How I Edit my Photos

After 2 and a half years blogging I’m finally writing most requested post and answering my most asked question: How I edit my photos! The reason its taken me so long to put this post out is because I wanted to make sure I had editing down to an exact science before I released a guide (OCD much?). I started out editing on my phone, trying a million filters and constantly downloading new editing apps, then a played around with Lightroom for a while and eventually I went back to phone editing and found the apps and filters that worked for me. I’ve used free apps, paid apps, paid editing software and expensive presets and this is what works for me.

Apps:

Many people are surprised when I say that I prefer phone apps vs Lightroom. I’ve been asked so many times if I sell Lightroom presets and the truth is, I actually don’t love how my photos look when editing on Lightroom. I like free or inexpensive phone app filters a lot better. For me personally, I couldn’t get the look I wanted on Lightroom and would have to finagle with a photo for hours to get it too look decent, and I still wasn’t happy with it. I also feel like everyone’s photos are starting to look the same because they all use similar Lightroom presets that overly filter everything and have a bright, orange cast to them. While this looks amazing for some people’s aesthetic, it just didn’t fit the neutral, not-too-filtered look I was going for.

Snapseed: I’ve used snapseed since I first started blogging and still think it’s one of the best apps out there. I like this app for adjusting the basics like brightness, contrast and warmth but the main features I use on the app are the selective tool and the heal tool. With the selective tool you can brighten up a white wall, desaturate an annoying color in the background or up the contrast on your face. The heal tool is basically like a magic wand that is meant for making blemishes disappear but also works great to “photoshop” anything desirable out of the photo.

VSCO: My favorite editing app has definitely got me be VSCO. The filters on this app are so great and the tools make it so easy to get the look you want. I recommend buying the $20 a year membership so you have access to the dozens of filters and all the tools. The filters I use on here are A4, J6 and M5. I don’t use any other filters and sometimes I layer some combination of these three. I also love the HSL tool on VSCO. It allows you to select a color and change the level of brightness, saturation and the tone of just that color without effecting the rest of the photo. This tool eliminates having to put the photo through other apps or even Lightroom/Photoshop which is amazing. I personally turn down the blues a lot unless I’m wearing denim or there’s ocean in the background. I also use this tool to balance my skin tone as sometimes the filters can make me look a little red.

Facetune: No one wants to admit they use facetune but honestly facetune has some amazing tools that save me from having to use Lightroom/Photoshop so ya I 100% use facetune. I personally use facetune to enhance detail, brighten whites and ya sometimes smooth skin! I actually don’t love their patch tool for editing blemishes so I use snapseed for that as I mentioned before, but the smooth tool has been great to help hide razor burn or smooth my skin when bad lighting makes it look textured. I should also note that I like using the detail tool on here before putting the photo through VSCO because I like to enhance the detail of certain parts of the photo before any filter is added. This is a little trick I do to make the photo look clearer and higher quality, you just have to play around with it and make sure its not noticeable that you enhanced the detail.

Walkthrough: