What are the best Instagram Editing Apps?
Most people don’t like to talk about how they edit their pictures let alone what apps they use. I am certainly not that way. It has taken me a long time to “perfect” my editing skills but I am also happy to share my favorite and must-have Instagram editing apps.
1. Lightroom CC
I recently found this app on iPhone and instantly fell in love with it. Lightroom CC has become my go-to and number 1 app for editing the colors/themes for my Instagram pictures. There are so many options for Lighting, Color, Effects (clarify, dehaze, vignette, grain) Details, and there is even Presets and the handy “Auto” option. One of the best and most convenient thing? You can copy and paste the same edits throughout all your pictures to form a uniform look. Instagram theme here I com😝 Oh yes, it is also FREE!
2. Snapseed
The tools I really enjoy about Snapseed is Selective. This option allows you to select certain areas in a photo and fix the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Structure. If you have adjusted your picture accordingly but there is a dark area or even an area that is overexposed, this app come in handy. The app also has other great tools like Glamor Glow, Curves, Perspective, and an amazing Blur option for backgrounds.
3. Facetune
The infamous Facetune has been around for a while and many choose to use this for the ultra famous Reshaping/slimming option. I prefer to use for Facetune for Whiten, Details and Smooth options. I have found this app to have the best whitening options for clothing/backgrounds and adding details/smoothing using Details and Smooth. Another very use option is Patch. This comes in handy if you are trying to remove something like a pimple, a bottle in the background or even a full person (depending on your editing skills😂🙊).
Removed my purse on the bottom right hand side.
4. VSCO
Another very famous Instagram editing apps is VSCO known for their filters. VSCO is a one of the few Instagram editing apps that provides the best filters for free. Of course you may purchase additional packs, but the stand alone version has a lot of great filters. I accidentally ended up paying for the pro filter yearly subscription for $19.99 😓How you say? Cuz I can be a dumb ass honestly. You’re able to sign up for a free trial and then cancel before you are charged. I actually forgot because it happened during the holidays 🙊 so once in a while I like to come into the app and add a filter and lower the strength. This adds a slight tint/color depending on the filter. Another great tool is the Grain. This is a major trend in pictures on Instagram but sometimes the grain isn’y nicely done. VSCO has one of the best Grain options just stay below 2%. One major con I did notice is when you export/save your photos VSCO lowers the resolution regardless of how high the quality was prior.
5. Afterlight
This app was my holy grain before I found Lightroom CC and so I felt compelled to share it in my secret Instagram editing apps list. The reason I loved this app for a little over a year was the Fade tool. I would upload pictures and play with the lighting/Contrast and add a slight fade essentially creating my own filter for a more uniform Instagram feed. Another great tool within the app is the ultra famous Instagram dust filter trend and the up-and-coming light leak/bokeh filter. One of the cons I did not like about this app was the manual edits were a bit limited when it came to brightness, whites, highlights and Curves. Also, I have noticed that unless you previously downloaded the free version, it now only comes as Afterlight 2 for $2.99 😕
6. Perfect365
If you have not heard about Perfect365 you need to get it for those selfies! This app is probably the least talked about in the Instagram editing apps list but probably the most used. Forgot to wear lashes? No problem Perfect365 can help with that. Is your foundation not matching your neck with that flash photography? No problem because you can edit your foundation color in the app. That’s just a short go-to list of what the app can do. You can also save in high resolution by simply watching a short video.
Left: Foundation, Lashes, Brightening of eyes, Under eye edit.
Right: Original picture
Step Up Your Instagram Game!
There are many apps available for picture editing but my top 6 favorite must-have
Instagram editing apps are the ones I am obsessed with. Now you can go download the ones you don’t already have and step up your editing skills! Filters and small modifications can go a long way.
If you want to learn about the IG algorithm, visit my post where I help you master the Instagram algorithm.
These are all great apps. Lightroom is so good for editing. I have an android but a lot of the apps work on that too 🙂
Author
Yes Lightroom is the best! And thanks for letting me know about the apps working on Androids. I don’t have a way of knowing.
Wow. This is really some great information. I am glad to know these are out there.
Author
Glad you enjoyed the information 🙂
I just spent so much time looking at these as I went down your post. I use VSCO and I am loving Perfect 365 now!
Author
Hahah it really is the least talked about app since everyone wants to be natural. But I think its a great app to tweak little things here and there 🙂 Glad you are enjoying the app.
this is such a great review of these popular apps! I would love to hear what you have to say about apps for IG stories … I am currently looking for one where I can insert snippets of video on a frame and upload to stories
I need to look into these apps! The before and after pictures are really good!
I do need to get better at using Instagram so this is a useful post.
Author
Glad you found it useful!
Great recommendations! Instagram is a huge part of my business and I only knew about a few of these, going to download the rest and check them out.
Author
That’s awesome! Glad I was able to give you new apps to try 🙂 Hope they work well with your content.
I’ll have to get some of these! I’ve been wanting to share better photos, but I’m not sure what to use.
Author
Yes!! I highly recommend them 🙂 I will be making a new post soon on how and when I use these apps.
Oh I love Lightroom!
Author
It really is the best!!
I have an Android but I don’t use it to edit my photos. For that I use my computer. I recently installed Lightroom though on my phone, to test it, but I don’t have the patience of working on a small screen. I am a photographer so the bigger the screen the better 🙂
Author
I have Lightroom and Photoshop on mine too so I know what you mean. Sometimes you cannot do the same on a phone vs. laptop. Although I’m still new to Lightroom, I have enjoyed both versions so much 🙂
I have never heard of any of these apps, I will def have to check them out, thanks!
Author
Glad I could help 🙂 and I hope you enjoy the apps as much as I have.
Gonna recommend my girlfriend this blog for sure. She will love it. Thanks 🙂
Thanks for sharing I’m always on the lookout for new ways to edit my pictures 🙂
Author
🙂 glad I could share my list of apps with you!
What a cool app. I need to find something like this for my android phone.
Author
I think some of these apps may be available on Android!
I have all the apps on my phone but the one I always used is snapseed. Rock on gal!
Author
That’s awesome! Great minds think alike. Snapseed is so great specially if you use it on your ipad! So much more space to work and edit things on 😛
These apps are amazing!!! I need Lightroom and Snapped!! Your pictures are fantastic!!!
Author
Thank you soo much!! Yes those are the top 2 and the very best for all sorts of pictures. I hope they come in hardy for you.
It’s nice to know what editing apps work best especially since we edit a lot of photos for our posts as bloggers. I mostly edit food and I like making sure that the photos are on their best quality. Definitely would love to learn more on how you edit your photos!
Author
Omg that’s great to hear! I will definitely work on a detailed post on how I edit my pictures 🙂 thank you so much for the feedback !
Facetune and Lightroom are my go to’s! I have other ones installed but I honestly never even open them anymore!
Author
I use Perfect365 less now. But that’s because most of my pictures have better lighting now. I would use the brightening tool for my face and then foundation to give me back color and not look over exposed. It’s v useful
I need to get my hands on the last one, I’ve used the others. My favourite has to be Lightroom CC. It lets you get very creative with colours and develop your own unique filter
Author
Yes!! Perfect 365 is sooo good. I try not to go overboard with it otherwise i look very cartoony 😛
Great post! I use lightroom but I keep meaning to try afterliight! Your photos with it are so pretty I’m definitely going to download to app ASAP!
Author
So glad you’re going to use it! The app is really great and the extra filters are super cute 🙂
I have been uaing many editing apps but, these sounds amazing. Too bad Im using android. The
Author
Some if not most should be available on Android 🙂 doesn’t hurt to try
I haven’t use all of them! Are they just available for iPhone? Am an Android user, this post excites me 😀
Author
Not quite sure to be honest. But I am sure most are available 🙂 You could easily search for them. Fin gets crossed they’re available for Android!
These are some really useful apps, I’m bookmarking so that I can reference back x
Author
😀 hope you find them useful!
This is great information about editing apps. There are so many on the market so this really helps to make a better informed decision.
Author
Thank you. I am glad you found this useful 🙂
VSCO is my favorite. I am not the type to fix my blemishes or erase things for my face, more so to get the lighting mood and fliter I want.
I have an android phone, but I have used LR & Snapseed. Both are really amazing editing apps! Thanks for the tips!
PS : Love your outfit!! 🙂
Author
Yes they’re both really good! Glad to know they’re available on android. And Thank you!
this is great! i’m bookmarking this page to read back after i download the apps. thank you.
Author
Glad you enjoyed! Hope the apps help you