Sunday 19 June 2016

HOW TO: Edit Instagram Photos to get a Crisp White Background

Are you trying to boost your Instagram following without much luck?

That's cool, I was there too! It's probably because your feed is lacking consistency, or the magic Insta word, a theme.

And by theme, I meant visual theme. You can achieve this by always using the same borders, filter, or editing style - having a uniform look for your feed gives potential followers more reason to follow you, because they know exactly what to expect. If I go onto someone's page and it's messy and nothing matches, I can't get a sense of who they are and it's pretty unlikely that I'll hit that green button. Don't let that be you!

While you can have whatever kind of visual theming that you want, I've been asked SO many times to share how I edit my snaps to get that clean, white background effect.

And because I love you guys, I'm spilling my secrets STEP. BY. STEP.  Read on for the tutorial!

How To Edit Instagram Photos to get a Crisp White Background
That's the before and after of what you'll be able to do today!
1. For all of my blog and Instagram editing I use BeFunky, which is a free (yes, FREE!) website that has a huge range of editing tools. They do have a premium version if you want some of the bells and whistles, but you'll only need the free version for this tutorial. Yay!

First up, once you're on BeFunky, select 'Photo Editor' from the top and then upload your photo in the next screen.



Below is the raw photo that I'm going to be using as the example in this post. If you don't have any images handy that are taken against a white background, feel free to save this one and use it to follow along with me!


2. Let's take a good look at this photo. Notice the terrible shadows in the image? We're going to get rid of those! But before that, we need to colour correct, because even though I took this photo against a white wall, the shadows look slightly tinged green. Let's fix that!

From the left-side menu, select 'Colour'.


Then click on the little triangle on the 'Saturation' bar and and drag it all the way to the left to -100.00, which will make your photo black and white.


While you're still in the 'Colour' menu, click the 'Paint' tab and adjust your 'Brush Strength' to 100%, which will allow you to paint in 100% of the colour we just stripped out. From here, it's just like Microsoft Paint - click and hold down your mouse (or track pad for Mac users!) and drag the brush to put the colour back in to wherever it needs to go.

In my example, I'm going to paint back in the colour to my arm and the Mecca bag, leaving the background untouched.

Once your colour is back in, hit the blue tick button in the 'Colour' menu to save your progress.


3. Back in the full menu view, select 'Exposure'. We're now going to brighten this bad boy up and make those pesky shadows disappear!


In the 'Exposure' menu, turn your 'Highlights' riiiiiiiight up to 100.00. The image is looking pretty over-exposed now though, hey?


Toggle over to the 'Paint' tab in the 'Exposure' menu, and exactly like we did for in the second step, adjust your brush strength to 100.00% and begin painting over your photo's subject (so for me, my arm and the bag). This will turn the exposure off for any area you paint over, so leave the background - we want to lighten that up!

Once you're done, press the blue tick button. But as you can probably tell, there are still shadows!!


So just repeat all of step three a few times until your background is completely white, bright and with no darkness at all. For my example image, this took three rounds to get it absolutely perfect.


Once you're finished, hit 'Save' up the top of the screen and you'll be given a few options on how you want to keep the image. From there, you can then upload away on Instagram!


The final result:


More Helpful Hints:

Optimise your lighting
Whether it be natural sunlight (after 1pm is usually best so you don't get too many shadows!) or an artificial white light (I have a ring light for indoor photos), starting with a well lit photo will mean your colours show up as close to real life as possible.

You don't need a professional camera
I shoot all of my photos using my iPhone 6 Plus - it doesn't really matter what camera you use if you've got great lighting! I used to have a bulkier DSLR-style camera, but to be honest, the technology in smart phones these days are more than enough.

Take your photo against a white background
It seems self-explanatory, but the more white and simple your background is, the easier it is to edit! Try taking your photos against a white wall or on top of a white sheet.

And that's all there is to it! If you have any requests for tutorials like these, let me know in the comments below, I'd be more than happy to help!




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11 comments

  1. This is awesome! I never even thought to do that. Thanks for this!
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    ReplyDelete
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    1. You are more than welcome, thank you for the support! Hope it helps :) x

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  2. You are too good. I am too impatient and only do take the photo if I have my white wall near me haha. This turned out great though :)

    Megan
    Denton & Lou

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aww thank you Megan! I hope this helps :) x

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  3. Just found your instagram and was actually going to ask you how you get your beautiful photos haha. Thanks for an awesome post!

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  4. Thank you so much Ellen! I'm so glad you found this helpful :) x

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Thank you for all of your lovely comments, I love reading them <3 Make sure to leave a link to your blog so I can come say hi! Otherwise look out for a reply on the post :) Love xx

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