This might be shocking to all my fellow bloggers but I don't own a professional camera. I take all the images you see on this blog & my Instagram (minus a few) with my iPhone 6. Yes, they don't turn out as professional looking but over the past few weeks I've experimented with and developed an editing routine that allows me to feel like a professional when I'm actually just a girl with an iPhone.
I have several different ways of editing my pics based on the content being photographed which is why I'm going to be breaking up my editing routines into several weekly posts. Today I'm going to share my 5 basic photography tips, my favorite editing apps and the basic editing that every single photo I upload to my Instagram goes through.
Everybody knows the struggle of having a beautiful photo and then trying to upload it to Instagram but realizing that you have to either size it down and have a border or cut out the edges. Save yourself the stress and frustration and take the initial photo using the square setting on your iPhone.
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Natural light makes your photos look so much better in my opinion! Experiment with different spots and find one that provides the best amount of light to make the photo look natural. If you don't have natural light, try to use white light. All my photos (excluding outfit posts) are taken next to my bedroom window at around 5:45pm when the sun is at my ideal spot in the sky. Bonus tip: try to use a solid white background to make the subject being photographed pop!
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Please, please, please focus your photos. It takes two seconds to tap on your screen to set your focal point and it can be the difference between a fuzzy photos and "You took that with your iPhone?!"
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My favorite and go-to editing app was one I had to pay for but ever since I bought it I have edited every photo in it and every one of Instagram photos goes through my paid apps.
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Having an overall theme may just be a personal preference. If you like using different, go for it. I just prefer to have all my photos have the same theme because I think it makes my feed look neater.
Every Photo Editing: Afterlight App
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| All of these photos went through the exact process described below |
- Once I have my photo in Afterlight, if I didn't take it using my square camera I will go to the crop tool and select the square crop so I can make sure it will be Instagram compatible.
- After I've cropped the photo I will play with the Clarity, Contrast and Brightness until I have them adjusted to my liking.
- Then I'll adjust the Saturation which is probably my favorite part out of all it. I usually keep it between 15-30 just because sometimes too much saturation is overwhelming.
- Next it's time to apply my filter. Every photo on my feed has the Russ filter applied which can be accessed via the Guest filters. Sometimes I'll leave the filter intensity at 100 but usually it floats in the range of 60-70.
- Save my photo at Maximum quality and upload to Instagram! I've included a before and after photo below so you can see the difference. The top is the original, the bottom has been through the above process:
That's it for this (rather long) first post of the Photo Editing series. Next post will focus on mirroring my images and my favorite Instagramers.
xoxo,
