Some people are blessed with knowing how to take the perfect selfies, from the angles to the ‘smize’.
And girlies in the know that there’s one thing that can take your pictures from ‘meh’ to model — and that’s lighting.
Harsh office strip lights, unflattering bathroom spotlights and pokey corners of your tiny flat just won’t cut it.
But equally, few of us have studio-quality lighting set ups in our house shares.
Thankfully TikTok creator @kale_hz has imparted a nugget of wisdom to the masses, teaching us exactly how to capture our best sides.
And, it’s done all from the comfort of your desk.
How to get the perfect selfie lighting
Kale’s video, which has been viewed over 76,000 times, shows the creator panning to her WFH office set up where she has two monitors and a laptop.
With all three directly facing her, Kale explains how the sure-fire way to achieve ‘premium selfie lighting’ is by opening up two blank Excel sheets and pairing those with an empty Outlook email.
The combination of the three makes for a ring light-style set-up, one which should brighten your under eyes and bring out your natural lip pigmentation.
Of course, we had to give the hack a go for ourselves, and lifestyle writer, Ellie Noyce, stepped up.
Ellie says: ‘There’s no denying that the lighting was indeed much better with this hack.
‘I think my skin looks a lot clearer, and my eyes are brighter. By comparison, the sneaky bathroom selfies I tookare much darker.
‘I might not have quite managed eight hours of sleep last night, and that’s reflected in the bags underneath my eyes here.’
One thing to note, of course, is that not everyone has access to three monitors, so there might need to be some sacrifices made.
However, users in the comments offered up some suggestions that only require the use of one screen.
@ForeverSalty wrote: ‘I always use a word doc or note pad for mine.’
Whilst @charlotte, after a more sun-kissed glow, noted that she always ‘googles “orange light” and uses that’ to perfect her office selfies.
The perfect ‘formula’ to edit your photos on an iPhone
Start off by turning your brilliance and exposure to 100. This seems more for the surprise element than anything else, as you turn them both back to 0 at the end of the process.
All the numbers you need are below. Edit in order.
- Exposure: 100
- Brilliance: 100
- Highlights: -35
- Shadows: -28
- Contrast: -30
- Brightness: -15
- Black point: 10
- Saturation: 10
- Vibrancy: 8
- Warmth: 10
- Tint: 39
- Sharpness: 14
- Vignette: 23
- Exposure: 0
- Brilliance: 0
The end result is a sun-kissed, summery photo that looks far more professional than something shot on an iPhone.
Could the perfect office selfie lighting improve your work?
TikTok user @nikkiandnico told her followers that she saw an immediate improvement to her productivity when she started using a small selfie light on her laptop a regular basis.
‘It has made me feel a lot more awake and energetic on my team call, meaning I felt like I was able to lead a lot better,’ she said.
Research shows that light can have an impact on cognitive function, and some companies are investing in technology that syncs overhead lighting with workers’ natural biological clocks.
At LinkedIn’s offices in California and Nebraska, private side rooms come with a remote control, where employees can change the intensity and colour of the lights.
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