A while ago some of you asked if I could share how I shoot and edit my blog pictures and Instagram pictures and of course I am more than happy to share my knowledge with you. Please note that I am not a “Pro” whatsoever, and everything I know is self-taught and could be improved for sure! First of all I have to say that I like bright pictures, with neutral colours, so if you love the same kind of pictures: Let´s go!

First things first, you can edit as long as you want, if the picture itself is not good, then the outcome won´t be stunning. I take my Instagram and blog pictures with my IPhone 7s and my camera, which is an Olympus EPL-7. But it doesn´t matter what you are taking to take your pictures, the thing you need the most is light, light and light again. And with light I mean as much natural light as you can get! Trust me this is going to make your life so much easier at the end!

Instagram:

VSCO

I am sure that you heard of VSCO, at least once in your life time. In the past few years this App was the rising star on the editing sky. I am a big VSCO fan too, because a.) the filters are really nice and b.) it provides you with most of the things you need for editing your pictures. My favourite filter are the A4, A6, M5 and S2. Also I adjust the brightness, reduce the contrast and increase the details.

Facetune

The only thing I use in this App is the whitening  function. You can brighten special parts of your picture, which comes in very handy if you want to whiten a wall for example or other things that are just not white enough.

Afterlight

Afterlight is my go-to App when your picture needs a little bit of sharpness. In my opinion it is the only App that really sharpens your picture but not makes it grease und looking very funny and over sharpened.

UNUM

If you want a perfectly looking Instagram feed, this is your new best friend. The App allows you to plan your feed and you can move the pictures around as you want! I have to admit I am a little bit obsessed with this App.

Blog:

Gimp

The only thing I do to my blog pictures is to put them into GIMP and adjust the colour curve, just to make the colours a little bit more poppin´. In the picture you can see how the curve looks after editing, but of course this depends on the picture and how much of editing it needs.

I´ve also been asked how I take my blog pictures, but I have to say that I don´t know how to pack that into a blog post, since the ideas come from my brain and I don´t have a usual setting on my camera, but I try until I like the picture. But if you don´t have any ideas on how to photograph, then my tip would me Pinterest! I don´t say that you should copy other bloggers, but get inspired by them! Often I see something on Pinterest and then I think about it and combine elements with my own ideas.

I hope you found this post helpful. If you have any questions left, feel free to ask in the comments!