The viral TikTok photo editing formula makes life look like a sunkissed wonderland.
TikTok users are finally taking advantage of iOS editing features with this “hack,” which is less of a hack and more of an editing formula that plays with shadows, saturation, and color.
In one of the most popular videos demonstrating this method, TikTok creator anaugazz showed viewers the importance of trusting the process. The video, posted on Friday, has 12.5 million views. Using a selfie, anaugazz raised the photo’s exposure and brilliance to the highest possible setting. Then, she adjusted the photo’s highlights, shadows, black point, saturation, vibrance, warmth, and tint to achieve the final image’s dreamy vibe.
In the midst of editing, the photo looks like a relic of MySpace posts. Don’t be ashamed of blown-out selfies, though — even superstars like Lizzo fell prey to the overexposed, oversaturated aesthetic of the early internet.
Once you play with the iOS vignette tool and then lower the photo’s exposure and brilliance to zero, you’ll end up with a sunkissed image worthy of any summer mood board.
Here’s the exact formula anaugazz used to achieve this final product.
First, she changed the exposure and brilliance to 100, and then adjusted the highlights to -35 and the shadows to -28. After that, she lowered the contrast to -30 and the brightness to -15. Then she increased the photo’s black point to 10, the saturation to 10, the vibrance to 8, and the warmth to 10. She pushed the tint up to 29, upped the photo’s sharpness to 14, and brought the vignette feature to 23. Finally, she slid the exposure and brilliance back down to 0.
Don’t believe the hype? Here’s another example of the editing formula posted by TikTok creator kawehi_. The golden hour clouds look unreal.
It’s worth noting that this editing formula seems to work best with photos taken in bright, natural light. Happy editing!