I am a very visual person and I absolutely love Instagram. I love seeing everyone’s style and how they capture their life story in a beautiful collection of photos. I’m by no means an expert in photography, let along Instagram, but lately, I’ve been getting asked how I edit my Instagram photos. I will say that it makes me feel all fuzzy inside when someone asks because it lets me know that I’m doing something right! If you are one of those sweet followers that requested this info this tutorial was written just for you! ♥
How I Edit My Instagram Photos
Original Photo 
Photo after my edits
To begin I always take my photos using my Canon Powershot SX530 HS. I love this camera because you can turn your phone into a remote for the camera when you don’t have your own photographer. I also love that is has a feature to transfer your photos from the camera to your iPhone via Wifi. Now don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to have a fancy camera to take nice photos. I’ve taken really nice photos with my iPhone as well. If you ever watch my Instagram stories, I almost always use my iPhone for those photos.
So now that we have that part out the way let’s get into the editing process. I only use 3 apps to edit my Instagram photos. Those apps are Adobe Lightroom, Snapseed, and VSCO.
To begin I first, open up my photo in Lightroom and make adjustments. The only options I normally adjust is Light and Color. In the Light option, I like to increase the exposure, lower highlights, increase shadows, increase whites, and lower blacks. In the color option, I lower the temperature just a bit to reduce any yellow cast in my photo.
Since I like that bright and airy look I make adjustments to achieve that feeling. I’ve done this so many times and I notice that I use pretty much the same settings which I now save as a preset. Saving my edits as a preset has cut my editing process in half making this process so much easier. I will, however, make minor changes depending on the photo. Sometimes I may lower the exposure a bit if the photo was particularly bright, etc. I then export the photo to either VSCO or Snapseed.
Note: I only use Snapseed if the background of my photo needs a bit more tweaking to make it look whiter.
In Snapseed I use the brush tool and use dodge/burn to brighten the white background. To brighten the background I only use the brush on the walls of my photo. I then import the photo to VSCO to apply my filter.
In VSCO my favorite filter is S3. I apply the filter, adjust the strength of the filter to my liking, save it, and I’m done!
I hope this tutorial answered all your questions on how I edit my Instagram photos. What’re your favorite apps for editing your Instagram photos? Let me know in the comments below! ♥
