We've recently talked about how important it is to have an aesthetically-pleasing Instagram feed. It is one of the major factors nowadays. Brands will take notice of how professional your feed looks. Potential followers, on the other hand, will skim your profile for 3 secs max to decide if you're worth the follow. And that's a both concuss and subconscious act since we have definitely progressed into a truly visual Instagram era.
That's why we tried to set you on the right track to creating your own gorgeous Instagram theme, that will allow you to attract both brands and potential followers.
You can find the "6 steps for choosing a perfect Instagram feed" manual here!
In order for you to create an Instagram feed that is unique, yet modern and that showcases your voice, you will need to be equipped with the best photo editing apps on the market. We looked across the web to find the easiest, most intuitive apps for you. So without further ado, check out below 21 amazing photo-editing apps every influencer should try.
Adobe Lightroom CC
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
With the corresponding desktop app, Adobe Lightroom CC is one of the best on the market when it comes to photo-editing. Plus, based on our research, this is definitely a go-to app for influencers across the world.
You can fix specific colours, brightness, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows etc. You can also make your photos more vibrant, or saturated, as well as warmer and colder. There is also a "curve" option that allows you to play a little more with these options combined, for the best effect.
When it comes to cropping, you can set it to cut your photos in dimensions of popular social media posts. Pretty handy, right?
What's also specific about Adobe Lightroom CC is that they have a variety of beautiful profile presets, that range from vintage, to modern, to black & white styles.
But the best thing about Adobe Lightroom CC is definitely the fact that you can save your adjustments as a preset, and apply them to other photos stored to your account. In that way, you ensure there is a unique feel when it comes to your photographs. Plus, you wouldn't have to save that photo to your camera roll unless you need it (extra storage space, yay)!
Tip: Do you find yourself to be a good photo editor? You can then create your own presets, and then sell them to others on Instagram!
Snapseed
Price: Free mobile version
While Lightroom offers amazing opportunities for specific element changes, Snapseed finds its strengths in other cool features.
For example, besides the standard cropping, contrast, brightness and whole typical photo editing embargo, Snapseed also allows you to remove unwanted objects from your images. That would be one of the Snapseed's strongest suits.
Also, you can add text, all kinds of different oldie/grunge effects and overlays, frames and more. Additionally, there is an option to create a selective focus on your image, allowing it to look more professional.
Polarr
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Polarr has all the necessitates every app should have for basic editing. Nevertheless, it takes the win when it comes to its overlays. They belong to the paid Pro version, but you can add one free overlay each day.
What kind of overlays are we talking about? Well, you can add leaks effects, flares, dust and scratches, gradients, sky, clouds, and more!
VSCO
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
VSCO has amazing filters that can level up your photo, alongside the traditional editing tools such as cropping, brightness, shadows, etc.
FaceTune 2
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
With FaceTune 2, you can quickly and easily reshape your facial features, remove blemishes, and whiten teeth for a nicer-looking smile.
Besides being the leader in this niche of editing apps, it also offers nice glam light effects, that you can use as a cute touch up to your photos.
YouCam Makeup
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
As an alternative to FaceTune 2, you can check out the YouCam Makeup.
Its awesome features allow you to beautify your selfies with amazing, natural-looking makeup effects. What's also cool is that you can try on makeup form top brands on your photos. What an amazing way to test out makeup before buying it, right?
For additional features, you can find blemish-fixer that removes your acne. You can also remove wrinkles, smooth your skin and whiten your teeth.
Airbrush
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Airbrush is another amazing facial adjustment photo app.
You can fine-tune your imperfections, easily remove acne, wrinkles and so on. Plus, you can whiten your teeth to look Hollywood-like, and remove your eye bags to look refreshed.
Besides airbrushing, you can also add amazing filters and lightening to your photos.
Additionally, there are tools that allow certain elements of your photos to enlarge or decrease, as well as get reshaped.
One of the things we personally love a lot is that there is a background blur option. There is an auto-detect option, which works perfectly when it comes to creating a portrait with a deep background.
Lumii
Available on Android
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Lumii stands out when it comes to certain filters and photo effects. For example, you can create a stunning double-exposure photo, with multiple variations to it. It also has the most beautiful grain effect we've ever seen. You can play around with amazing light effects, as well as stickers, and text fonts. We would recommend using this app to beautify your Instagram stories.
HypoCam
Price: Free mobile version
For those of you who prefer black & white photography - we got you covered! HypoCam contains amazing features for polishing up your images and turning them into perfect black & white pieces of art.
PicsArt
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Although this app has existed for a while, people got back into the PicsArt frenzy when Kim K posted her collaboration with them on Instagram, featuring one of their, now famous, sketch effects.
With this app, you can change or remove the background, add stickers, sketch effects, create double exposure and more. And it all goes with the additional, standard photo editing like fixing brightness, exposure, contrast and so on.
What's even better is that there is a corresponding desktop app. Double the fun, right?
Foodie
Price: Free mobile version
For all the food bloggers out there... this app specializes in editing food photography. Foodie truly does have amazing filters, alongside the typical brightness/contrast and others, that just do wonders for any type of food snap.
Nebi
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Nebi app for editing photos offers that 90s feel. It has 20 retro camera effects with 35mm noise & scratches. Worth checking out.
Afterlight
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Afterlight app for editing photos features 15 adjustment tools, 59 filters, 66 textures, frames, and cropping and transforming tools.
It's popular for its 35mm film and instant film textures, which are extremely popular nowadays.
Rainbow Camera
Available on Android
Price: Free mobile version
If you're looking for any specific rainbow overlays on your images then Rainbow Camera is a good way to go.
You can add text, smart blur, and lots of specific and ever realistic rainbow effects.
Prisma
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Prisma has a more artistic approach to photo editing. In fact, one of its main objectives is to turn your photographs into paintings.
There are over 300 styles of art filters in Prisma's library. Plus, what's fun is that Prisma releases a new art filter every single day. But those are only Daily Filters, so you only have 24h to use them. However, they do keep the app updated with fresh filters from time to time.
Over
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Over app is really perfect to use for creating a campaign type of content. It features over 84,000 graphics, with over 350 fonts and 700 customizable templates. You can even make logos and flyers!
However, note that most of the templates are for a paid Pro version. You can start a free 7-day trial and you'll have to make an account with your email or Facebook.
Meitu
Available both on Android and iOS
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Meitu is a beauty cam editor that allows you to retouch your facial features. You can adjust your lip colour, fix your eyebrows and eyes, as well as contour your face and more.
Besides beautifying your facial features, you can also add animated effects to bring a little life to your images, as well as add themed stickers and text art.
Canva
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Canva would be one of the best free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop. It is more than perfect for those who are not so design-savvy but still need to create campaign type of designs.
There are thousands of template designs that you can utilize to express your brand and your vision. You can create your own templates too, and import elements you need to brand your content. This one definitely has our vote when it comes to a free version that creates professional-type of content.
InShot
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Although more oriented towards editing videos (and one of the best ones on the market for that), it is still worth the mentioning even for photo editing. InShot has a variety of filters and basic photo-editing features. You can add fun text, stickers and overlays. And it's two in one, as it has even better possibilities when it comes to editing videos, such as adding music.
Visage Lab
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Visage Lab is dedicated to improving your external beauty on photographs. You can remove pimples and wrinkles, outline the eyes and whiten the teeth. If there are multiple faces on the photo, you can get all of them enhanced. Next to the typical beauty improvements, you can also play around with creative filters to give your photos a final cute touch.
Pixlr
Price: Free mobile version (limited features)
Pixlr, with its corresponding desktop counterpart, is a free and easy photo editor.
You can create cute collages choosing from a variety of templates, grid styles, and all of that in customized rations.
Alongside the typical photo editing packet of brightness, contrast and crop fixes, you can also enjoy creating content with cool photo effects. We are talking about poster-like, watercolour, pencil sketch and more.
Pixlr also has beauty cam editor, that lets you remove blemishes, red-eye, smoothens your skin and whitens your teeth.
Add overlays and double exposures to create a truly unique type of photo.
You obviously do not have to download each of these apps to your phone. Pick and choose from the collection depending on your needs and aspirations. Think of your Instagram goals and what you actually want to achieve with your aesthetics. Make sure you don't make these 8 Instagram mistakes, and with some of these apps, you'll be good to go!
What do you think - what amazing photo-editing apps every influencer should try? Leave your opinion in the comments!
Lightroom and Canva are definitely my go-to's for my Instagram stories and posts. But there are a few apps I haven't heard of before in this article so I'm definitely going to try them out!!