How to Take Better Instagram Photos

Instagram is one of my favorite apps on my phone. I love the fact that not only can I share my life with the world but that I can get a daily glimpse into the lives of others as well.  However if you want more Instagram followers, there’s one thing that you really need – amazing pictures. So how can you take better Instagram photos? The great news is that there’s a few simple steps you can take to improve your Instagram photos. (If you’re wondering what Instagram is, here’s an older post that might help you – What is Instagram?)   Step 1: Focus your phone camera!  This one is probably the step I see missed the most out of all Instagram photos. Sometimes it’s ok to put up a slightly blurry photo if it’s moving or it’s a picture of your kids that you had to grab and share without time to let the camera focus but if you’re not focusing the picture most of the time, you’re not reaching your full potential.  On an iPhone it’s simple to focus a picture manually. You simply tap your finger on the screen where you want the photo to focus.  If you don’t have an iPhone, go find out right now how to manually focus the camera on your phone.  Most phones do auto focus by themselves but you really want to take the time to get the focus perfect.  Here’s a hint, if you tap other areas of the screen it will change the lighting of the picture as the camera focuses on other areas. So if you want to take a picture but the subject is to dark, tap an area in the bottom of the screen and see what happens. If that isn’t the look you want, focus on an area at the top of the screen to see if the lighting will change. Sometimes it just takes a few more seconds to play around and get the photo you want.  Step 2: Great lighting –  The light will make all the difference when you’re on your camera phone. Natural light is your best bet. If you’re doing something inside such as baking and you want to take a picture of your results, move your yummy treat closer to a window. 

You have to find the light for amazing pictures.  Step 3: Loose the clutter –  When you look in the background of the photo, what do you see? If it’s ultra busy, try to move the photo around to be able to crop it out.  You want to have a subject to your photos. What do you want people to see? If there’s a lot of stuff in the background, they’ll never see it. 

In this photo I cropped out the store and the cars in it’s parking lot on the left hand side of the picture to make the statue more prominent.   Step 4: Play with the intensity. Lately Instagram has made an improvement. Now you can play around with the Lux Effect making more or less intensity in the filter you have already chosen. See that sun icon? That’s the Lux Effect. If you click on it than a slider should appear where you can increase or decrease this effect.  It’s great for washed out photos on cloudy days or maybe overly detailed photos that you want to give a muted appearance.   Step 5: Think in different angles.  Sometimes we just hold up our phone and take a picture from the same angle as which we look, which works really well at times. But great Instagram photos are the ones that stand out because it’s not what we see everyday.  Take a picture from above, get low on the ground and take a picture aiming up, or simply just angle your phone in a new way. 

Try something new and you might be surprised with what you can find.  Better Instagram photos are easy, it just takes a few tips and tricks and a little bit more trial and error.  Do you have a great Instagram tip that wasn’t mentioned above?  Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram as well! You can find me on Instagram as @ClumsyCrafter.