Picture this: It’s 2005 and the strap of a Sony point and shoot camera is wrapped haphazardly around my wrist, a pink outline sprouting up on my wrist. I center my subject in the camera before taking my first image.
The only other method of taking an image, aside from my point and shoot, is my bulky but slim pink Motorola Razr. No matter what lighting or which location, my Razr produces grainy, dim images that are nearly impossible to edit.
It’s now 2015, and you seldom see me standing around with my hand attached to my Nikon D7000. Instead, you see my slender iPhone 5C preset to square. Why? There are a few simple reasons: Size, weight, ease of use, and the fact that my iPhone can produce an image that far surpasses my Sony camera in 2005.
Even better, there are a multitude of editing apps on the iPhone that allow you to thoroughly edit your images before posting to social networks. Here are a few favorites that I often use in my editing process:
One of the most popular filter apps, VSCO, is my go-to for cropping, rotating, adjusting exposure/temperature, and combining filters. To keep a consistent and toned feed, be sure to choose one or two filters that work with your images. Don’t stray from those filters.
Afterlight has many filters, as well. They also offer textures for your imagery, such as grain and light leaks. However, I naturally use Afterlight for borders. This app has many silhouette, text, and shape borders to choose from.
Mextures is all about textures! They also allow you to change contrast, exposure, tint, and white balance. Mexture allows you to save all of the actions you take to edit an image, and duplicate the action on any other image you’d like in the future. This comes in handy if you are a stickler for consistency.
For my video-shooting lovers, Hyperlapse is a stand-alone app from Instagram to create beautiful time-lapse videos. It makes it easy to filter and share any clips you have, sped up or slowed down. This is a great app to condense the time of your clips for Instagram.
Aviary was one of my first photo editing apps! It comes equipped with filters, blemish control, and drawing tools. This app is especially handy if you like to doodle or get crafty with your imagery.