The Ultimate Guide To Taking Better Selfies

It’s really hard to learn how to love yourself and find yourself attractive. Still, we all have days where we look in the mirror and like what we see. Your makeup is flawless, the light catches you perfectly - you’re feeling yourself!

Everyone should feel good about themselves, and your next instinct is to open the selfie camera and take a pic. Unfortunately, your phone has other ideas. The camera opens, you take the photo, and the results are less than impressive. You stare in the mirror, then back at your phone, then at the mirror again. Are you really looking at the same person here?! For whatever reason, your selfies never come out good, giving you a bit of a confidence dashing. You felt good a few moments ago, but the photos have made you doubt yourself.

Worry not, the mirror is more accurate than a phone camera! Also, your pictures might be bad due to a variety of factors - none of which are related to your looks. With this guide, you’ll pick up some tips to take better selfies and feel good about yourself once more.

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Make sure the light is behind the camera

Taking selfies with the light source infront of the camera is a recipe for a shadowy disaster. Instead, turn around so the lighting is behind the camera, shining towards your face. This will instantly light up your complexion and provide a better image. It’s like a real-life filter, and you’ll find the quality of the selfie improves as well. Plus, you get rid of the shadows, which can be super annoying in photos.

 

Take selfies in front of windows

Following on from the first point, you can harness the power of natural light by standing in front of a window. Again, make sure you’re facing the window, so the light comes behind the phone. Here, you get almost professional-style lighting in your home! It’s a little tip, but a great one if the lighting in your home is pretty trash.

 

Play around with the angle but avoid pointing up at yourself

As far as selfie angles go, things can be complicated. You don’t need to get a protractor out and start measuring degrees, but you will have to play around with things a little bit. Everyone is different, and we all have a good side that we prefer to the other. Some of you may like one angle far more than others, so be experimental.

However, I can say with confidence that there’s one angle you want to avoid - holding your phone down low and angling it up. There’s honestly no reason on earth to ever use this angle, unless you want to take a funny double-chin photo. That’s basically all you will see from this angle, a pure double chin, and a face that’s out of proportion!

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Make sure the image is flipped the right way

Some selfie cameras are simple and produce an image that replicates what you’ve seen on-screen moments before. I think a lot of Android phones do this, and so does the Snapchat app on iPhones. In situations like this, you don’t have to do anything as the picture is as it should be. 

On the other hand, iPhones (and some other phones) don’t work like this. The main camera app will open up, show your face on the screen, then completely flip the image when you take a photo. It makes no sense, and the image flips vertically and throws your face out of proportion. I’ve taken selfies where I look good in the screen, then the flipped image makes my nose crooked, and my face looks weird! Thankfully, this can be solved by editing the image, clicking on the adjustments tab, then flipping it vertically. Now, you should see the proper image. So, make sure you always do this, or you will be destined for unhappy selfies.

Switch to portrait mode

If you have a phone that comes with portrait mode, use it to great effect when taking selfies. It unfocuses the background and puts all the focus on your face. The results are staggeringly beautiful, and you’ll want to upload the selfie right away! It’s generally accepted that the iPhone portrait mode is the best around at the moment. It just seems to be more consistent and always provides the best results.

Don’t worry if you don’t have an iPhone, pretty much all smartphones use this feature and they’re still pretty good. You could also use an editing app that provides a portrait effect, but these have mixed levels of success.

Don’t overdo it with the editing

It’s time to get a bit serious, which sounds silly considering we’re talking about selfies. Editing photos is a touchy subject for many girls. In this day and age, there are lots of things that most girls feel self-conscious about. The majority of these issues stem from seeing heavily edited photos on Instagram and other social media. Photo editing software will improve your selfies, but at what cost? You’re just joining in with the misrepresentation of modern beauty. Plus, it won’t really make you feel better because you know that you’re touched up your face here, you’ve altered something there, and so on.

Does this mean you should upload all your selfies raw? No, of course not. You can still edit them, but within reason. A good rule of thumb is to stick to edits that play around with colors and filters, rather than things that directly edit your appearance. Forget about airbrushing your features, and just use a nice light filter to enhance what’s already there. Now, your selfies will look better, they won’t be heavily edited, and you will feel better about yourself.

All in all, that last sentence is a great way to summarize why this guide was created. It’s all about making yourself feel better about how you look. If you like your reflection in the mirror, you deserve to take a gorgeous photo to show everyone else - or just to keep for yourself!