Instagram is ingrained in your daily life: you capture everything from that seriously-perfect selfie to those special everyday moments, like what you had for lunch today. But the real question is, “what filter should I apply to create the best effect and make the most awesome prints?”

Instagram filters are perfect for adding your own artistic touch to your photographs. Each filter has a special quality and finish, but in the heat of the moment (aka, right before posting that photo), you might be confused on which filter to choose.

Here are our top three favorite Instagram filters:

Inkwell – This black and white filter is perfect for giving your photographs a vintage vibe. On paper, you’ll notice a much stronger contrast between light and dark, making the details of your photograph even more clear and vibrant.

Valencia – This filter increases the exposure of an image and adds a warm tonal quality, resulting in a faded appearance. Backlit screens can actually lighten the colors of your printed image, so you can expect the colors to be more prominent when you print photos with this filter.

Hudson – This filter is great for outdoor shots, as it increases the depth of shadows and adds a cool tint. With the heightened contrast of paper printing, a photograph filtered with Hudson will look very modern and icy.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your photos! Fun tip: you can even create collages of the same photo with multiple filters. Print Instagram photos as 4×4 prints at any Walgreens today!

Share Life’s Happy,
Katie

It’s here, it’s here! Summer is finally upon us!

But with the change of the weather comes weddings, BBQs, graduations, and birthday parties almost every weekend. Time to make the perfect Photo Book! Because we know picking the right template might be a little overwhelming, Photo by Walgreens decided to give a helping hand.

Here are some of our favorite Photo Book templates:

Starry-Eyed Grad
This Graduation template is simply the best if simply for that lime green and navy argyle print. It gives a 1960’s vintage vibe (which is ever so popular, by the way) that makes it perfect for everyone. Fun and vibrant, just like their future!

Bright
Birthdays, road trips, scrapbooking those abroad traveling adventures: this template can do it all! The bright colors will instantly remind you of all the fun you had this summer. I especially love those charming flowers; they can’t help but make everyone happy.

Lovey Dovey
Break out the champagne, your favorite couple is finally tying the knot!  This cutesy lovebirds and sparkly ring template should fit the bill. And you might notice that the light blue resembles a certain jewelry company known for its extravagant diamonds. The bride won’t help but love that.

And if these templates don’t grab you, no worries.  We have plenty more to choose from on our website!

Need help on how to find these sassy templates? Just go Walgreens and choose your Photo Book. Next, upload your photos and then choose any template you’d like! That’s it!

Share Life’s Happy,
Taneisha

Break out the back-to-chest poses and boutonnieres, it’s prom season!

Time for oversized flowers, fancy photo opps and layers (and layers… and maybe one more layer) of tulle. Or maybe you still have the occasional flashbacks of flammable crimped hair and ill-fitting rented tuxedos. Let’s relive it all together!

Show us your best photo from your prom on Instagram! It could have been taken this year or 30 years ago – the Photo by Walgreens team wants to see it all! We will choose our favorite two photos and crown our Prom King and Prom Queen. Those two lucky winners will be rewarded with free Prints from Instagram for a year (a $150 value)!* How you can say no to that?

Make sure to tag your photo with the hashtag #WalgreensProm when you post it to Instagram by May 10. For official rules, click here.

Have you ever printed your Instagram Photos with the Walgreens app? Find out about them here!

So, dig out those photos for the world see! We promise we won’t laugh hard.

Share Life’s Happy,
Taneisha

*Prize valued at 365 mobile prints from Instagram redeemed in store totaling a $150 Photo by Walgreens gift certificate.

Welcome back!

I hope you enjoyed our blog last on Friday on indoor photography tips. For our second part, we are going to give some tips on how to take your best photographs outside.

Here are a few pros to shooting in the wilderness:

• You can get the best wide shots of scenic landscapes and skylines!
• Those big, bright studio lights? Those actually mimic natural sunlight. So what better studio would there be than the great outdoors?!
• Lighting will always be much stronger outdoors. In fact, try taking photos with overcast. Shadows will look softer and will seemingly illuminate the skin.

But as you know, all good things must have a downside:

• Daylight is not a steady source. It’s constantly changing due to time, weather and location.
• It’s pretty tough to time your schedule around the sun. So many restrictions (you can only shoot from 6am to 7pm, decent weather conditions, etc.) makes it very difficult to plan the best time to shoot.
• Last but not least, you must beware of photo-bombers! There’s nothing worse in this world than realizing your favorite picture has a stranger in the background jumping and making a goofy face.

If you follow these outdoor photography tips, you should have no trouble taking photos indoors or out! Have any tips we missed? Send us a comment!

Share Life’s Happy,
Taneisha