A Gold Coast model and social media star has shared her top tips on how to edit the perfect selfie.
Pia Muehlenbeck is known for her bright and professional Instagram feed and has talked her followers through how she edits three different photo styles.
‘For me, I always find my photos perform better if they’re less edited, if they don’t look like a super professional campaign shot – if they look raw and real and engaging and like something I’ve quickly snapped,’ she said in her YouTube video.
‘Selfies and mirror selfies work for me, which is great if you don’t have an Instagram husband like I do.’
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Pia Muehlenbeck (pictured) is known for her bright and professional Instagram feed and has talked her followers through how she edits three different photo styles
‘For me, I always find my photos perform better if they’re less edited, if they don’t look like a super professional campaign shot,’ Pia said
The main apps she uses are VSCO and ColorStory.
‘If you’re in a hurry and you just want to get a beautiful filter on your photo and you don’t want to mess around with it too much VSCO is a really really good option, it’s got great filters,’ she said.
Watching the YouTube tutorial you can tell that Pia is a photo editing pro, which would explain her two million Instagram followers.
THE SELFIE
For her selfies Pia’s app of choice is ColorStory and her main tip is to have some form of cover over the top of you when taking the photo.
‘A really good tip, if you can be over some kind of awning or a cover but facing out into the light, it creates a really soft beautiful light,’ she explained.
It is much easier to edit a photo if you start with a good base in the first place.
Watching the YouTube tutorial you can tell that Pia is a photo editing pro, which would explain her two million Instagram followers
The main apps that she uses are VSCO and ColorStory but at the moment ColorStory is her preferred choice
She moves straight into the filters and explained she normally opts for filters in the Essentials package and will often use the Everyday filter as it’s ‘warm and bright’.
Her next favourite is the filter called Ice Ice, so depending on how bright a photo is she will opt for one of these as a starting point.
‘[Ice Ice] softens the face which is perfect if you have smile lines and stuff, they’re still there but not so intense,’ she said.
‘What I’m going to do with this photo is add two filters on top of each other but really quite slightly.’
She explained that when she uses ColorStory she normally opts for filters in the Essentials package and will often use the Everyday Filter as it’s ‘warm and bright’
‘I don’t like clarity on my skin, i feel like its really unflattering and makes your pores and everything too clear, I’ll stay away from that for selfies or photos with my skin,’ she said
Once Pia has decided on one of these filters she moves onto the Organic filter section in VSCO and picks the filter called Fire.
She plays around with a few of the tools such as curve, exposure and contrast until she is left with something that she likes and keeps her photos as ‘natural and raw as possible’.
‘I will sharpen it a touch, which brings out a twinkle in your eye, sharpens my eyelashes a little bit and makes the photo a little bit more crisp overall,’ she said.
‘I don’t like clarity on my skin, I feel like its really unflattering and makes your pores and everything too clear, I’ll stay away from that for selfies or photos with my skin.’
She plays around with a few of the tools such as curve, exposure and contrast until she is left with something that she likes
FOR LANDSCAPES
For the landscapes that Pia uploads she edits them so that they are bright and pop off the screen.
Again she edits the photo in ColorStory and uses the Seasons pack of filters and because she likes the cooler tones she will use April or June.
She fiddles with the curves tool which increases the amount of detail in the building and although she doesn’t like using clarity for photos of herself, she uses it for pictures of landscapes, buildings and food.
For the landscapes that Pia uploads she edits them so that they are bright and pop off the screen
‘I will sharpen it a touch, which brings out a twinkle in your eye, sharpens my eyelashes a little bit and makes the photo a little bit more crisp overall’
Pia explained she ‘ups the temperature’ for a summery feel and makes sure not to over sharpen the image as it can be too over the top.
‘To put the cherry on top add a bit of sun flare on it, you can be a super photographer and shoot into the sun or do it in post production,’ she said.
‘I want my flare to come from the sun, that’s really important, flares naturally comes from the suns direction, you can’t throw them anywhere and need to understand the composition of a photo.’
Once Pia has decided on one of these filters she moves onto the Organic filter section in VSCO and picks the filter called Fire
For bikini photos she prefers to use VSCO as she believes the filters tend to be more flattering when there is a lot of skin
FOR BIKINI SHOTS
For bikini photos she prefers to use VSCO as she believes the filters tend to be more flattering when there is a lot of skin.
As she used a professional camera for this shot not as much editing goes into it, meaning a much shorter process.
With these kinds of shots it’s as simple as picking a filter, ensuring that the photo isn’t too saturated and sharpening the image.
Finally she adds more contrast and makes sure that it isn’t too overexposed, so brings it down.
‘The cool thing about VSCO is you can select skin tones and change the hue a bit,’ Pia explained.