Keep reading to see how I took my photo from the left side to the right side!

Processed with VSCO with m5 preset

It’s no secret that Instagram is full of perfectly edited photos that are made to create everything from the feeling of wanderlust to the feeling of love in the viewer.  Some see editing as a bad thing, while others (like me!) see it as a great way to enhance and portray the mood/personal vibe that you’re going for when it comes to your Insta.  I love being able to go into my editing app and tweak settings like contrast and temperature to get the photo to fit into the creative direction of my Instagram and blog.  And today, I’m going to be sharing my entire editing process with you all!

But first let me preface the rest of the post with a few more sentences on why I truly decided to do this post!  A couple months ago, I was feeling a bit lost when it came to my Instagram and its photos.  I felt like my photos looked too much like everyone else’s and didn’t reflect my own style and way that I liked to express myself through photos and editing.  My edits that I was using were darker and too alike to the original photo for my liking, and the color scheme on my insta was just not cutting it for me!  I had been playing around with edits in the app VSCO, and had found a certain recipe that I ADORED.  For the longest time, I was too scared to switch how I edited my photos because the coloring and brightness were so different, but I eventually decided to take the jump.  Ever since that jump, I have been in love with the cohesion that is my feed, and the way my photos look post-edit.

My hopes for this post is to inspire and encourage you to play around with your personal edits if you’re unsatisfied or feel like something is missing in yours, and to be unafraid to switch!  After all, this is your brand and should be exactly the way you want it to be!

Ok here we go:

First things first, I download the photos onto my phone from my camera and export them onto VSCO (an editing app).  VSCO is the only app I use for edits because I really, really love the results, and also don’t have enough storage on my phone for more. 😉

Once it is in the editing app, I put the M5 filter onto the photo.  For the sake of a cohesive feed, I use the filter on every Insta photo.  For photos other than those going onto Instagram or the blog, I would set the filter to a low setting, but to keep a solid and unique feed I use a higher setting at 7.7.

Next, I go into the more direct settings to tweak and adjust little things about the photo.  I start with exposure, where I turn up the brightness on the picture a tad (to 0.5) to really make everything pop, and give little room for shadows.

After that, I move over to contrast and up it to 1.1 to make the brighter colors stand out compared to the darker ones.

This step is a serious game-changer as it makes every single color so much more vibrant, and wow I love it so much!  I change the saturation setting to 1.7, and this varies with the original photo though.  I’m always careful not to overdo, as it could leave your colors looking fake and your skin looking orange!

Next is temperature.  I’m in love with feeds with warmer tones, and have been for a while, and knew I wanted to incorporate that into my own edits.  Therefore, I up the temp to about 1.0 so that all the warm colors become more apparent in the photo.

Second to last, I pull up the skin tone to 3.3 to even out some of the redness that normally appears on my skin and make it fit better with the previous edits.

Lastly, to keep the corners of my photo from looking blown out and to add more depth, I go to the vignette setting and set it to 3.2.  Not too high, but just enough for the change to be apparent!

Now that I’m done walking you through, here is another look at the before and after:

Processed with VSCO with m5 preset

There you have it friendzz; the long awaited How I Edit My Instagram Photos post!  I hope you all enjoyed and feel inspired to play around/switch up your own editing 🙂  Leave a comment letting me know what your favorite editing apps are, and feel free to ask any further q’s or drop any blog post ideas while you’re down there.  Thanks for reading!!

💜Love, Olivia

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