12 Image Editing Tips for Stockroom Influencers
Want to become Stockroom famous? Make your feed look eye-catching by following these essential image-editing tips for Stockroom influencers. Learn the editing secrets of popular bloggers.
Do you feel inspired by how your favorite Insta bloggers edit their images and you want to repeat the same look in your own feed? Though the task may seem rather complicated, with the info below you’ll be able to make your content look attention-grabbing. I have compiled a list of 12 helpful image editing tips every Instagram influencer should know and use.
1. Only High-Quality Shots
Before learning how to edit Instagram photos, you need to take a quality image. No matter how hard you try to correct colors and fix exposure defects, it is impossible to improve a blurry photo with a tilted horizon and screwed composition.
There are some things you need to keep in mind while snapping shots:
Take images in natural lighting. Try to organize your shooting in the daytime not to be dependent on artificial lighting. The best variant is to photograph outdoors in the early morning or late afternoon when the sunlight is gentle and flattering.
Building a perfect composition is a breeze if you use a grid on your phone or camera.
A sturdy tripod should become your go-to assistant in low-light shooting conditions and if your camera lacks a built-in stabilizer.
Don’t neglect the HDR mode. It can help you get a detailed photo with miniature elements in bright and dark areas clearly defined.
Take advantage of the RAW capabilities of your camera. This format contains more info about a shot, while allow achieving really amazing Instagram image editing results. Besides, it is easier to fix lighting defects in RAW photos.
2. Use Apps for Fast Results on the Go
Fortunately, even people today, with a bare understanding of how to edit photos in Photoshop can turn their ordinary photos into stunning masterpieces thanks to beginner-friendly and budgetary apps. The most popular options for Instagram image editing are VSCO, Snapseed, Facetune, and StoryArt.
VSCO is deservedly included in the list of the best Instagram photo editing apps currently available. The bragging point is a slew of original and high-quality filters. Other things that deserve praise are a powerful photo editor and a built-in camera with handy controls.
Facetune is an indispensable app when it comes to perfecting portraits and selfies. Here you can apply make-up, get rid of aging signs, make facial lines more defined, retouch skin color and tone, remove yellowish tint from teeth, etc.
Snapseed comes with a plethora of amazing filters and effects, but most users opt for this application because of its Photoshop-like instruments, namely, ambiance, Brush, and Selection tools. Moreover, you can easily erase any object from a photo and isolate particular items for more detailed editing.
StoryArt brags about a multitude of preset templates that allow creating interesting Instagram Stories in an instant. Besides, the app is crammed with a myriad of design effects. You can add captions and experiment with fonts, filters, themes, etc. If you are searching for a universal app capable of handling most Instagram image editing tasks, use StoryArt. This Instagram photo editor has lots of cool tools, which you can master in a trouble-free way.
3. Use Filters or Presets for a Consistent Look
This is definitely one of the best image editing tips for Instagram you can come across if you are an average user without advanced photo processing skills. Instead of reading bulky tutorials, you can download free Lightroom presets and filters and rely on automated tools.
This way you can not only quickly produce top-notch photos but also create a cohesive Instagram feed, which results in recognizable brand aesthetics and a growing base of followers. After your audience gets used to a particular color correction or general image editing, they will instantly locate your photos among thousands of Instagram images.
Your favorite bloggers probably work the same way using 2-3 presets regularly. Thus, you easily recognize their photos and stories.
Once you’ve decided on particular filters, don’t use them to full intensity. Be creative with different settings to find your ideal level of a specific filter.
4. Consider Statistics and Trends
You have probably noticed that there is a certain category of images that get more likes and comments. For example, photos with slight or no retouching at all, are more popular than over-photoshopped images, where you can hardly recognize a person, an object, or a place. Keep this in mind while performing photo editing. Stick to natural edits, little tweaks, and gentle color correction.
Besides, you need to be attentive to modern trends that usually flood Instagram very quickly. Nowadays, you may notice an evolving tendency of posting vintage-inspired photos with heavy grain.
You need to reduce vibrancy and add grain to your photos to make them pop. People seem to miss the good old times with Polaroid and Kodak prints, and if this is something your followers want to see, don’t neglect the chance to please them. Another interesting Instagram image editing drive is the intentional adding of all kinds of imperfections (glitches, blurriness, etc.) to the front and central part of a shot.
Last but not least is the revival of B&W photography, which you can also use to your advantage. Not only Instagram bloggers, but also other trendsetting companies and brands highly appreciate such a color substitute, trying to highlight emotions and calling for action.
5. Optimize the Size
For some reason, many Instagram image editing tips don’t touch upon photo size optimization, fully focusing on color correction. That’s really strange because proper resizing is no less important.
You may have encountered situations when your high-quality photo taken with a professional camera became a tiny square with poor details after uploading to Instagram. This happens because you need to optimize the size of your files before sharing them online. A good rule of thumb is to upload images smaller than 1080px.
Larger images are automatically compressed by Instagram for displaying. In the case of extreme photo compression, details in images become severely distorted, which negatively affects the overall image quality. The same is relevant for too small photos – 320px by 320px or smaller, as Instagram expands them, which inevitably leads to pixelation and fuzziness.
To avoid such harsh distortions, take care of photo optimization in advance. The width of an image shouldn’t exceed 1080 pixels. Insta photo and video sizes vary depending on the type of content and orientation. Use the reference image above to be on the right track.
Using Visme Social Media Graphics Tool, you can be sure your photos are always displayed as you intended. The app offers lots of templates for Insta stories and posts, which you can use to attract viewers’ attention with nicely cropped content.
6. Pick a Color Scheme
Different colors evoke different emotions, so think carefully about how you want your viewers to feel while looking through your images. There are some win-win options you can adhere to:
- Light and airy colors with neutral tones
- Vibrant and bright color scheme
- Dark and moody theme with faded colors
- One-color scheme
- Complimentary colors
- Contrasting colors
- Pastel tones
- Orange&teal combination
Ponder on what theme fully reveals your vision and ideas and narrow it down to 3-4 core colors. Focus your Instagram image editing on this theme.
For instance, if a pastel theme appeals to you, mixing mint, light pink, and white colors is a great choice. Alternatively, you can opt for a dark theme and fill your feed with inky blacks, pure whites, and slightly dirty greys.
A monochromatic theme involves using one color. But in fact, this means not 1 solid color but different shades from the same color family. For example, you can choose different shades of blue or red.
Those favoring orange and teal mixes can experiment with colors hues from reds to oranges and yellows to get a mesmerizing orange look. With the blue tones, move from blue to aqua until you end up with a beautiful teal look. You can increase saturation to get more eye-pleasing combos.
7. Desaturate Distracting Colors
There are many image editing tips for Instagram that claim that you need to saturate colors in your photos. No wonder, rookie Insta bloggers follow this recommendation and end up with strange pictures. Experienced users know that instead of saturating all colors, it is more beneficial to desaturate those that don’t match the rest of the gamut.
Choose from 2 to 5 colors that you want to stand out in your images. Frankly speaking, the riot of colors can reduce the visual appeal of your shot tiring viewers’ eyes, so you’d better desaturate some of them, which allows removing distractions and drawing attention to a particular object.
For instance, if you take photos outdoors and there are lots of green objects in the fore- and background, a person may get lost in such an abundance of greenery, so it is better to mute greens and shift focus to the person.
This life hack also helps you preserve a uniform color theme on your page and even use the photos with colors that don’t fully coincide with the style of your feed.
8. Crop to Enhance the Composition
Don’t underestimate the power of accurate photo cropping. This simple adjustment makes it possible to get rid of distractions (photobombers, passers-by, etc.), highlight your subject, and even add drama to the frame.
To crop your photo correctly, you need to remember basic compositional techniques. The most popular is the rule of thirds and negative space. The former implies dividing a photo into 9 squares by 2 horizontal and 2 vertical lines, and locating a subject at the intersections and along with one of the lines. Thanks to this simple technique, you can achieve a more balanced look.
An empty area around the subject in a photo is called negative space. Experimenting with the amount of negative space, you can direct the viewer’s eyes to different areas of a shot as well as focus the attention on a key object. This method is widely used by Instagram influencers.
Another thing to remember is to make a horizon line perfectly straight. Such a nuance really signifies an amateurish photo.
9. Adjust the White Balance
Even the best camera can’t compete with human eyes when it comes to precepting colors and automatically “adjusting” white balance. While editing photos for Instagram, you need to be extra careful with WB.
The thing is that light sources don’t emit purely white light. Thus, light has different temperatures, which seriously influences white balance in images. Shooting at sunset, you’ll get a photo with a warm glow, while gloomy weather makes your photos cold. Tubular fluorescent lights cast a cold white glow, which is substituted with warm light in case you use table lamps.
Incorrect WB causes problems with all white and grey areas of a show, as well as drastically spoils skin tones. When we talk about white balance adjustment, we mean improving colors by altering temperature and tint.
If everything is done properly, colors become lifelike. A white balance consists of warm and color temperature, with green or magenta tints. A photo with ideal white balance is completely neutral, e.g. pure white.
10. Recover Details from Shadows and Highlights
Doing Instagram image editing, be attentive to highlights (the lightest areas) and shadows (the darkest parts). The most frequent problems with those are over-or underexposure.
Primarily, reduce the “Highlights” value until the details will appear in the lightest areas and then proceed with raising “Shadows” to return details to the darkest areas. There is no strict rule on how far you need to go, as everything depends on your photo, its format, and the results you are trying to get.
The number of available details totally depends on the format of a photo. RAW image captured with a DSLR differs a lot from a RAW shot shaped with your mobile phone. Anyway, by shooting RAW, you get more data to work with during photo processing.
11. Preserve the Skin Tone
When it comes to portrait photos, preserving a natural skin tone is a must. You can perform all sorts of manipulations with colors and major image settings, but don’t get too carried away with skin retouching.
Looking through photos of popular Instagrammers, you’ll see that they all abide by this unspoken rule, so no one can blame them for propagandizing unrealistic representation of human beauty. Even in the heavily colored images, skin tones are on point. That’s why, if you plan to rely on fancy filters and auto adjustments without doing some manual edits, chances are high you’ll get images with poor skin tones.
Fortunately, purpose-built apps, e.g. VSCO, have an integrated Skin Tone slider that allows you to smooth a skin tone without going overboard. This is also helpful for correcting color casts without using destructive filters. Alternatively, you can use the HSL tools to define the color values of human skin, and then move sliders with this info in mind.
12. Censor or Blur Prohibited Content
Undoubtedly, this is an overriding image editing tip for Instagram. If you want to share your photos, you need to adhere to some rules. First off, it is prohibited to post an image with nudity. In case you want to output an artistic nude photo, you need to censor or blur private parts. Otherwise, your content will be automatically suspended, shadowbanned, or deleted altogether.
Another important condition is to respect intellectual property, so make sure you have the right to post different photos. Instagram blocks posts that encourage self-injuries in all possible forms. Pictures presenting graphics violence, as well as images demonstrating abuse and attacks based on race, religion, sex, etc., are also instantly deleted. No photos advertising sexual services or drugs can be shared on Instagram.
In case you strive to become an Instagram influencer with a multimillion audience, keep these rules in mind and make sure to blur any questionable parts of your images.