HOW TO TAKE A PORTRAIT PICTURE FOR YOUR CV WITH YOUR PHONE.

Obviously, this is a free and quick solution to get an "acceptable" portrait. When you hire a professional photographer specializing in portraits, the results are... professionals. It is another league. (Feel free to check my?corporate photography portfolio.)

I bet there are many photo studios in your town where you can get a portrait for 50-80 EUR. But just in case you don't have time, or budget, to hire a professional photographer, here you go some tips that will make a big, BIG difference.

1. BACKGROUND:

• Keep the background as simple as possible, not necessarily white, but simple, so the focus is on you. If you cannot find a simple background, you can hang a white sheet behind you (use your imagination). It doesn't have to be perfectly flat; you can remove it later in the edition, but it will help a lot.

2. OUTFIT:

• Dress according to the role/company culture – If you are applying to be an investment banker, suit up. For other roles, business casual may be a better fit, or even the profession's typical uniform (E.g., chef's jacket).
• Don't cause a distraction. You don't want recruiters to focus on your looks but on your skills and experience instead. No fashion statements, crazy hairstyles, sunglasses, or makeup experiments.?
• Avoid patterns and thin stripes, they don’t work well on camera and computer screens. There is a thing called the moire effect when thin strips close together create a secondary rippling pattern.

3. EXPRESSION:

• Smile. Not a huge, cheesy grin, no Ronald McDonald smile, but a friendly, natural smile really can go a long way. Be confident. Think about something that brings you happiness; your pet, your girlfriend, your kids, and "smile with your eyes." That is the difference between a fake smile and a sincere one, the eyes. You must smile with your whole face, almost imperceptible, but feel it, and the others will notice. Trust me. I have been acting and taking portraits for many years.

You must smile with your whole face, almost imperceptible, but feel it, and the others will notice.

This is the standard picture we would take with the phone over a white wall, without any knowledge about photography:

Horrible, please, let me tell you how to improve it:

?4. LIGHT:

• Use only one light source, the sun. It cannot be cheaper! To get the best results, do the photo shooting during the daytime. Now,?seriously, as the sun will be your only light source, in general, try to choose the moment when the sun is higher and stronger for your shooting (around noon). The light will bounce all over the street and reflect a beautiful glow through your window.?Turn off all the lights to avoid color contamination and weird uncontrolled shadows. Stand closer to a window (the closer, the better); if the sun comes directly, use a soft white curtain or a white sheet to diffuse the light. Then rotate yourself until the light hits you at approximately 45 degrees. The best way to find the sweet rotation point is to set your phone in selfie mode (front camera), put the phone in front of you, and start to rotate toward the window until the shadow in the eye further to the window disappears.

• Use a reflector. Find something with a white or reflective surface to reflect the light from the window and fill the shadows of your face. In this example, I am using a photography reflector (10-15 EUR on Amazon), but you can use a white foam board, a white sheet, DIY with aluminum foil, etc. Rotate the reflector until the light nicely makes the shadows disappear. Again, the closer, the better.

5. PHONE SET UP:

• Clean the lens. It might sound obvious but, please, don't forget to clean the camera lens before shooting!
• Don't use the front camera for selfies. The back camera always has a better lens.
• Camera far away and zoom in. The standard lens in a phone is a wide lens. It deforms too much. Put the camera far away from you, at least 1.5m, and zoom in. Unless you have orangutan arms you should find an assistant. Ask for somebody to take the picture (In this example, my 11 years old son did it) or use a tripod or just find the way to keep the phone at the desired position using a ladder, books, etc., and use a timer. The result will be way, way more pleasant.
• Filters off. You are tempted to use those cool filters on your phone because you think you look younger and better, but it is not a good idea. Keep that to mislead on Tinder. It will look fake and unnatural.?

Just with these few tips, this is the result:

Not perfect, but much better! Now let's do some super easy editing, no retouching.

6. BASIC PHOTO EDITING:

Professional photo editing is quite complicated to explain in one article, so I will apply some general, basic, and easy steps to improve the picture. You can use any photo editor. I will use for this example, Adobe Photoshop 2020 (you can download a 7-day free trial).

1. Send the picture to your computer and open it on Photoshop.
2. Go to Filter/Camera Raw Filter.

3. Let's correct the color. In the upper left corner, there are some icons. Click on the first eyedrop (White Balance Tool).

4. Click on the white background on your picture (if the background is not white look for something white, like the shirt collar).

5. Now, the general look. In the right panel, click on "Auto." It can't be easier! Usually, it works "well," but if you don't like the result, play with the sliders to get the desired look. To explain how to do it correctly might need a few articles. We are trying to do something fast that doesn't require any skill.?

6. Click "OK" in the lower right corner.

7. The last step; let's sharpen the picture. Go to Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask:

8. Set some value around 50% for the amount, and click "OK".

9. Safe the file as JPG and that's all! Ready to be used on your CV.

SUMMARIZING:

Note: To remove or change the background is not difficult; you can find dozen of tutorials on Youtube. My favorites are in PHLEARN.