How to Take a Picture for an Online Dating Profile

Having a great personality and a terrific online dating profile are important, but without a great picture to match you're not going to see the best results. A picture that shows who you are and represents your personality is key. When you are ready to give online dating a try make sure to spend a lot of time getting a picture that will be perfect for your profile.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Camera

1. Take the picture outside. This is something many people overlook, but when you take a picture indoors and/or use a flash, you're actually altering the way light hits your face, making you appear slightly different from reality. Go outside and just use the natural light, it's almost always much more flattering.
2. Choose a wardrobe that showcases your personal style. Keep it respectable and simple, but feel free to use your favorite shirt or dress. Most importantly, look and feel comfortable in what you're wearing! This will read in the picture.
3. Groom yourself before you take your picture. Shower, clean your hair, and trim your beard--whatever it takes to make you look presentable. Imagine how you would want to look for your first date or a big job interview, and go with it.
4. Smile! It may seem like such a no-brainer, but so many people try to pose themselves in thoughtful ways, or in ways that make them appear intense or brooding. For a first impression, it's better to have someone see you can smile and laugh.
5. Crop and resize your picture to cut out any unnecessary clutter. Trim it down to include as little background as possible, and be sure to center the picture on your face and not on someone else in the photograph!

Tips & Warnings

• Get pictures taken professionally if you really want to impress. Having a staged picture for your online dating profile will help increase your confidence. Getting a professional picture is not very expensive.
• Never, ever use a lewd or pornographic photograph for your online dating profile. First, doing so is illegal and is a bannable offense for most popular online dating services. More importantly, people are not going to take you seriously when they see you in an erotic photograph. Keep it clean!