A while back I said to myself that once I reached a good amount of following I would share my 'secrets' on my blog about my photos. I feel like I've finally reached a steady level of readers and developed a genuine audience now that I can pull this type of post off.
I do get a lot of comments on my photos and I know a few people would be interested in knowing, but there is really no massive secret I'm hiding. I find the key is mainly in set ups and styling, plus good lighting! Read my how to take the best blog photos post to read more in depth about that side of it. When it comes to editing however, and even photo taking in the first place, it's all simply done upon my good old iPhone. Yes, everything.
I simply use 3 apps every single time with a specific touch up routine; Instagram, PS Express & ColorStory (middle row)
First up, after the chore of narrowing down my many images to a select few, I take it into Instagram and turn my wifi off. This way I can edit and 'post' without it actually posting but still saving the edited image to my camera roll. So here I adjust the brightness, 99% of the time to 25 but if I need some extra help I'll knock it up to 30. I then set the contrast to 15, up the sharpness to 20, followed by saturation to 10 and Lux to 15.
Once this new image is saved to my camera roll I'll open it up in PS Express and here I adjust the lighting to make everything brighter. I'll up the exposure to 15, followed by highlights to 15, and shadows to -15 to balance everything out. If the photo is quite bright to begin with I'll adjust these to 10.
So now the original photo is definitely lighter and brighter, it still needs a boost of colour added to it. This is where ColorStory comes in - a really great colour enhancing app. Nothing fancy, I just simply add an effect called 'everyday' and set it to about half way. There are lots of variations of effects you can add on here but I've used this one for a long time now and it's my favourite.
And there it is, my simple 3-step editing routine with no laptop, fancy software or photoshop even necessary!
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