For all of us who were born before the digital age, a self-portrait is a photograph or painting that you make yourself. Nowadays, the self-portrait has been renamed selfie, English word formed by the words "self" which means "self" and "ie" translated as "myself".
La definition official selfie en: a photographic self-portrait usually taken with a camera or digital device. With how rich Spanish is and how sad it is to have to adopt English words to define actions or things that already have their equivalent in the language of Cervantes.
A few years ago, smartphone makers fought over which one would introduce a higher number of pixels in its rear cameras. That war ended with the standardization at 12 MP, although some manufacturers have returned to the war again and today it is easy to find smartphones with more than 100 MP resolution.
However, users are increasingly interested in the front camera, the camera for "selfies" as some call it. The front camera has received important functionalities in recent years, not only in terms of resolution, but also in terms of viewing angle and processing software called beauty filter.
This is all very good, butHow to take a perfect selfie? To take a good selfie, it is not necessary to have the latest smartphone model (although it obviously helps a lot), but you have to take into account a series of factors to get the most out of your smartphone.
A clear example is found in professional photographers. A professional camera offers you the same results as a non-professional camera, what you have to know is to use it to get the most out of it, in addition to having knowledge of composition, an aspect that represents 90% of a photograph.
Tips for taking good selfies
Taking photos of yourself with your mobile, It can be a more or less simple task, depending on whether we want to obtain fantastic results or we simply want to capture our image of that moment. If you want to know how to take a selfie and be good, I recommend that you follow the advice that I show you below.
Beauty filters
All manufacturers implement a processing filter in the image processing system, a filter that is responsible for remove small imperfections that our skin may have (wrinkles of expression, old age, pimples, moles ...). These filters are activated natively in most manufacturers, however, in some others, they are available directly in a camera mode called Beauty Mode or similar.
Google has conducted a study regarding the use of this type of filters and came to the conclusion that beauty filters reflect an image that is not in accordance with realitylarvae, nymphs, and adults, so can have a negative impact on mental well-beingas they set a standard of beauty that some people compare themselves to.
After conducting this study, Google stated that in future updates of its application, it would deactivate the beauty filter natively, giving the user the option to activate it and invited the rest of the manufacturers to follow the same method.
Front lighting / Rembrandt
So that our face appears as clean as possible (Leaving aside the beauty filter) we must always position ourselves towards where the light source is located, in this way we will avoid that shadows appear under the eyes and on the nose.
We can also use the lighting called Rembrandt where the angle of view is located at 45º from the subject, which allows you to more volume to the face.
Never under a zenith light
If we want to take a selfie outdoors so as not to be forced to use artificial lighting, we must bear in mind that it is not advisable to do it at any time of the day. In the middle of the day, when the sun is in its highest position, it causes very unattractive shadows on the face, since they cause a shadow under the nose and eyes that greatly ugly the result.
Whenever possible, it is advisable to take a selfie looking at where the sun is, or the light if we take selfies indoors, to avoid that any shadow can affect the final result.
Blur the background without dual lens
Some manufacturers have started to implement a dual front camera system that allows blurring the background of our selfies. Although it is true that it is an excellent proposal, it is not necessary in most cases, especially if the camera of our smartphone has automatic focus.
Blurring the background of a selfie is as simple as get as far away from our background as possible. In this way, the camera will focus only on the object (in this case the face) that is closest to the camera and will blur the rest of the image.
Disable beauty mode to add drama to the image
The wrinkle is beautiful, as the designer Adolfo Domínguez said. This slogan also applies to photography. Wrinkles on a person's face reflect drama, reflect qualities of the person who appears in it, reflect a reality and give us extra information that can help us get to know the person.
If we want to add drama to an image, in addition to deactivating the beauty filter (whenever possible), we must remove the color from the image turning them to black and white, focusing on the black color, since white reduces imperfections on the skin.
Use a flash
Some smartphones natively include a flash mode for selfies that when we capture turn the screen to maximum brightness to illuminate our face. If we are with friends, we can ask our friends to illuminate our face with the screen or the flash of their mobiles.
Another solution is to use light rings that incorporate a mirror and that, not only allow us illuminate our face naturally (some allow us to adjust the intensity of the light) but they are also designed to take selfies comfortably.
Take original selfies
Don't always look at the camera
Assuming you are clear that when taking a selfie you should always look at the target and not at the screenYou should also bear in mind that we should not always look at the camera. If we want to reflect that we are in a special environment, we can look at any place without putting expression of any kind, since it would invite us to see what has caught your attention, which is a problem if it is not shown in the capture.
Take into account the background in your selfie
When taking a selfie, we must take into account the background, since lets us tell a story. Taking a selfie with a messy room in the background is not the same as taking a selfie with the background of a forest, a beach, a swimming pool, a shopping center, a restaurant ...
Always front or side lighting
If you don't want that on your face shadows appear on the face, shadows that are practically impossible to eliminate unless we use Photoshop, it is recommended that the light source is always in front of us, never behind or above.
Rule of thirds
Regardless of whether the background is important or not for the selfie we want to take, as in any photograph we take, we must take into account the rule of thirds, a rule that invites us to stand on one of the sides of the image, never in the center.
Change the camera angle
Surely many of you have given a cry when you have activated the front camera of your computer when checking that the first thing you see is the double chin. It is the only thing you see and where your gaze is concentrated.
Regardless of whether or not you have a double chin, it is recommended when taking selfies raise camera position to prevent it from attracting more attention than the rest of the image.
Group selfie
With group selfies, there is no beauty filter that works. In addition, if our smartphone does not have a wide angle on the front camera, it is most likely that we will have to stretch our arm too much or use a selfie stick.
In these cases, it is recommended make use of the rear camera, since as a general rule it tends to have a higher angle of view than that offered by the front camera and use the self-timer to give us time to place all the people who want to appear in the image.
Take a selfie with your hand or stick
What is better? Take a selfie with your hand or a selfie stick? Depends. It mainly depends on what you want to show in the picture. If you want only you appear in the imageSince the background is very secondary, it is best to use our hand to do so, since it allows us to bring our face closer to the camera lens.
If on the contrary, you want show where you areAs a selfie stick there is nothing better, since it allows us to move away from the camera to add context to the image. TheNo products found. they are ideal for when you are traveling. They are also a clear example to quickly know who is a tourist and who is not.
How to make a self portrait in the mirror
Using the rear camera without the flash
Obviously, to take this type of photograph it is advisable to use the rear camera, since despite being in front of a mirror, through the screen, we can adjust framing we want to use, what we want to show in the image. We must deactivate the flash previously if we do not want the flash to be the main protagonist of our selfie.
Do not cover your face with your mobile
Although it seems absurd and logical advice, you would be surprised to see how some people take selfies to show only the clothes they are wearing completely eliminating the protagonist of the image.
The mobile is not the most important thing in a selfie
Many are the people who when they take selfies in front of a mirror, they appear looking at the mobile, as if the mobile was really the most important thing in the image. If we take a selfie, we are the most important thing in the image, so we do not have to look at the screen, but at the mirror.
How to take a full body selfie
Rule of thirds
Yes, I am heavy, but this rule of photography makes up 90% of the composition and without a good composition, photography is worth absolutely nothing.
Avoid back and overhead light
If we want to prevent our clothes from showing wrinkles or that our face shows dark areas, we must always place the light source in front of us, never behind or on top.
Capture only the interesting
If you want to take a selfie showing your new shirt or short dress, you have to focus on the part of the body where it is displayed. Otherwise you will invite the user to look for extra information that you wanted to show.
Selfie apps
In the Play Store we have at our disposal a large number of applications that will help us in the task of taking selfies. Despite the fact that the number is very high, below I show you which, thanks to my knowledge in photography, I consider to be the best options on the market, although personally I do not recommend using them, since they always distort the final image, distancing it completely from reality.
BeatuyPlus to improve a selfie
This application is ideal for remove skin blemishes that the beauty filter has not been able to eliminate such as dark circles, bags under the eyes, as well as to soften very marked expressions on the skin. It puts at our disposal a large number of filters of all kinds in addition to an automatic adjustment that is responsible for eliminating imperfections, slightly modifying the skin tone ...
YouCam Perfect for putting effect on a selfie
If effects are your thing, the YouCam Perfect application is the application you are looking for. This application allows us add any effect that comes to mind to personalize our selfies. In addition, it also allows us to modify the lighting, cut objects, add decorative elements ...
Beasts
More than an application to edit our images, it is a real time camera app that allows us to see how our selfies would look by applying different filters, decorative elements, stickers. Unlike other applications, Bestie allows us to take group photographs since it incorporates a face detection software on which to apply the filters it offers live.
