According to my Media Management professor technology gets replaced in about 2 months. That’s ridiculously fast! My iPhone 5C is almost 2.5-years-old so I guess it would be about 15-years-old in technology years. I am able to get a new phone (#thanksVerizon), but I have decided to wait for the new iPhone that might be coming out in March and wait for the price of the 6S to come down before I purchase anything (shop smarter not harder, right?).
As my phone is my go-to camera as it’s lightweight, easily portable, and always on me, I’ve been experimenting more and more lately with apps to get my preferred quality. Does my iPhone take good pictures? I’d say so because I won a photography contest back in November for a picture I took on it (#nofilter). But Instagrammers and bloggers (myself slowly being included) nowadays each have their own coherent look to their photos. It does take some time and practice I will admit, but with some apps that definitely makes the process smoother!
Over winter break I downloaded a bunch of photo-adjusting apps and slowly and slowly I started gravitating towards Afterlight. I actually heard about Afterlight when a friend and I were talking on a bus in London over the summer, but I never downloaded it until later. It’s $0.99 (which isn’t a whole lot), but still it’s totally worth it!
To be honest I don’t have a real interest in adjusting my photos a whole lot. I’m personally just not a person who wants to change every little detail about themselves to look perfect. I like that bit of honesty and reality behind my photos and I’m comfortable with myself (but if you have a preference to adjust more to your photos, that’s fine as I won’t judge, and there are some good apps out there to help you).
But I do really like playing with light and color.
And that’s when Afterlight came into play and became my favorite app.
Granted I’m still experimenting (when do we ever stop experimenting really?), but I’ll give you a crash course of what I do for my photos that you see on my Instagram.
To start off I usually like taking pictures that are outside as they look natural. But the photos I usually adjust are photos that I take inside with not-so-great lighting or outside at night or in not spectacular conditions (such as cloudy weather).
This is actually a picture I took yesterday and posted on my Instagram. It’s an okay photo and it does have some brightness to it because my room’s shape doesn’t obscure the light from my ceiling, but my board is also too far away from our window to get any natural light. As I said, I prefer natural light, but unfortunately it’s not always easy to obtain.
So when you get into the app you upload your picture. I really only work with the second button on the bottom that looks like three lines with adjusting buttons on them.
When I hit that button a new line comes up. I usually only work with the first three buttons (the Harry Potter-looking wand, the sun one, and the pie that has half of it eaten already; aka the clarify, brightness, and contrast buttons respectfully), but not in their order.
I always start with the second button (the sun): brightness. I quite normally always brighten it up unless it’s a picture I took in the dark and I want to make the colors pop more. When you hit the button, I slide it to the right to brighten the picture and to the left to darken it. I normally fall between the 30s and 50s range. Going farther looks more stylized than I prefer (but I have seen others use it really well) and I like bright colors more than pastels. Then I hit the check mark.
Next, I use the third button (the pie): contrast. I try to match it in the same direction and degree as when I used the brightness in order to help balance the photo out. It helps make the colors pop. Then I hit the check mark.
Sometimes I use the Harry Potter wand: clarify. I don’t always use it though. It just kinda helps with making the picture more distinct, but sometimes it’s too much even with adjusting it so I just don’t use it at all.
And so you end up from the first original photo to the second end photo. Even though the individual pictures don’t show much the end result is definitely brighter.
Lately I’ve also been experimenting with highlight, shadow, exposure, and fade. But I think I’ll try it out more before I start giving tips and tricks on how to use them.
So yeah! I love my Afterlight App! It just takes some experimenting to figure out what you like and stuff but it’s really great! (P.s. All my pictures from my Winter Storm Jonas post was edited with Afterlight!)
Make it bright,
Marena
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