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From minor tweaks to full-on Facetunes
It seems like just about everyone on the planet has managed to take and post a selfie (or several selfies) on Instagram.
But it’s undeniable that some are better than others. Better at posing, better at putting on makeup, and better at editing their photos, which is more and more common nowadays.
Not only that, but some people make it their business, literally, to look good on social media. People like James Charles, Abby Roberts, Nikita Dragun and Tana Mongeau have built careers out of looking amazing at all times – not just using makeup as a tool, but relying on external editors like Facetune, too.
To celebrate the announcement of Facetune’s new collab with influencer Nikkie Tutorials, the app publisher has published an impressive compilation of influencers and celebrities who proudly use their product. You can check it out here. Many of the examples include rich pointers that we can all learn from.
The way that society views social media influencers, in general, has matured considerably in recent years, and influencers have followed suit themselves. Today, it’s rare for someone to even try and maintain the farce that their looks and lives are flawless. To the contrary – nowadays, influencers seem to take pleasure in showing off all of their blemishes and imperfections and walking their audiences through how they transform themselves from reality into Insta-fantasy.
For those of us who aren’t professionals (yet!) but still want to post the best pictures we can, here are five great tips pulled directly from the experts themselves.
1. Don’t be afraid to totally mix things up.
Nikkie de Jager, aka Nikki Tutorials, is one of the best-known beauty vloggers in the business. When she edits her pics, she doesn’t just do the normal retouching of blemishes – she uses Facetune to even completely change the shade of her makeup, too. This lets her get really fancy with eyeshadows, completely altering one look from green to bright orange – not exactly subtle!
“I want to see what this would look like in red. Why not? I’m just gonna transform that crease into a red color,” de Jager says in her new demonstration video of Facetune secrets.
Instead of thinking of Facetune just as a tool to perfect, let it inspire you to elevate too. Get creative and don’t be afraid to mix things up, like Nikki.
2. Pay attention to more than your self.
It doesn’t matter how hot you look in your photo if you’ve staged yourself in a messy room. Human eyes are drawn to imperfections – not just the ones on your face, but the ones in your backgrounds, too! To post the perfect selfie, ensure your face is perfect, but your setting is, too.
Molly Mae shows us how she takes care of the background of her selfies, making sure her flawless face is the #1 priority in her pics. Her video takes us through the total transformation, from staging her (messy) bedroom to the perfect glamor shot, so we can focus on her perfectly made-up mug and outfit – not just arranging pillows, but even going so far as to edit her cellphone charging cable out of her pic with Facetune.
She is honest about the difficulties of making her room look as fabulous as it does in all her selfies, but in her words, “You can really work with the background you’ve got.”
3. Lighting is everything in a selfie.
Bright light that leaves no shadows is one of the best things you can do for yourself when it comes to taking the perfect selfie – and editing it afterwards, too. Abby Roberts demonstrates how she uses Facetune to brush up her normal selfies to a professional level, including how having the ideal lighting helps facilitate further edits.
“A really important thing is having good lighting. I recommend a ring light. When you’re editing your photo, you can get away with a lot more if your photo is of high quality,” she says in her video.
Roberts’s before and after shots are very impressive, and it’s awesome to see how having that good light at the start makes it possible to really elevate selfies. When there are no shading considerations that you need to match when editing, it’s easier to let it rip.
4. You can bodytune, too.
It may be called Facetune, but influencers don’t just stick to their faces when they level up their pics. It’s possible to use Facetune to get your dream body, even if just in a selfie.
Katelyn Fitch demonstrates how she copies Nikita Dragun and James Charles to make her body (and face) look like perfection. Or at least she tries.
“The trick is to do small movements, and zoom in all the [expletive] way,” she instructs as she shows how she made her body look extra curvy in her selfie using Facetune.
5. Don’t forget the basics
It’s great to change your eyeshadow, lighting, body, and background, but sometimes you just want to nail the basics to look your best. Manny MUA shows you how to do it step-by-step in real-time in his YouTube video.
His before-and-after doesn’t reveal any drastic changes, but the final pic is indisputably better in subtle ways. It’s not hard to learn, either – you just have to be willing to play around with tools like Facetune until you figure out what works for you.
“What I just showed you guys is kind of like a great beginner guide, but it’s really about you guys just playing around with it,” he explains in his video.
Let the professionals show you how it’s done.
When it comes to taking, editing and posting the perfect selfie, the good news is that there is a huge variety of options – and you can look to the professionals themselves to see how it’s done.
Influencers have learned to just play around, modify, alter, edit, tweak and improve their likenesses while staying confident in themselves and having fun. If you want to post the perfect pic, they’re the best ones to teach you.
