8 Photo Editing Ideas for Instagram

Instagram is a creative social media platform that is used for photo sharing, creating stories, making reels, and keeping up with friends, family members, and influencers. Since Instagram’s main focus is photos and videos, photo editing is very popular amongst social media users. Here are some ideas for editing Instagram pictures to make your profile stand out:

Filters

Whether you are using Instagram or any other type of editing app, there is a wide variety of filters to choose from. These filters may vary from face filters (a virtual image that is superimposed on a person’s face) to color filters (i.e. sepia, black and white, X-Pro II, etc.). To make a picture seem more retro, moody, funny, or any other type of aesthetic that you might be searching for, just add a colored filter of your choice.

Color Blocking

Color blocking is one of the year’s hottest design trends that has been used in places like interior designs to Instagram profiles. It’s a term that means that the artist or editor takes 1 or more colors to achieve a bold statement. This design can be used to accentuate items or complement colors in a photo.

For Instagram pictures specifically, users can use an editing app, such as Photoshop Express Editor, to add different shapes with bold (or neutral) colors. Color blocking can be used to achieve a more bold yet minimalistic feel.

Different Effects

Instagram and many other photo editing apps have a variety of effects to superimpose on pictures. These can range from heavy grain effects, blurry images, double-exposure effects, and so much more. This can make pictures fit any type of aesthetic and make a photo look more vintage or glamorous. If you are about to post a photo on Instagram, you can go onto the edit tab to create your own custom effects.

Collage

There are a few different types of collages that you can create on Instagram. While the social media platform itself doesn’t have a collage tool, there are a variety of apps that allow users to create a collage that will fit a single post. However, this isn’t as popular on the updated version of Instagram, since the app now allows users to put multiple pictures on a single post on something called a carousel.

Rather than creating a collage for a single post, a user can take a high-quality photo and crop the photo into 3-9 (or even more) pieces. Each photo is then posted in the appropriate order to create a large photo on one’s Instagram profile grid.

Seamless Carousel

As mentioned before, since Instagram has updated in the past few years, users no longer have to limit their posts to a single picture or collage. With this new feature, many users have started something called a seamless carousel. Rather than adding a few different photos to a post, influencers have made it seem like a post with multiple pictures is actually just one long picture. Here is a video tutorial to create a seamless carousel:

Stories

In the past couple of years, Instagram created a new feature called Stories. This allows users to create a video or photo that can be shared with their followers for 24 hours only. Many influencers either use different text overlays or other apps to create aesthetically pleasing and artistic photos or videos. Take a look at these videos to get inspired for Instagram Stories.

Boomerangs

Boomerangs can be posted on Instagram stories or profile posts. Boomerang is a feature that takes several photos and then edits the photos together to make a video that plays forward and then backward, hence the name “boomerang.”

This can easily be created on Instagram stories if you go to the left-hand side and click on Boomerang. Other apps are able to create boomerangs, but it is easiest to add filters and effects if you create a Boomerang directly on your Instagram story.

Reels

Reels are one of the newest features on Instagram that allow users to create and edit one-minute videos to share with their followers. You can change the speed, filters, colors, sound, etc. to make a more captivating video. Many influencers use reels to speak to their audiences, make funny videos, or show off new products. The possibilities really are endless when it comes to reels.

Apps to Help with Photo Editing

Although Instagram has a number of editing tools, users aren’t limited to just using Instagram to edit photos. Here is a list of highly recommended apps for editing photos for Instagram:

• Adobe Lightroom: 150,000 people on the Apple App Store have rated this app with 4.8 stars. It is a free app with in-app purchases for premium users. The app has editing tools that can change the color, lighting, effects, details, and optics of a photo. Adobe Lightroom also offers different presets that fit different categories (a premium subscription feature only). Here’s an in-depth article on how to take better photos on your phone with Adobe Lightroom Mobile.
  
• VSCO: 141,000 people on the Apple App Store have given this app a 4.7 rating and won the “Editor’s Choice” award. VSCO also has an annual membership so that users can use all of the advanced photo editing features. VSCO can be used for both videos and pictures, which makes the app a very popular third-party app for Instagram. There are a variety of presets, color correcting options, numerous videography edits, overlays, and other adjustments that can be used for photos and videos.
  
• Tezza: 23,000 people on the Apple App Store have given this app a 4.8-star rating. Tezza has a variety of presets, frames and effects, and templates for Instagram Stories. This app is popular for its simplicity and ease of use. In order to use all of the different templates and effects, Tezza does require a monthly or yearly subscription to unlock all of the editing tools.
  
• Photo Express Photo Editor: 610,000 people on the Apple App Store have given this app an overall rating of 4.8 stars. This photoshop app can be used to superimpose photos on one another, create collages, add borders and text, retouch blemishes, correct closed eyes, add stickers, and remove unwanted objects from photos. This app also requires a subscription to use all of the advanced tools.
  
• UNUM: Out of 6,800 people, this app has a 4.3 rating on the Apple App Store. It is a program designed for planning out how social media platforms will look. It can be used to edit both photos and videos. UNUM is also great for creating branding tools and templates.