Editing 101: An Essential Guide to Creating Instagrammable Photos

One of the questions I’m asked most often is about how I edit my photos. What I use, what the best tools are for bloggers, my camera… you get the picture. So on today’s post, I thought I’d answer all of these questions.

First things first, I use a Nikon D810. I’ve been a Nikon girl from the very beginning. I started with the Nikon D90 (which has been discontinued), and upgraded to the D810 about a year and a half back. The D810 is a professional level DSLR – it’s used by a lot of wedding and event photographers. So if you’re just starting out, don’t feel like you need to get the D810. However, for advanced content creators/photographers who like to produce dynamic images, I could not recommend this camera more.

So now lets get into editing. For my OG tribe, you’ll have noticed that my pictures have evolved a lot over time. This has a lot to do with editing. For a long time, my feed was cool toned and bright, I then transitioned to cool toned and dark, to warm toned and dark, to where I am now, which is warm toned and bright. I’ve played around with my fair share of editing tools and can conclude that the following are essential to content creators:

Lightroom

Lightroom has been a game-changer for me. Currently, I edit all my pictures on Lightroom using custom presets which I created. I get a ton of questions about my presets and if they’re for sale – they currently aren’t on sale. For the sake of full transparency, I’m thinking about selling them, but I’m not 100% sure if I want to take the plunge just yet.

The great thing about Lightroom is the amount of freedom you have to play around with your photos. Check out tutorials and get really familiar with it. You have the freedom to change colours, hues, tones – the opportunities are endless. However, if you’re intimidated by it or are confused about where to start, I recommend you check out presets by different bloggers. Some of my favourites are Travel in Her Shoes, Tezza, and DoYouTravel x GypseaLust.

Don’t feel like you can handle Lightroom just yet? Totally cool! Keep scrolling for more apps.

VSCO

If I could pick just 1 editing tool for beginners, it would be VSCO. This app works like magic. It has tons of great filters you can pick from, and gives you access to basic editing tools like contrast, brightness, highlights, etc. My favourite filter is J1, which I’ve applied on top of the Lightroom edit to give you an idea of what it looks like.

Facetune

Okay guys, so Facetune has a ton of negativity around it. First things first, I don’t condone using Facetune to change the look of your body. Making yourself skinnier, making your boobs look perkier, slimming your legs… no bueno. It perpetuates a cycle of unhealthy body image which needs to stop.

That being said, I think Facetune is great for taking out small imperfections. For example, if you have a pimple out of the blue or a few stray hairs, Facetune away! Another thing it’s great for is bringing out details. For example, in this shot of Bangkok, the original backdrop was barely visible because of the smog. But with a little help from the detail tool, I was able to bring out the skyline a little more.

Retouch

I discovered this app a few months ago and love it for removing things that I don’t want in the photo. It’s the easiest and most effective for object removal. Here you can see that the original picture had a wire running down the wall. With a little help from the Retouch app, I was able to quickly remove it.

Snapseed

Snapseed has a selective editing feature which I love. Here, you can select a particular part of the picture and brighten, add contrast, highlight, etc. In this particular picture, I brightened just my face using the selective tool.

I hope you guys found this guide helpful! And if you have any editing tools that you’re loving, share them in the comments!

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