Hi guys!
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
If you follow my Instagram,
you know that I like to take artsy selfies
because I have no one else to take pictures for me.
But I realize that I've gotten really good at
this thing of taking pictures of myself with my camera on the tripod
and my phone as the remote.
So today I want to do a fun little tutorial showing you how I do this.
And I also want to show you how I edit my photos in Lightroom
because I get a lot of questions on photo editing.
So I'll share all my secrets, my whole process from start to finish
of getting that cool look with you, yourself, and you.
Me, myself, and I.
You – yes.
Alright, let's get to it.
Step 1) Get dressed up and made up in a way that
makes you feel confident and beautiful!
Usually I’ll go through my closet and pick out an outfit
that fits the way I want to feel that day.
Today, I have purple hair so I really wanted something to complement that.
I picked out this minty off the shoulder dress
because I love how the color creates this pastel contrast with my hair.
If you have something in your closet that you love,
but don’t get a chance to wear it out often, wear it!
This is your time to shine.
After I have the outfit, I’m adding some accessories to match.
These are new earrings that I felt went with the dress,
and the turquoise + purple gives off mystical vibes which I’m feeling today.
Then I’m just touching up my makeup,
adding some highlight, and we’re ready to go!
Step 2) Pick a background that suits your style.
Mine is this area in my office with clean, pastel vibes.
You can also utilize plants and props to make your background more interesting.
Personally, I like to shoot in the late afternoon light
because sunlight spills into my room at that time
and there’s this golden glowy vibe.
Early morning sunlight works well too
but I’m never awake that early.
Step 3) Set your camera on a tripod.
If you don’t have a camera,
this is where you’d set your phone on the tripod.
Lately I’ve been setting the camera vertical for IG photos,
but that is just personal preference.
Take this time to also explore your favorite camera angle.
Do you like your camera lower or higher?
I like a lower camera angle so it makes me look a bit taller.
Camera tip: I shoot in RAW,
so that I have more information to edit the photo afterwards.
I set my aperture to the lowest setting, which on this lens is F/4,
because I love that depth of field, blurry background look.
My shutter speed is usually around 1/125.
And it also helps to have a flip out screen
so you can see what you’re shooting.
Step 4) Connect your remote for your camera.
I connect my camera to my phone with wifi,
but you can also use a camera remote or a self timer.
Step 5) Now it’s time to start shooting!
Play with your angles & poses and explore all the sides of your face
and all the shapes that your body can make.
This is all about exploration & experimentation.
You’re getting to know your face & body and learning all your “good sides”.
You don’t have just one good side, you have many!
Through this, you’ll also be more confident having your photo taken
because you know what looks good to you.
Let me emphasize here that it’s all relative and it’s all an art.
YOU are a work of art.
As self-absorbed as this process may seem,
you’re actually getting to know yourself,
and thus getting to love yourself.
Yes, your self love game will increase with your selfie game,
because you grow more comfortable
and confident in yourself through this process.
So don’t be self conscious and just have fun!
So previously I was taking instant photos with my phone in my hand as the remote.
But when I want to take a photo with both hands in the shot,
I’ll change the camera to a 2 sec timer,
then find a soft chair I can drop my phone onto after pressing the shutter.
Welcome to my secret: I’m constantly throwing my phone for these shots.
Luckily I have carpet in this room
because my phone will always bounce off the chair
and onto the floor, so that's that.
Step 6) Take a LOT of photos.
Switch up your camera position and angles if you want.
Again, it’s all about exploration & experimentation.
Play with movement.
Try throwing your arms up in different ways,
using your arms to create an artful structure.
It doesn’t have to be natural.
It’s art, okay?
You can also try playing with props as well.
I have this prism crystal that could be really fun to play with,
since it reflects light & images in an interesting way.
So what I’m doing here is placing the prism right in front of the lens
to create a reflective, kind of whimsical image.
Later I noticed that the prism was creating
a rainbow reflection on my face, which I really liked.
So I was working really hard at trying to get that rainbow in the right spot
and trying to get that perfect image.
By now my arm’s pretty tired and I think I’m about done.
"Okay, hopefully I got a good one."
Now let’s move on to editing in Lightroom!
Alright, here we are in Lightroom.
These are all the photos that we took today.
There are 127 photos and as you can see,
I have variations of the same poses,
just so I get a good one.
What I do now is: I look through each
and I press the shortcut "Z" on my keyboard to pick my favorites.
So let's do that.
Okay, so now that I've picked my favorites,
I'm going to filter by the unflagged and any rejected.
So these are all photos that I dislike,
so I'm going to delete them because I like to save space.
Delete 66 photos.
So now I'm left with the photos I liked.
I try to be more generous, just in case,
because I always change my mind on which one I like.
So let's pick a favorite.
Now I usually pick my favorite of each pose and I filter the photo from there.
In Lightroom, I do have a lot of different presets.
But sometimes I will start with the presets, sometimes I won't,
because sometimes I don't need to.
But I'll show you how I would filter without a preset.
I actually first start with a curve.
I love using curves lately.
I realize that what I really like is lowering the highlights a little bit,
bumping it up, creating a sort of S-curve shape.
Then I will just play in this area: bump up exposure if I need to.
And I love bright, milky, dreamy, airy photos.
You guys have seen my Instagram and you know what I like.
I really try to bump it as much as possible but still try to keep the contrast.
I prefer less shadows.
I prefer to bump up the mids a little bit like this.
As you can see the curve, the mid is a little brightened.
I like that look.
So before … after.
I don't like my image to look that flat.
That's why I really like using the S curve to give it a little more punch.
Obviously this is the extreme version of the punch,
but I kind of like it around here.
So keep the mids light.
This is if you like a really flat, milky look.
Alright, so before … after.
You see how it already changed a lot and I didn't even fix the tones?
All I did was curves and play a little bit with exposure and shadows and blacks.
Generally, I like my photos a little warmer.
Sometimes warm is a look.
For this one, I kind of like –
because my hair is purple, I don't want to go too warm.
And the greens and pinks honestly look perfect to me, the way they were.
And usually I'll bump up the vibrance a little bit, not too much.
Color Mixer is actually another one of my favorite areas in Lightroom.
Sometimes – it depends on the photo,
but if I want lighter color skin,
you can bump up the luminance of the orange.
You could also lower it if you want more of a tan complexion.
I usually just bump it up a tiny bit.
If you have different toned skin, this is where you would mess with it.
The orange is the hue of your skin tone.
I honestly like the natural look of this.
Okay, here's another thing I play with.
Texture, usually people bump it up for texture.
Sometimes I soften the texture,
make it negative so that it has more of a softer look.
You see how this looks really soft and dreamy?
I kind of like that, except I just do it a little bit.
So starting from zero, I would just go down to 6 or something.
You can tell it kind of blurs out your fine lines a little bit,
so I like a little bit of that.
Same thing with clarity.
It has that same effect where it softens it a little bit,
so I'm just going to soften it a tiny bit so it looks a little more dreamy.
Grain is something fun that I do add occasionally.
Grain, it's easier to see it up close.
This is – let's add 15.
I honestly, sometimes I just like to have it there.
You might not be able to tell in the actual photo.
And that's that!
What I would do is copy,
and then I would paste this on literally all the other similar photos in the set.
You can paste it there, and now this pose is basically filtered for the most part.
You can go back and change them and filter them again later.
Alright, let's do another photo.
Let's do one of these rainbow-y photos.
I can never decide which one I like.
So I'm just going to paste the filter that I have on the first photo I worked on,
just so I don't have to work on it as much.
And as you can see, it doesn't exactly give me the look that I want
because this is a different photo with different lighting.
So each photo is different.
Going for that milky look again, maybe like this.
This one needs to be a little cooler.
Let's mess with the skin tone because I think the skin tone is a big factor in this one.
Let me make the clarity negative.
If there's greens in the background,
sometimes you want to mute the greens
because you don't want them to be too saturated.
So you can mute them.
You can change the tone of the greens too.
Let's make the greens lighter.
Yeah, I like this look.
So you can see – you see the green in the background?
I kind of like how this set looks from far away.
I might just do a multiple photo set.
Looks so dreamy-looking, love it.
So that is basically my process for editing on Lightroom.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
Let me know in the comments if you have questions or anything.
And let me know if you think this is too extra, but this is normal to me.
This is part of my daily life, guys.
Alright, love you so much!
Don't forget to subscribe, and I'll see you in the next one.
Bye!