Tips to take a perfect selfie

All those who love taking selfies, here are some tips that will let you master the art of clicking a perfect selfie.

Lighting: It is important to pay attention to the lighting when taking a selfie. Google natural light will ensure a nice selfie.

Angles: Try out various angles. For instance, tilting your head slightly and taking shots from upper left or right. An angled shot could be more interesting than one taken straight.

Props: Try using props in selfies, Show off those new glasses, that new lipstick shade or manicured hands.

Background: Always watch out for the background before taking that perfect selfie. A poor background or someone photobombing could ruin the selfie.

Be natural: Don't fake a smile or attitude, be natural. Pose naturally, depending upon your mood that day. This will ensure the smile or picture doesn't look plasticky. 

Experiment: Don't go for a usual selfie. Try and experiment with different poses like the mirror selfie, selfie of a selfie, pout selfie or crop those images and you could also add cool filters. Use a selfie-stick that will let you hold the phone high up and take some cool shots. 

Apps: And, if you can't get your head to work around all of this, then AI will do it for you. Scientists have developed a new smartphone app that will help people to learn the art of taking perfect selfies. The app is integrated with an algorithm that directs the user where to position the camera, allowing them to take the best shot possible.

In developing the algorithm, Vogel and Qifan Li, a former Master's student at Waterloo, used three dimensional (3D) digital scans of "average" looking people. They took hundreds of "virtual selfies" by writing code to control a virtual smartphone camera and computer-generated lighting which allowed them to explore different composition principles, including lighting direction, face position and face size.

Using an online crowd-sourcing service, the researchers had thousands of people vote on which of the virtual selfie photos they felt were best, and then mathematically modelled the patterns of votes to develop an algorithm that can guide people to take the best selfie.

They later had real people take selfies with a standard camera app, and an app powered by the algorithm. Based on more online ratings, they found a 26 per cent improvement in selfies taken with the new app.

With inputs from PTI

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