Instagram is the new thing, as we all know. It's the new Twitter, in photo and text form. And it is not limited to only 140 characters. It also shows off your skills and to get noticed for taking beautiful photos. Best of all, you don't need to be a professional photographer to do so.

People who use Instagram likes to see pretty things & create more pretty things for the world to see. Just follow these tips (and follow me!) and perhaps you will get noticed on Instagram and have your photo appear on the famed 'what's popular' page!




#1 SHOOT WITH NATURAL LIGHT
The lighting, will make or break a photo's success. When you shoot indoors or at night, you will get unfocused and grainy images – I mean, we are talking phone cameras here. Even with tungsten/white lights, your photos will have that ugly yellow/blue twinge to it. So when indoors, try to shoot next to a window. When outdoors, shooting under the direct sunlight might not be the best either, so try to shoot under a bright, shaded area.









#2 USE BLUR TO FOCUS THE ATTENTION
There's a blur feature from Instagram that is very useful. Blurring an image adds depth to your photos. For photos that have a lot of elements that makes it look very busy, blur out the noise with the blur tool. You can blur in parallel directions, creating a toy camera feel. Or you can use a circular blur to focus on just one thing. You do not have to blur the entire image, just a bit on the corners would also suffice.










#3 THE NO-FOCUS METHOD
Wait, what? But you just told me to blur and focus on one thing! Yes, but let me explain. In some situations, photos may look nicer when everything is included. For my example below, food. You can blur the rest and focus on the main food, but you can also leave it as it is, as long as you got the right composition. When taking a photo like this, you need to try a few angles and variations before you can get that perfect messy but beautiful look (sort of like messy-bed hair that sometimes look good).









#4 THE TILTED COMPOSITION
Most camwhores use this. All you need to do is focus on one thing (or yourself), and tilt the camera ever so slightly, then snap. For some reason, this tilt-tactic makes a photo a little more interesting. It can be a light tilt, or even a 90-180 degree tilt. An upside down photo has a sort of interesting appeal. But if you forgot to tilt the camera while taking the shot, you can use Instagram's built-in 'tilt' feature.









#5 HAVE A FEW GOOD PHOTO EDITING TOOLS
Before posting onto Instagram, edit your photos with a good tool. It's not cheating, it's merely enhancing your photos to look better. You can get an apps like Snapseed or Afterlight to do basic editing like brightening, adjusting the saturation and contrast. These tools will totally enhance your photos, giving it depth. I personally love Snapseed, it's the only photo editing app I have. For a more dramatic approach, apps like Pixlromatic can be used to add nice vintage light leaks and scruffy scratches to your photos. There are also a few frame apps to help you frame your photos in very interesting ways. :)






Try these out, they are easy peasy ways to create great photos!