Apps that have helped me Blogging and Instagramming

 

I had thought for a long, long time about starting up a blog. And honestly, it was applying for The Great British Bake Off that finally made me just go for it. During the phone interview they asked if I had a blog, at the time the answer was no, which then got me thinking…why not??

The support and advice from other friends and bloggers was brilliant. A few of my close friends are bloggers and instagrammers, and they were fantastic. I also watched A LOT of youtube videos on how to start up a blog and instagram account, as well as reading many blogs and articles. Once all my research was done, I began.

I use WordPress as the platform for my blog, which was easy to use and set up, although it did then take me MONTHS (no exaggeration here) to work out how to create my webpage and essentially build the website.  I then deliberated for a long time about how I wanted my blog to look; the theme. I bought a separate theme for my blog – which is basically the look of your website. So down to font, colouring etc. WordPress have many free themes, but there were none that I loved.

Once my website was just how I wanted it to look I was so excited; I then knew I had made the right decision and the many, many months of hard work and research was worth it.

I had many ideas for content, which I would write down when I thought of them, so that I always had content ideas ready to go for the times when I have writers block.

Now before I start let me say I am not a professional, far from it, just enthusiastic (that counts right?) and enjoying learning about photography and editing. Photography I feel is SO important in creating a beautiful account. I don’t know about you, but when I look at an account it’s made an impression on me within seconds, and its those few seconds that you have with your account to grab the attention of that viewer and make them love you enough to press ‘follow.’ So- what makes a beautiful account…

• Decide on what your account is about and stick to it. Otherwise followers will soon lose interest if your content is too varied. So for me my themes are Baking, Motherhood and Fitness.
• Decide on your theme and look. This includes colouring. I use many photo editing apps and have created my own custom filters, that I feel fits my ‘look.’
• Quality over quantity. If you don’t love that image, don’t share it. You will only keep looking back through your feed and focusing on that image that you wish you hadn’t posted.
• Plan your account – I use UNUM which is an app where you can plan your grid and see how it will look overall as you scroll through. Eg – I try to space out images that are similar so my feed flows well and colours don’t clash.

As well as this, there have been some apps that have really helped me whilst blogging and instagramming. So I thought I would share them here, for anyone else thinking of starting up a blog.

Organisation:

UNUM 

This app is great for planning out what your grid will look like aesthetically. It is a great place to get organised and store your images also, so you know what you will be posting for the next few days.

Photo Editing:

Lightroom – This is great for general editing, there are also presets on there if you want,or you can play around with all of the tools and see what look you like. The great thing about Lightroom is that it will sync with wherever it is, so you can upload images from your phone onto the mobile app, then go onto your desktop version of Lightroom on your PC/laptop and it will be  in there, which you can then save to your laptop and then use,  like I will in my blog posts. So quick and easy.

VSCO – I love this app. There are many preset filters on there, or you can actually create your own. I have created 3 filters, which I feel fit my ‘theme.’ I then use one of these depending on whether the photo was indoors or outdoors. Or sometimes if a photo is really dark to start with I might edit the exposure/contrast/skin tone or other tools to get the picture to a better standard I suppose, before I then apply my theme filters.

 

 

After light – Another good editing app but this is the one I use the least. This has some extra features on that are really fun, like the ‘Dust’ edit option, which creates the look of dust or marks on your film (olden days). I know this look is quite popular with a lot of igers – so this is how you can get it! This is quite a technical app actually and I don’t use half of it, but hopefully over the next few months I will start to play around with it more.

Snapseed – I mainly use this app for ‘healing’ and editing out things that I didn’t want in the picture. Like, a bottle that was in the corner of a good picture of a cake (obviously didn’t want the baby bottle in there), or when taking a picture of a bunch of roses, if there are a few petals that look like they’ve gone over, this can be edited to look like they are as fresh as the rest! Clever hey! Again you have preset filters on this app if you prefer to use these.

Canva – For making my Pinterest images and youtube thumbnails. You can also use this for Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, your stories and more! It’s a great app where you can upload your images to a premade template, which you can then add your text in on top. It creates a professional and clean looking image – ideal for Pinterest I think.

 

With all of these apps, once you are happy with your editing, you can save it directly to your camera roll. Which is when I will then upload to Lightroom so it is then on my laptop.

 

Stories:

Unfold – This is an app which helps you create clean and beautiful looking stories. It is so quick to do and then you have options of adding text in as well.

 

Well, that was a long one !! I hope it’s been useful, I am not a professional, just learning as I go along and enjoying it.

Are there any other editing apps you like to use? Let me know.

Thanks for reading,

Carly