When I first started Instagram, I struggled a lot with getting a cohesive feed. I spent hours upon hours trying to adjust the image right, using the same filters in the Instagram app, but somehow it just didn’t really come together, and then I discovered a magical thing called Lightroom Presets and it changed my life! As I worked more on creating more surreal edits, my feed slowly evolved into a more creative and colorful theme that I’m at now!
I’m not a professional editor by any means. I’ve never learned Photoshop and definitely only scratched the surface on using Lightroom, I simply prefer using my phone to edit, especially with all the intuitive and fun apps out there! So if you’re just starting, or simply looking to expand your arsenal, these are some of my favorite apps behind my Instagram feed!
1. LIGHTROOM APP
I use Lightroom presets with all of my photos. This is what essentially gives you a cohesive feed, if you don’t know what those are, they are essentially advanced filters! After I do my creative edits on other apps, I always put them through Lightroom, and it takes a second to add the preset and a minute to adjust the colors and lighting/contrast, and it’s ready to go! The app is free to use, although you can pay for a subscription for additional features. I find I don’t really use those because I can always achieve them in other apps or simply are features I don’t need such as distort.
2. PicsArt
I’ve seen people rave about this app but never really thought much of it until quarantine started and guys I am OBSESSED! It’s quite rare now that my shots don’t go through PicsArt first, especially now that my feed is more creative focused. If you like being putting stickers on your shots or layering different shots and pieces, this app does it all! It’s also a great platform for inspiration because of this feature called Replays. Essentially you can see the edits other people do, and if you like it you can apply the same procedure to your shot, which is really useful if you really like a sticker group or effect that other people have used!
3. Enlight Quickshot
I believe this is an iPhone only app, but this one is great for some cool effects and beautiful skies! If you always wanted a cotton candy sky background, you can always create one for yourself through this app! I also like to use this app for its beautiful lens flares, I always find adding in lens flares looks so much better than getting them during the shot because they often over expose my photos!
4. Snapseed
I like Snapseed for its healing feature, which is not available as a free feature in Lightroom. I also love doing double exposure in this app, which is essentially combining 2 shots into 1. The selective brightening feature is also quite useful in this app if you want to spot correct exposure!
5. Prequel
Recently discovered this app, and I’m a huge fan of all the effects there are! From bling to film, from glitches to vintage, there is something for everyone! Plus this app is the perfect transition to some of the next apps I will introduce for video editing. You can edit and put effects/filters on both photo and video in Prequel, which is one of the highlights of this app! The only thing I don’t like is that some of these filters and effects distort the colors a lot and you can edit the saturation or anything, making it hard for a picture to be cohesive in my feed if I had applied some of these filters.
6. Pixaloop
Part of the Enlight lineup of photo-editing apps, this app literally makes your photos come to life through cool video effects and animations! It’s an awesome tool for anyone looking to add more movement and simple video content to their feed, especially since Instagram values both types of media!
7. Quik
Of course, Instagram feeds aren’t just pictures, it’s important to be using a mix of mediums! Video is great because movement always captures attention, and with IGTV, you can now promote longer videos on both your feed & your stories. For beginners who like to just throw together a slideshow or a mix of videos and have the cool transitions and edits done for you with some flexibility of tuning, Quik is perfect! This app was bought by GoPro a while back and I love the simplicity and beautiful videos it creates!
8. Splice
Unfortunately, this amazing editor is available for iOS only, but that’s really all the con it has! It’s simple to use and has all the basic functionalities you need to edit video on your phone. It’s also free to use although you can purchase a subscription for more functionalities, such as cool effects and music. What’s cool about this app is that it has a super cool and useful sound effects database that you can add to your videos, from footsteps to cheering crowds!
9. Planoly
Although not an editing app, planning out your feed and content is just as important! I use this app and it is absolutely amazing. Its minimalist layout is simple to use, and you can also save hashtag groups. The only thing is that you can’t upload video content and the free plan will only give you 30 shots a month to upload, but that’s plenty for me considering I only post 5 times a week.
10. Tailwind App
If you’re someone who likes to upload a lot of videos or stop-motion for your Insta, Tailwind is the better feed planner as it allows you to upload all sorts of media types! They also have this really cool function where it tells you if a hashtag is too big or too small to use!
I hope you really found some of these apps to be helpful! I have all of these apps in my Instagram folder on my phone and use them almost daily! Check out more of my resources for Instagram here. Do you have any favorite apps that I’ve missed here?