Today I am sharing 10 photo editing apps to help you improve your photos and videos for Instagram – or wherever you post!
Instagram is one of the best tools to promote your blog, your brand, and your perspective.
With Instagram members now surpassing even those on Twitter, it’s definitely a social media outlet you want to get into if you’re looking to gain wider exposure for your blog.
I waited to join Instagram, I was worried it would be just another social media outlet to manage – but once I joined, I was immediately hooked. Now Instagram is my favourite outlet and tool to connect with readers. It’s also an excellent tool to stay connected to the blogging community and brands.
Why Do You Need High-Quality Images for Instagram, and How Do Editing Apps Help?
Just like on your blog, you want to provide high-quality images that’ll grab the attention of the viewer. You want these images to be eye-catching, unique, and on-brand.
The thing is though, we can’t always lug around our DSLR cameras and laptop to shoot these images! Thankfully, you don’t need to because there are a variety of editing tools you can easily download which will allow you to edit your iPhone photos like a pro.
The 10 Best Photo Editing Apps For iPhone Photos
Lightroom
Lightroom is my favourite photo editor. I use it on my computer to edit all my camera photos, and now I have the app on my phone so I can easily edit my iPhone photos, too.
The crazy thing about this app is that its totally FREE to download on your phone. This app allows you to fine-tune your image so that it looks exactly how you want.
Cost: Free
Camera+:
Improve the photos you snap simply by upgrading your camera to Camera+! It’s a provides higher quality images, and also gives you unique editing tools to further refine your photos before posting on Instagram.
It’s only $3 and gives you a ton of options and filters for your images. All of the filters can be customized to either be applied subtly or more intensely to your images.
I personally have found that the clarity, tint, and brightness tools on Camera+ help to create images that almost look as though they were taken on my camera.
Cost: $3.99 – Offers In-App Purchases
SnapSeed
SnapSeed is another great photo editing app. It has a ton of “looks” (filters) and tool options so that you can really turn a so-so photo into something great. In SnapSeed you can even edit out a boring sky for something more exciting.
Cost: Free
VSCO Cam:
I had heard about this APP from a few other bloggers and decided to give it a whirl. In the last few weeks, I have been using this APP and have really been impressed by the variety of tools it has.
One thing that I quite liked about VSCO Cam is the fade option, as it creates a really beautiful soft filter over the photo.
Cost: Free – Offers In-App Purchases
Pic-Tap-Go
One of my absolute favourite photo editing apps is Pic-Tap-Go.
You easily can add filters to a photo and then alter the amount of the filter applied to the image.
The really unique part of this APP is that you can actually layer filter to achieve the exact look you like. This tool is pretty much a quick one-stop-shop to editing your photos and creating beautiful images.
I personally love the “airy” option as it really does add an overall brightness to an image that’s really soft and pretty.
AfterLight
I discovered this tool a few months ago and now use it on nearly all of my images.
This tool has options which allow you to edit more subtly than the other tools. You can opt to use the filters, effects, or go into the tools section to make smaller adjustments. I personally love all the filters available on Afterlight.
I also like their effects range as you can easily add dust effects to your image.
Cost: Free – Offers In-App Purchases
Canva
Canva is another great tool for creating engaging IG posts and stories. It has a couple of filter features for the actual image but I personally am not a fan of their filter selection. Instead, I like this app for fonts, templates, etc.
Cost: Free – Offers In-App Purchases
PicsArt
PicsArt is a neat app that has a ton of effects and templates available so you can get really creative with your edits. Want to look like you’re on the cover of Vogue? No problem. How about add bubbles all around you? Sure. Maybe you’d like to add stars to your image? Do it up.
The best thing is that PicsArt also has a ton of tutorials available on their app homepage to help get you started.
Cost: Free – Offers In-App Purchases
A ColorStory
Colour story is a photo editing app that offers you editing tools such as filters, effects, adjustments, touch adjustment (ie. lightening or smoothing a specific spot of an image), and resizing a photo.
It’s a great app for you to get all your editing done in, like Lightroom, but it has a set amount of filters and effects for you to choose from as well. It comes with basic effects and filters however if you want their more advanced sets you’ll either have to pay for that set or subscribe to their monthly payment plans.
Cost: Free – Offers In-App Purchases
App For Type
App for Type is an app that has a bunch of really unique fonts available for you to use as overlays on your images. In particular, I like using this for my IG Stories, but it’s great for posts, too.
Cost: Free – Offers In-App Purchases
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Just downloaded Camera+ and it's brilliant! Great post 🙂
Emily x
Wonders of a Fairytale
I'm going to download the camera+… I like to try and make my pictures look better xox ♡
This is great, Bree– thank you! I always use the sharpen filter in Insta too, even after editing with another app like VSCO cam. I'm going to check out Afterlight now too!
I love Afterlight so much! One of the best things about it is that you can create a custom filter, so all of my Instagram filters have the same look due to me using that same filter! Great post!
~Sara
Sincerely, Sara
Great post. Love these tips!
I always use VSCO Cam lately! The filters are really nice 🙂
Hello and thanks for sharing that!
Still need to get into Instagram… boohoo. Will definately return here to steal some tips when I finally get started :P.
Kisses,
Lucia
Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ Lucia Flores Diary Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ
These apps are lovely indeed, i use all the 4 of them, but as for me i can't even imagine going viral without managing apps. I'm pretty sure you, Bree, are familiar with apps from my list, but maybe someone else will find it useful. First of all iconosquare.com, it is simply the best statistical app. Second – scheduling, i use postso.com. Third – unfollow app fast-unfollow.com as i use follow4follow hashtag actively, and new limits imposed on actions won't let me get rid of large amounts of users.
Thanks! Yes, these are mainly image editing APPS. I do use Iconosquare, but I do not use any scheduling apps, I haven't used follow4follow / unfollow either. I did write an entire post on Iconosquare though that you may find interesting, find it here: https://www.theurbanumbrella.com/2015/08/how-to-use-iconosquare-for-instagram.html
Nice apps. I like this post. Thank you so much for sharing.
remove background from image services
Not bad apps. I'm using VSCO Cam and it's really awesome, and avoiding other apps like the plague lol) Hootsuite, by the by, helps with analytics and managing, zengram provides real followers. If you earn money on instagram an choose another apps, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Thanks, Alex! Yes, hootsuite is a great management tool and does provide great analytics – as does Iconosquare! The apps mentioned in this post are just for photo editing, but I should share a post on a few of the analytics tools I use.