The whole point of Instagram is photos. You can write descriptions and use hashtags to support your photos, but your photo is the real purpose. Therefore, it’s important to create great photos in your stream. The great thing about Instagram, is that it gives you most of the tools you need to create stunning images every single time!

The reason you use Instagram may vary significantly from why others are on the platform. Some people use it for their business because they sell products that translate well in photos. Others use it because they love photography and want to show their craft. Others, like me, use it to connect with other people but it’s difficult to tie a photo to our specific business. For those of you like me, stay tuned for a future post with advice on how to overcome this.

In the meantime, anyone using this platform still needs to create great photos – whether of yourself, of landscapes and scenery, of products, or of animals, etc. The end goal is the same: Great photos = more engagement!

So, let’s take a look at how you can use Instagram to help amp up your photos.

Taking a photo on your smartphone (or other mobile device) is pretty easy. And if you’re savvy, you’re probably pretty good at utilizing the additional camera settings on your device. Most of the time you can get a pretty decent photo using your camera alone. But Instagram adds some fun tricks and filters to enhance your photo into something amazing.

When you import the photo into Instagram, you will get a screen much like this one. This is from my Android device and I know iPhones look a little different but the tools and icons are very similar.

For you beginners, I will quickly explain what each of these tools are across the top.

• The < arrow takes you back out of Instagram and returns you to your original photo
• The square is your picture frame button. When it’s a simple square, your picture frame is off, when it’s a decorative square, the picture frame is on. Simply touching this icon toggles the feature on and off.
• The teardrop is the blur function. I believe this is called the tilt-shift function but essentially it alters your depth of field. Clicking on this opens up a little pull down menu with a round icon, a line icon, and an X icon. I will get into the specifics of this function later in the post.
• The sun is the contrast function. Tapping this will bump up the contrast of your image and tapping it again will return your image to its original composition. I’ll talk more about the advantage of this tool further into this post.
• The diamond with the arrow is your rotate feature. If your photo uploaded sideways or upside down, use this feature to rotate the image to the correct orientation.
• The >> double arrow is the “upload” button that actually posts your edited photo to Instagram. From here you’ll add your description, locations, etc. to the photo.

The options along the bottom are your filters that you can use to enhance your photos. You can scroll back and forth through these and tapping on one will add the selected filter to the image. Just click on a new filter to change the effect. If you’re an amazing photographer with kick-ass skills, you can always leave your filter option as “normal” and no filter effects will be added to your photo.

The important thing to remember about Instagram is that the photos that get the most likes and interaction are the ones with the most vivid colors. Yes, a great black and white shot can be amazing. Yes, the right filter can remove years of wrinkles and sun damage from a selfie. But in general, editing your photos for optimum color resolution will create the best photos by Instagram standards.

If you don’t believe me, go find those accounts with the highest numbers of followers and likes on their images (I’m talking thousands of likes). Most of their photos are all edited to show the most vivid colors.

How To Start Editing Your Images

Others may suggest otherwise, but here’s how I always start editing my photos.

Contrast

First, check your contrast. Clicking on this icon will show you your range of color options. Most of the time, I have the contrast feature enabled on my photos. There are plenty of exceptions, but I love how this tool brings out the depth of the colors and brightens those features that were originally in shadow. Be aware that if you have a photo with a lot of sky or other “smooth” surface in the image, adding the contrast function can create a lot of “noise” in the image. This is when your image will look grainy. Sometimes this is even an enhancing effect, other times, it’s just not so great. Decide what works for your photo and go from there. Remember, this setting isn’t permanent, you can always change it again throughout the editing process.

Let’s look at an example. The image on the top is the original. Adding the contrast feature to the image underneath enhances the hills and the trees and adds depth and color but now the sky is grainy and shows dark spots.

Blur / Depth of Field

Next, I think about the blur feature. As a creative person, I love this feature on a lot of photos (through the camera or the tool on Instagram)! This feature allows you to essentially put one area or object in focus while blurring out the surrounding area. This is traditionally achieved through depth of field on a “real” camera. But this little tool allows you to create this same effect easily.

The “round” blur tool creates a round area of focus. It will automatically put the area of focus at the center of your image. Once added, you can actually move the area around just by tapping the screen and dragging your finger around. You’ll see a white haze over the area that will be blurred. Likewise, you can make the area of focus larger or smaller by “pinching” the area (much like you would to enlarge/zoom in on a photo or webpage).

The “line” blur tool creates the same effect as the round tool, except in a linear format. This effect can also be edited by pinching and dragging the area of focus. You can even tilt the area of focus to appear on an angle rather than horizontally.

The “X” removes this blur function from your photo.

While this tool is fun to use and can significantly boost your photo from amateur to pro in about 2 seconds, be wary of overuse. Many photos are better off without it and it can look out of place on anything that isn’t a close up shot.

Here’s a quick example of using this tool to enhance a photo. The bottom photo has added the blur function to everything beyond the forefront flowers.

Using Filters

Once I’ve decided on my contrast and depth of field, then I start playing with the different filters available. Depending on the overall look you are going for, certain filters will work better than others.

If you want to enhance color and create bright, vivid images, I recommend using the following filters:

• Mayfair
• Hudson
• X-Pro
• Lo-Fi
• Hefe

If you want to create an illuminated center and darker edges (vignette style), try these filters:

• Amaro
• Rise
• X-Pro
• Earlybird
• Sutro
• Hefe
• Kelvin

If you want to create a vintage or antique look, these filters work best:

• Rise
• Earlybird
• Toaster
• 1977
• Kelvin

If you want to “pretty” up a selfie and improve skin tone, some of these are my favorites:

• Amaro
• Rise
• Hudson
• Sierra

For adding blue tones to your images, these are the best filters:

• Amaro
• Mayfair
• Hudson
• X-Pro
• Lo-Fi

Or for adding, orange/yellow tones to your images, use these filters:

• Rise
• Earlybird
• Sutro
• Toaster
• Hefe
• Nashville
• 1977
• Kelvin

Combining Techniques

The best part about Instagram is that you can keep playing with the different tools and features and mixing and matching them until you find what works for you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we all perceive color differently.

The photos in your stream represent you and your brand so keep the images in line with those goals.

If your business is ultra modern, using antique style images may seem a little off the mark. Then again, the occasional throwback style photo may work for you. But you’ll probably want to focus on bright, blue toned images.

The last and final thing I do with my photos is adding the border or picture frame. Honestly, a lot of the time, I leave them off because they don’t suit “my” style. But if it works for your brand, then keep them on the photos. Just be aware that each filter is set with a specific type of frame setting.

If you look at my photo stream (you can find me at jennherman31) you’ll see how my photos have evolved since I joined Instagram. I played with different settings (while I learned how to use them!) until I found my groove. It took some time to get it all down and it used to take me forever to edit a photo. Now, I’ve gotten comfortable with the settings and I know what I like so I can process an upload much faster.

For one final example, here is a photo I took at Downtown Disney in Anaheim. The original photo is pretty good by itself. But by combining features that reflect my style, I made it even more awesome!

So, go grab your mobile device, go take some photos, and start playing with these techniques! Your style may evolve over time and that’s ok. Life is always a moving target!

Have you learned any great tricks for editing photos in Instagram? If so, please add them to the comments below!