When you’re feeling cute and snap a selfie, you might think that more light is a good thing. After all, the Facetune team harps on about great lighting all the time — more should be better, right?
Nope! Lighting is about balance, and it’s still easy to add too much light to your selfie, washing out the entire photo. Unless you’re going for a washed-out look, that ain’t cute.
But don’t delete that selfie just yet. Facetune has plenty of tricks up our sleeves for fixing glare, shine, and bad lighting.
1) Remove glare
While glare can be used for artistic effect in some photos, you probably weren’t going for that when you took a casual car selfie. Now you’ve got a big glare in your photo — how can you fix it?
Use Facetune to downplay the glare and make that too-bright selfie ready for sharing on Instagram:
- Use one of Facetune built-in filters to create an instant aesthetic on your selfie, taking the emphasis away from the bright glare.
- If the light is way too bright, turn it down with Edit > Shadows and Highlight. Play with the balance to get it just right.
- Relight is also a smart way to shift your lighting source, reducing harsh tones and mellowing out your selfie.
2) Mattify shine
Sometimes the wrong lighting can make your face appear as greasy as a day-old cheeseburger. Yuck.
You spend a lot of time and money getting your look right; don’t let bad lighting ruin your hard work. Use Facetune to mattify unflattering shine from bad lighting.
- Go to Smooth > Matte. Use your finger to swipe over areas that look a little too shiny. If the light’s washing out your features, use Edit > Sharpen to add back a little more detail.
3) Tone down the lighting
What do you do if the lighting is just too damn bright? Too much light can wash you out, and that’s definitely not something you want.
- Edit > Brightness gives you a slider to quickly add or remove extra brightness from your selfie. Use Color to add more pigment back into a washed-out selfie. Just don’t add too much color or it’ll look unnatural.
The bottom line for editing glare and shine in selfie photos:
Glare, shine, and washed-out lighting aren't easy to fix without a heavy-duty set of lighting equipment. Assuming you don’t want to lug that around, feel free to selfie without regret with Facetune. Great lighting is just a tap away.
