How to Smile for Pictures Perfectly Every Single Time

You most certainly have looked in the mirror, gave yourself a nice little smile and thought “Man, I look good today”. This is a very universal feeling. And it sure is lovely feeling confident in your own skin. And when you give yourself that little smile, it is reassuring that you in fact look good that day.

But how is it that when you smile at the camera it comes off looking a bit awkward? At times you even forget to smile and the picture ends up looking as if you were being forced to put on the spot. So how to smile for pictures naturally? It is not a stupid question. And after you are done reading this article you will feel a whole lot better about your smile and your pictures. 

You are probably used to either not smiling at all for the pictures or smiling without showing too many teeth. Is it because you are not too confident in your smile? Do you think you wouldn’t look nice if you smiled with your teeth? Or is it just plain awkward to you and doesn’t make sense why would anyone smile for a picture and show teeth? 

While all are valid reasonings, when you smile showing your teeth radiates confidence and approachability.  But if you feel awkward and saying “cheese” for the photo simply isn’t cutting it anymore, especially when you are figuring out how to smile for school pictures, consider these steps to help you achieve that beautiful smile. 

1. Relax Your Face and Stay Calm

Relax your face and don’t think too much. Take a deep breath, relax and make sure you are not clenching on your teeth. It’s ok to feel nervous especially when you are more critical of how you are being perceived by the camera and it is perfectly natural. Breathing exercises are usually recommended to help you calm your muscles so you don’t seem overwhelmed and stressed in the photo. 

2. Part Your Lips Slightly

There’s no need to open your mouth all the way. Simply part your lips a little and give a subtle smile looking towards the camera and showing your teeth a little. Sometimes a full and wide grin may be going a little overboard and seem a little unnatural.

A good rule of thumb is to either say “money” or “chocolate” or even “toothpaste”, these words help you get that natural smile everytime where in truth, saying “cheese” doesn’t always cut it. 

3. Say the Right Words

Don’t forget to smile with your eyes. Your eye muscles contract when you smile wholeheartedly and you would want your smiling picture to radiate the same expression. 

A great hack to bring out that genuine smile is if you begin thinking of something you truly enjoy. It is unrealistic to assume that you would always be in a jolly lively mood where the picture brings out the best version of you. Thinking about something or a moment you have enjoyed the most will bring out a natural smile to your face where you wouldn’t have to put much effort to begin with. 

4. Smile With Your Eyes

Don’t squint too hard. You know your smile the best, so try to be as natural with it as possible. Smile but make sure your eye muscles only contract to an extent how they normally do when you give that subtle smile to somebody.

5. Practise Makes Perfect

Find a good mirror to practise if you are unsure about your smile, or take a few selfies or pictures beforehand to see what kind of a toothy smile suits you best so when the time comes you pull out your most amazing and beautiful smile. 

Are you one of those people who are a little too comfortable with showing teeth so when the time comes, say you have to take a group picture with a group of senior professionals of your company it doesn’t make sense to smile with a full toothy grin, you can’t pull off a normal smile without showing teeth. 

You don’t want to end up looking awkward with your tightly pursed lips and for that, you need to learn how to smile for pictures without showing teeth. 

1. Calm Your Expressions

Relax your face a little. Don’t get all nervous, yes it’s easier said than done, but it’s really just a smile so no need to put unnecessary pressure on yourself to look good.

2. Achieve the Perfect Lip Position

Press your lips together, but don’t press them too hard together so it seems that you are trying too hard and you do not want to be in the picture to begin with. Form a soft natural smile, and don’t think about smiling all the way up to your ears, a natural light smile often does the trick.

3. Let Your Eyes Speak

Just as you smile with your teeth, add a little movement to your eyes. Your eyes tell a story and if your mouth smiles and your eyes don’t, at times it wouldn’t be very difficult to tell that you are only forcing a smile. So don’t forget to squint just a little, not too much, only a little to seemingly give a genuine smile. 

If you find it hard to smile, you can either imagine somebody you are really fond of to be behind the lens. The thought of them will likely bring a smile to your face and another thing you could experiment with is asking the photographer to tell you a joke. Usually on spot jokes are hilarious and only good enough to bring a light hearted smile to face.

4. Lift Your Chin for Confidence

Lift your chin to exudate confidence from your face. As professional as the photo may be, keeping your smile natural and holding it with confidence will help others engage with your photo a lot more. So say if you have a confidence-exuding photo on your resume, chances are the hiring manager will likely stop to look at your resume and might even consider giving you an interview call.

5. Practice for Picture-Perfect Results

Again, be sure to practice. You can smile in front of the mirror and as awkward as it may seem to be, it will eventually help you practise for that group photo where you will seamlessly outshine all the others in your team.

BeautyPlus is certainly treated as those third-party tools where you rely to get all your editing done before you post your picture or video on social media. It is completely natural if your true self doesn’t come through on the camera lens. 

If you either forgot to smile or the picture was taken a split second after just letting go of your smile and now you have this picture with a poker face, how can you fix it? 

There most certainly is a hack for you that will restore your smile and make it seem so natural as if you were smiling for real when the picture was taken. Follow these simple steps to restore your smile:

1. To put a smile on your face, you will first need to install BeautyPlus on your mobile device, simply head over to Google PlayStore on Android or the Appstore on your iOS device and install it.
2. Open BeautyPlus app, and you can begin editing your pictures, just tap on the “Photo” and select the photo you would like to edit.

3. Tap on the “Portrait” tab at the bottom toolbar. 

4. Within the portrait tab, swipe left and tap on the “Expression” option, here is where you can add different expressions to add to your image. 

5. See the Smile filter? Tap on it and BeautyPlus will process the image, and add that precious smile to your image.

6. Then exit the Expression screen by tapping on the “Tick” icon on the bottom right. 

7. Now go ahead and save your result by tapping the bold “Save” button. You will find it in the top right corner.

You can see how subtle and natural the smile appears to be without causing any distortion to other features of the face. BeautyPlus is one of the few free tools that truly brings out the naturally beautiful side of you, where anyone would take a double take if you tell them that the picture is edited.\

Many say that a smile is one of the best features of anyone’s face, and so it is important you wear it with confidence and pride. It is really important that you look your best in your photos, especially ones that are meant to be put up on professional platforms. BeautyPlus can help you achieve the smile you want whether you want a slight grin or a hearty toothy smile. It’s natural, and seamless, and doesn’t distort any of your facial features while giving you that natural glee appearance.