A lot of you have been commenting on my Instagram lately requesting I share how I edit/filter my photos, so… that’s the plan for today!
Honestly, I’m so flattered you guys like my feed. I am not scared to admit it, it takes a lot of work & planning, so it’s always rad to hear you guys are feeling it!
The other day my sister was over & she was rushing me to go run some errands with her, & I told her I had to post an Instagram first. Zack chimes in from the office suggesting Whitney (the sister) kicks off her shoes, grab a snack, & starts catches up on my DVR’ed episodes of Ellen.
I’d like to say he was being sarcastic & exaggerating in a big way, but he wasn’t. The Instagram struggle is real… & very time consuming.
I used to not spend as much time perfecting the feed, but ever since I began branding it more, my follower count began to grow rapidly. So, I soon realized that no matter how long it took me to post a great photo, it is just another part of the job description when you’re a blogger.
Fashionlush is very minimalistic & monochromatic, & since my Instagram “theme” is an extension of my brand as a whole, you will also find that same vibe on my feed.
That said, my theme may not work for your brand! If you’re a home decor blogger who features tons of bright colors, you will have to do some work finding what works best for your personal brand, most likely a vibrant filter to bring that pop of color vibe to your theme.
Regardless of how you decide to edit, a few quick suggestions to help you brand your Instagram:
» Always edit the same each time! Consistency is key in keeping your feed streamlined & stunning.
» Look at your feed from a thumbnail view to analyze how it looks as a whole. This is a great way to see if your theme is cohesive.
» Download the app Lipix & plan ahead. It’s a collage app & I use it to layout my Instagram photos in a 3×3 grid before posting. I know, it sounds crazy/excessive, but it’s been a really helpful tool to make sure everything is cohesive.
» Break up the feed. Don’t post straight up outfit posts all day, break it up with what you’re eating/the color of your nails, a shoe of the day, etc.
» Texture & props are your friend! Brick walls, cobblestone floors, & furry blankets are my personal favorite textures & my favorite props (mainly for flat lays) include succulents, sunglasses, marble anything, pretty flowers, & the occasional crystal.
Now, drumroll please, my in depth editing process.
Once I’ve narrowed down from likely 50+ photos, I open up the chosen photo in Snapseed. Snapseed is a great photo editing app as it really lets you closely control the adjustments made to your photo.
» First I up the brightness anywhere from +30 to +50. It all depends on the photo, sometimes it needs a lot of brightening, other times just a tad.
» I then adjust the contrast between +20 and +30. I feel like this helps make the photo pop a bit more.
» Because my brand is very monochromatic, I always always decrease the saturation to about -10.
» Lastly, to keep my photos very cool toned, I down the warmth from -3 to -5. This is very subtle, but makes a huge difference to knock out any unwanted orange/yellow from the photo.
Now that I have my starting edits done, I then open the photo in VSCO, which is my absolute favorite of all editing apps out there.
» In this first round, cause we will open it up in VSCO again in the next step, is to use the SE3 (street etiquette 3) filter. This one you do have to purchase, but it’s totally worth it as it decreases saturations & ups the contrast to the perfect amount.
» Depending on the photo, I will move around the levels. Sometimes full blast with this filter looks great, but more often than not I adjust somewhere between 5 and 8.
» Save the image!
Open up the latest version of your photo again in VSCO to add one more filter.
» I love the A8 feature, because as the name states, it’s very minimalistic & I love all things minimalism
» This filter realllly decreases warmth & adds a bit of a fade to the image. For this filter I set the levels to around 2 or 3 so that it’s not too drastic. Full strength on this one can sometimes look too blue or over edited.
As you can see above, the difference isn’t major, but it definitely looks cleaner, more desaturated, cooler, & all around better.
One other thing I occasionally is when I go to upload the photo to Instagram, I use their built in editor to make any last minute changes. If it is still looking to dark or warm, I will up the brightness & decrease the warmth a bit more. If it is a product photo or a flat lay, I will also give it a bit of sharpening to really make everything stand out!
SO— There you have it! My editing process, in all of it’s full & extensive detail. Hope you guys enjoyed this post & let me know if you want more posts on Instagram branding/tips to grow your following!
You can follow me on Instagram here & be sure to also sign up for the newsletter to receive exclusive access to some of my top secret editing/branding/blogging tips
x, E
Got here through Instagram and whoa, this is dedication! But it definitely pays off because your feed is absolutely gorgeous. Right now I only edit on VSCO and I only edit once. I haven’t done the 3x editing but I need to look into it. I know a lot of people talk about creating a beautiful Instagram grid layout and lately I’ve been trying to do that but it can be difficult, especially if there’s a photo you love and want to post but it just doesn’t go with your layout. So it’s kind of balancing that, this is what I love vs this is what makes my layout look coherent.
Thanks for the tutorial, definitely super helpful!
coffeeslag
COFFEESLAG For Love & Lemons
Thank you girl! It def. is a lot of work to post an Instagram, but I def. think it helps when looking to grow your following :). I know how you feel about photos you love vs. the cohesive layout & I have the same problem- I would love to post pictures of the dog all day, but from a business perspective I can’t (so the dog has an Instagram).
Glad it helped though! xo
aww thanks girl!!
Thank you girl! I appreciate that so much :)
I use Photoshop for the blog photos, & I try to edit them the same way I do my Instagram (decreasing saturation & upping the cool factor!).
Haha! I love the car ride story, I seriously would love a chauffeur just so I have the car time to Instagram (in a perfect world!).
Thank you for the kind words, getting the Insta thing down can be tough (took me a while!!), but once you figure out your vibe, it becomes pretty routine.
As far as the amount of saved photos go (totally not a dumb question!), I am very OCD so I delete as I go & only end up saving the final image!
As for nailing down my filter, it took a lot of time & a lot of trial and error. I studied my favorite Instagrams & kinda chopped up what I liked about them & then worked on making it my own. Once it all came together & started to look cohesive, I just kept it going.
Hope that covers it, & if you have any more questions, LMK! Happy new year to you too love. x, E
So cool that you shared your process in so much detail… Your insta feed is one of my favorites so I totally geeked out when I saw this post! I just started really planning & focusing on mine a few months ago and it’s already paying off. I used to really suck at instagram, but now it’s sort of a fun little side project to try to get awesome photos for it and I’m obsessed!
Aww thanks girl! Instagram is totally fun once you get the hang of your vibe. xo
Thanks for the tips!! wow what a process. I am odd myself but you’re on another level, in a good way =)
haha, thanks girl!
Hey, Erica! I d/l the Lipix App but it isn’t allowing me to import more than one image in the grid? This absolutely has to be user error – but I just can’t seem to work it out… Any pointers? Love your feed. Thanks SO much for sharing!
Nicola, xo
If you go to the very last page, there is a 9 photo grid, that’s the one I use!!
THANK YOU so much for this!! I think I harass every blogger on their insta process and while I have been trying to find a process to follow the logic of doing the same thing every time really stuck with me!! hopefully with your tips I can grow my following even more :)
thanks for being the raddest babe ever.
xx B
Aww thanks love! xo
hey erica! I am just starting to use vsco so this post was super helpful to get me started! I’m trying to find the SE3 (street etiquette) filter but I can’t seem to come across it. If you could point me in the right direction I’d love to try it out!
Thank you!
Ali
after I wrote this post I learned that SE3 is no longer available :(
THank you for sharing these tips!! I’ve been a big fan and now I totally get that there is much hard work that goes behind instagramming at your level!! I love, LOVE, LOOOVVEEE your feed. Thanks again for sharing this!!
Jessica || Cubicle Chic
glad you liked it girl!! xo
This is amazing!! Question – if you edit a photo for Instagram that you also plan to use on your blog, do you edit it twice, once for the Instagram and once for the blog? I know after editing a photo on your phone that the resolution isn’t as big as the original photo, so may not look as good when in a bigger format. How do you handle this for your blog?
If I take it on my phone & then edit it on the phone, I will probably use that one for the blog as well if I want to use it in a blog post. It does have bad resolution, so I do try to take blog photos with my professional camera & then edit on the computer.
Loved these tips! Would love some more tips around growing following / brand. I feel like Instagram is so slow right now!! Ahhhh. xx
Hi Erica, you helped me I was trying to find ideas to recreate my instagram with a nice feed with cool and clean tones, that’s how I found your blog. Your blog is very interesting some blogger wouldn’t share their secret .. So thanks and I just follow you on Instagram ?
thank you so much!! So glad I could help :) sharing is caring!
Lovely post Erica, for so long I am trying to enrich my Instagram photos. Your mentioned information helped me a lot. Good job.