Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Be honest. If you put photos of yourself on social media, do you filter them?

103 replies

Aldibaldi555 · 13/09/2019 10:31

Ok so everyone I know my age (35-40 bracket) looks amazing on Instagram / Facebook.

I point my phone camera at myself and my goodness I look like sh1t!

Blotchy skin... I just can’t explain it I look hideous.

The sad thing is it means I have next to no photos of myself and DC as I look so shit Sad I genuinely get upset that if I died or something DC would have literally one or two photos of me Sad

I don’t think I’m bad looking, and indeed pre-kids I was told I was pretty.

Without meaning to sound vain, there’s people I know in real life who I would say I’m as good looking as, but they look great on Insta / FB and I look crap.

So, is everyone filtering photos?
What filter do you use because I need it!!

OP posts:
YeOldeTrout · 13/09/2019 21:47

I put pics of me on Facebook. Since I'm not everyone I don't use a filter.
If people don't like my ugly gob they can look at something else

I'm interested in what people are doing (having fun with friends, out with mutual family?) not if their skin looks good.

Things like magazine pics where everyone looks blemish free... I don't like to look at pics like that b/c obviously I don't have anything in common with those people.

bonbonours · 13/09/2019 22:26

I agree with YeOldeTrout - when I do put pictures of myself on social media it is because we are somewhere interesting or doing something interesting, or with friends or family. I would never put a random picture of myself up for no apparent reason except to show people how beautiful I look....

Independentcandidate · 13/09/2019 22:53

bonbon totally with you there. Baffled at one particular friend who snaps herself at all times of the day in her own house. Raving she is.

YaySeptember · 14/09/2019 00:05

I don't use my phone to take photos of people really because it's very unflattering so I don't ever use the filters that come with snap chat or facebook or whatever. I don't like the overly smooth, obviously filtered look anyway.

I have taken a few photos of myself recently using my camera though and I have edited them in photoshop. As well as the basic noise reduction, sharpening and bolts correction, I have cloned out a few spots (my skin has erupted recently and I have so many spots) and reduced my eye bags. I have also evened out my skin tone and ever so slightly reduced the appearance of a few forehead wrinkles. I've done it very subtly though so it's barely noticeable and I haven't made myself look like a clingfilm wrapped doll.

YaySeptember · 14/09/2019 00:10

Bolts correction? Confused colour correction! I'm not bloody Frankenstein's Monster 😂

inwood · 14/09/2019 00:19

I don't use filters. Thankfully am much more photogenic than the reality!

NineInchSnails · 14/09/2019 07:42

Not ever. Nope. I don't want to bump into someone I haven't seen for 10 years only for then to recoil in horror at my appearance as from my FB pics they thought I looked like I was still at school.

My best friend does it (plus is wildly photogenic anyway) but in real life she is lovely too. Don't know why she feels the need to lie online when she is perfect without it.

wonkylegs · 14/09/2019 07:56

I don't because I hardly ever have photos of me but most of the mums I know (30-50yos) use filters because they definitely don't look like that in real life.

TheClitterati · 14/09/2019 08:14

I don't filter but I am selective about what I post. Most people look bloody silly with filters - all that soft fuzz.

But my absolute pet hate is when people use filters on babies. My niece does this all the time. She applies a filter to her baby giving her baby long eyelashes and pouts etc and everyone piles in to comment on how absolutely gorgeous the baby is. These people are fucking insane? I'll never ever comment on young children that have had filters applied to them like this.

I just turned the camera on myself accidentally lying in bed this morning at holy fuck I got a fright.

Climbingwindmill · 14/09/2019 08:19

No I never use filters. I rarely put photos on of me but I if I do I’ll choose one in which I look ok. If anything though in the last few years I’ve become less fussy as I don’t care so much what other people think of me.
I see most of my fb friends fairly regularly anyway so what’s the point of presenting a wildly inaccurate image?

Bodicea · 14/09/2019 08:23

I don’t really get the term filters.
So I do use the edits such as Clarendon, gingham on Instagram. But that is just to make the photo look nice/right brightness etc. I use it on pics of kids etc as well as myself. Is this classed as a filter?
No I don’t use those weird snap chat ones. You can tell when people have done that. It looks silly. And their eyes always look strangely large in their head!

Frouby · 14/09/2019 08:27

I put some photos of me on fb this week, saying exactly the same OP. Daft selfies of me and the horse, just because we were bored waiting for blacksmith and she was being cuddly.

Expected the same cute photos I see everyone else posting of similar things. Horse looked like a moomin, I looked either angry, off my tits on cocaine (attempted wide eyed innocence 🤣) or I had 3 chins and 497 wrinkles.

Posted them anyway saying everyone must use filters etc. Apparently they do and I got some advice on which ones to use. But what's the point? No one walks around in real life in an ig filter, everyone on my fb knows what I look like and all it does is make other people feel rubbish if they don't know about filters.

Also I am rubbish at technical stuff so wouldn't be able to work filters. Would like to be able to bunny ears and shit on though, just because it's ridiculous.

Itstheprinciple · 14/09/2019 08:30

No! My photos are usually of me chilling out in a dressing gown with a cat on my knee. Its usually evening, any trace of make up has long gone. People know what I look like in real life so why would I filter?

I mean sometimes I filter for a laugh or a bit of fun with DD but, again, people know what I really look like and the filters are usually so obvious anyway. No one has softened edges in that way!

Having said all that, my phone selfie cam automatically resets to 'beauty mode' each time (trying to tell me something?!) so sometimes I end up inadvertently with a filtered photo but I realise and take it off. I don't like how I look, it doesn't look like me.

duckme · 14/09/2019 08:32

I don't use a filter. My friends know what I look like anyway. I have picked through photos that make me look less of a troll in the past, but I've even given up on doing that now.

ifigoup · 14/09/2019 08:33

I use a tooth whitening feature on myself, and have occasionally narrowed my nose Blush but nothing on my skin.

I recently bumped into an old school friend who posts a lot of selfies but who I hadn’t seen in the flesh for about 15 years. I was shocked at how old she looked compared to her photos. I guess that means the filters she uses are pretty good! But I guess it also means that it must be obvious to people who see her all the time that she’s filtering!

roseunicornblower · 14/09/2019 08:33

I hate having my photo taken and if I do take one I use a filter sometimes. Normally it's me and the kids messing around with the funny filters.

damncats · 14/09/2019 08:34

I rarely post photos of myself but if I do I don’t filter. My MIL frequently posts selfies but won’t do so without using a snapchat or instagram filter first. Which means that the photos never actually look like her beautiful 67 year old self, but instead like some weird, smoothed out, eyelash extended version of her. I think that it’s a shame and there’s a big difference between that sort of behaviour and using a weird novelty filter once in a while.

thatmustbenigelwiththebrie · 14/09/2019 08:40

I don't think I have ever put a photo of myself on social media but there are a few I've been tagged in.I genuinely don't care how shit I look, it's just a photo.

sweetiepie1979 · 14/09/2019 09:01

Can you filter pics on an iPhone ? I look so bad in pics with kids .....

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 14/09/2019 09:16

No filter. I wouldn't know how to filter them even if I wanted to. And I don't imagine there's a filter that exists that could make me look anything other than a clean but not terribly attractive little lady with big specs and perpetually messy hair.

Littlepond · 14/09/2019 09:20

I will happily take and post pictures of my hideous face without filter. It’s me. I do like a filter, or an arty shot where I’m half hiding behind a mug of coffee or something, but I also “hide behind” comical pictures where I know I look awful and that’s the point, IYSWIM?
I have so many pictures of myself and I’m not vain or think I’m attractive at all, I just like to document life with me and my kids. If other people prefer my face with a filter then tough shit, it’s my face. There’s no filter when they see me in real life!!

Cegbee · 14/09/2019 10:49

Yes of course!

StCharlotte · 14/09/2019 11:10

A friend of mine who will be 60 next year (and naturalky looks amazing) has filtered her profile picture to within an inch of its life. She doesn't look younger. She looks like a cabbage patch doll. Very odd.

FlyingBanana · 14/09/2019 11:57

Those who say "of course" haven't said why.

AgeLikeWine · 14/09/2019 12:01

No.

I’m not a big user of social media, and rarely post photos of myself or anyone else, but if I did I certainly wouldn’t filter them, mainly because I wouldn’t have a clue how to.

Swipe left for the next trending thread