Best Apps for Editing Instagram Photos
These four apps are the best apps for editing Instagram photos or just for your own personal use!
I get a lot of questions asking how I edit my photos, so I thought it was about time I shared some of my favorite apps for editing! First things first, I should let you know that I am not a professional photographer, and I have no idea how to work photoshop. I shoot on a Sony a6300 with either a 18mm lens or a 35mm lens, and I think I have gotten good enough at editing, that I can kind of cheat the system and make it seem like I know how to use photoshop. That being said, we can proceed!
For Color Adjustments:
My go-to for any sort of basic adjustment is Lightroom, but that is around $10 per month. For me it's great since I use it everyday. You can take down the greens and blues, you can change the hue of colors, you can literally change a color entirely or just take out a section with bright light. I mean the possibilities are endless. I have lightroom on my phone and computer, and when I am on the go, I always edit on my phone. I even have uploaded customized filters to it so that I can copy and paste the same edits. See below for the before and after of copying and pasting my edits. This took me around 60 seconds.
If you do not want pay for Lightroom, you can essentially purchase the app for beginners called VSCO Cam, which I am sure a ton of you are familiar with. It basically is a simpler and less sensitive version of lightroom. The thing I don't love about VSCO, it that it puts the same filter on every photo regardless of the lighting of the photo. Meaning, the filters are not easily adjustable. You can only adjust the overall intensity, and what if you just want to adjust the whites or the blues? You can't. You can't bring up the highlights, you can only bring them down. And you can't bring down the shadows, you can only bring them up. For these reasons, I changed to Lightroom, but if you are not in the blogger/Instagram world like myself, I think VSCO is a great option! See below for the before and after of simply adding a filter on VSCO cam. I use HB2!
Lastly, if you want to make basic adjustments, change the hues of a color, or desaturate just one color, then Darkroom is also a great option! The below photo was edited in Darkroom to give you an example, and I took out the greens entirely just to show how the app works!
Apps to Photoshop
My go-to app to"fake" photoshop is FaceTune. Yes, people commonly associate this app with girls who have body dysmorphia and who morph their bodies tremendously, but that is not the only thing this app is good for. I do a ton of things on FaceTune. I can move or remove a person or item out of a photo, I can smooth my skin and make it look like it is glowing, I can even add a highlight to my makeup look. Those are just a few of the things this app is capable of, but I'm sure there is so much more it can do! See below for examples of what I previously mentioned.
Move an Object - Patch Tool: Pretty straight-forward.
Smooth Skin - Smoothen Tool: Zoom in a ton on the area and use small strokes. If you do not zoom in and just smooth an entire area, it will look fake.