I don’t know about you, but if I had to pick a favourite social media platform, Instagram would have to be mine (apart from this blog of course!)
I’ve met some fabulous new friends, worked with some awesome brands and pretty much fallen in love with photography all because of an app that allows me to capture my life in teeny tiny squares. Which is kind of weird and awesome all rolled into one when you stop and think about it!
My Instagram game has definitely improved over time and something I get asked a lot now is, “Your photos are always so crisp and bright! What filter do you use?”
The answer? “I don’t!”
Confused? Don’t be. Because today I’m going to show you my tips and tricks to getting crisp, bright photos on Instagram in four very easy steps.
How To Create Bright Instagram Photos
1. Ignore The Filters
Back in the day I used to go hard with the Valencia filter. It was kind to my skin (hello smoothness, goodbye fine lines!) but not so great when it came to producing light, bright photos. Now I skip the filters altogether and do the next step instead.
2. Use the tools
See that little tool button right there? That’s your secret to brighter, lighter Instagram photos! Hit that and you’re on your way to a whole new world of flay lays, selfies and food photos that will be shining from the screen in front of you.
3. Adjust Brightness, Contrast and Saturation
I usually adjust the brightness anywhere from 50 – 100% depending on how bright I want the photo to look.
I keep the contrast at around 20% and saturation at around 5%
There are quite a few other tools available to use, but I don’t muck around with any of those. Life is too short to be worrying about the structure of a photo and besides, that coffee I just took 37 photos of is almost cold, so I need to brighten, contrast and saturate it before it turns into an iced latte!
4. That’s it! You’re Done.
Hit the NEXT button and your bright Instagram photos are good to go!
Once you get the hang of it and settle on a level of brightness that you like, it’ll take you no time at all to bang out several photos on Instagram each day.
To give you an idea of just how good the whole Brightness, Contrast and Saturation thing is, here’s a before and after for you.
The before photo is the original, un-edited version taken on my Olympus OM-D EM-10 camera, shot in square and wirelessly transferred to my iPhone. The After was cropped slightly in Instagram and then edited using the exacts steps above.
Are you slightly addicted to all things Instagram? Or does the idea of recording your life in photos for randoms to look at completely freak you out?
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