So you asked for it and I delivered! In this post I am going to go through my step by step process on how I go about editing my photos for my blog and social media platforms. Before I start off I just want to put a disclaimer out there and say that I am not a professional photographer and if you saw my photos a year ago you would not be asking for this post! I taught myself everything I know about editing photos and how to stay away from over editing photos which I have done in the past and they are brutal. You always learn from your mistakes thats for sure. Now, editing my photos a specific way has always been a goal of mine and a huge stressor. Why you may ask? Well for a blogger pictures help depict who you are and your personality. You want to make sure they styling of your editing goes with the trend and theme of your blog. It is so important to have consistency in the way your photos look. I watched tutorials on tutorials, read so many articles and even reached out to other bloggers and influencers who’s photographs I admired to help with my inspiration. I love bright and beautiful images, but editing isn’t just increasing your brightness and exposure and calling it a day. It all comes down to strategy. Even to this day, my photos aren’t perfect and I still like to make changes every now and then but slowly and surely they will get there. Like they say ‘Practice makes Perfect’.
Now for editing my photos I use the Lightroom software and VSCO filters as my base and work around it. If you would like to check out the VSCO filters you can click here. Now remember this is VSCO for desktop, not your phone app.
Alright lets get into the step-by-step process.
Step 1: Start off with a blank canvas of a picture you want to edit.
Step 2: I like to use VSCO package 02. Specifically in this one I like to use the Leica package. Depending on the lighting or picture taken, I like to use different filters in this package. For this photo, because there is a lot of white background because of the snow, you don’t want to brighten it too much, or darken it either so I used Kodak Portra 160VC++.
Step 3: I love giving my photos a slight pink and warm tinge so I increase the tint in my photos. In this photo in particular I increased in to +20 which is usually high for my photos but because there isn’t a lot of colours in this photo and it has a lot of white in the background I really want to put colour in my face and my outfit.
Step 4: Now I like to tamper with the highlights, shadows and the saturation. These are the custom numbers I use. The photo already has a lot of white in the background so I look down that effect so that it didn’t look too bright and make the photo look over edited.
Step 5: Play with your tone curve. I love using the tone curve to play with the highlights and shadows a little more. My favourite ones to use is the shadow one and the lights to help brighten certain aspects of the photo.
Step 6: Lastly like to take the brush and decrease the sharpness. This will allow the photo to make the blurry effect. I like to take the brush and go around the entire background. This makes it easier for the photo to be focused on myself. You want to make sure that the blurry effect looks blended in well and it’s not too noticeable.
