath of confidence and click on the now-displayed arrow in the lower right-hand corner.