Light for a profile picture, with only a phone

Light that works

• A window. Stand facing it, or at a slight angle, a metre or so away. Daylight through a window is soft: it lights your face without hard shadows. No direct sun on you.
• Shade on a bright day. Outside, under a tree or beside a building, out of the sun itself. Your face gets the light of the whole sky.
• A cloudy day. Clouds are a huge diffuser. Everything looks even and calm.
• The hour before sunset. Low, warm light from the side. Face it, so it does not light only one half of your face.

Light that does not

• A ceiling lamp. Light from straight above puts shadows under your eyes, nose and chin. It is the most common reason a face looks tired in a photo.
• The midday sun. Hard shadows, and you squint. Move into the shade.
• Light from behind you. A bright window or sky behind you makes the camera darken everything, your face included. Turn around.
• Two colours of light. A warm lamp on one side and daylight on the other gives a face two colours. Turn the lamp off.
• The flash. Flat, bright and shiny. Leave it off.

Three small tricks

1. Something white on the dark side. A sheet of paper, a pillowcase or a white wall bounces light back and softens the shadow on the side away from the window.
2. Tap your face on the screen. The phone then sets focus and brightness for your face, not for the bright window behind it.
3. Move, not the phone settings. Half a step towards the window does more than any filter.

What a retouch can and cannot fix

A retouch can soften shadows and lift the light on a face a little. It cannot bring back what the camera never caught: parts that are pure white or nearly black stay that way. So start with the light, and let a retouch do the last bit. The check tells you whether your face is dark, burnt out, lit from one side or lit from behind.