Hi from Thailand, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well! I wanted to do a post based on one of the questions I get asked the most—how do I edit my Instagram photos? I am hopefully planning a video in the future for my YouTube channel of the exact step-by-step of how I do this, but in the meantime I wanted to let you know the apps that I use and how I use them. If I do a full-on shoot with a DSLR camera, I’ll usually edit in Lightroom, but for those on-the-go outfit photos that are shot on an iPhone, there are some apps that have a lot of similar functions to those programs that still get pretty awesome results. So, here are the best photography apps for bloggers that you should check out.

1. Faded

I honestly can’t say enough good things about Faded and don’t know what I would do without it. If I had to pick only one photo editing app, it’d be this one. It’s my favorite editing app on my iPhone because it closely resembles Lightroom. It has all of the functions of a standard photo editor: exposure, contrast, saturation, shadows, highlights, etc. It also has these filters that “clean” a photo (which you can adjust the intensity of) and I use them a lot before I adjust any of the other stuff. It's $1.99 but definitely worth it. If you’re a serious photog, you’ll definitely enjoy this app.

2. VSCO

After I’ve edited on Faded, I always process my photos through a filter on VSCO so that they have a uniform look to them, even if they were shot in different lighting or by different people. Grid consistency is pretty important to bloggers so I definitely use VSCO to do this. The good thing about it is that you can adjust the filter’s intensity (from 1 to 12) so if you don’t like the overly-filtered look, you’ll enjoy that feature.

3. Canva

Damn, I wish I’d known about Canva sooner (thanks Alyssa for cluing me in!). Canva is an app that allows you to overlay text on an image, which is great for Instagram stories and Pinterest, especially. I don’t use this for photos that go in my Instagram feed, but for the aforementioned uses, it’s great. I also use it to create thumbnail photos for my YouTube videos, which I keep uniform to maintain a consistent look.

4. Perfect 365

You may know Perfect365 as the virtual makeup app that the Kardashians have been known to use to make their faces slimmer, their contour deeper, and their images even more unrealistic. But it’s also helpful if you have a zit or under-eye circles that are super unattractive. There’s absolutely no need to totally alter your beautiful face, so use this one in moderation!

5. PhotoRetouch

I find myself needing this one actually a lot more than I anticipated. For those who speak the language of Photoshop, this is basically the clone/retouch tool. PhotoRetouch is super helpful for removing unwanted elements of a photo like trash on the sidewalk (New York problems, amirite?) or to get rid of a hair tie you forgot to take off of your wrist (Austen problems, amirite?)

6. UNUM

This is not an editing app, but if you’re a visual person and hyper-organized, you’ll love this one. UNUM allows you to pre-plan your Instagram grid and see what photos will look like once they end up on your profile. This is super helpful if you want to make sure colors don’t clash and that photos don’t look too similar. I can see businesses and photographers using this the most, but I think bloggers will also find it helpful for planning what their content will look like.

What are your go-to apps for photo editing?

yours,

Austen

6 Essential Photo Apps Every Blogger Should Have