All of our Favorite Apps for Instagram
“What apps do you use to edit? How do you create your Instagram stories? Do you use presets?” – We get these questions all the time!!
Well folks, Today is the day we let you in on how we do what we do on the gram!
Whether you’re looking at making your feed more cohesive or just want to up your insta-story game we’ve got you covered! We are sharing all our favorite apps that will have you asking yourself “Am I an influencer yet?”
Keep reading because we are letting all our secrets out!
Feed the people what they want
Now, let’s be real for a second. You have all of about 2 seconds to grab the attention of someone when they stop by your Instagram feed. Most likely they have clicked on your handle and scan your feed very quickly; They make an assumption right away as to whether or not you bring enough value to their lives and if they want to follow you. A well-integrated; unified and cohesive feed is always more likely to get that follow click and that’s just a fact.
Here is a list of our go-to applications that will get your feed looking and feeling like a million followers.
Lightroom CC
Ok, Lightroom CC is our GO TO for photo editing. Mainly because it’s the mobile version and we can edit any where at anytime! We find that it’s much easier than photoshop and if you get your tone down you can create your own presets right in the app.
A Lightroom Preset is basically a pre-determined position all (or some) of the of sliders in Lightroom cc (they are pre-set, get it?) In other words, you can edit a photo to your liking, and then save that exact combination of slider positions for future use on another image.
Lightroom Presets are very useful for a few reasons:
- They can save you time when editing. If you’ve shot a lot of images at one time, it’s likely they will all need similar adjustments. Once you’ve edited one, you can create a Preset that you apply to all the others.
- If you’re good with the Lightroom Develop controls, you could create a signature style that you could save as a Preset. You can then apply this on all the photos you want to use that style on.
- Presets often create effects that you’re not expecting. If you’re not sure how to edit a photo, it can be helpful to browse through your presets. Often you will be surprised at how good some of the Presets make your photos look.
When we first started using Lightroom CC we bought some presets that we felt would give our feed that golden rustic look we wanted.
We used Dirty boots Presets, but have since adjusted to our liking and have created our own. We also use The Blonde Abroad Mobile presets every now and again which are amazing!
Adobe Photoshop Fix
We think we are with the masses when we say, we just don’t have the time to learn how to use photoshop at the moment. We also don’t need all those photo bombers or that giant pimple that decided to show up the day of shooting in our photos! So what do we do? We just erase them. Yup it’s that easy.
In Adobe Photoshop fix all you have to do is go into healing and wipe your finger over the item you want to disappear and poof its gone!
Trash cans messing up the background 
No Trash cans
Obviously this only works with areas that are ease to clone or heal like sand or snow, but for the majority of when we need it, it works like a charm!
Afterlight 2
Ever wonder how those big accounts make their photos look old and dusty?
To be honest, we don’t know what it is about a dusty ripped photo that gets the people going these days but we are into it!
In Afterlight 2 you can add dust, light leaks, haze, prism and even double exposure! Its one of our favorite apps and we use it everyday!
Lens Light
Want to add a rainbow? Didn’t quite catch that sun flare at sunset? Need a giant moon in the sky?
Well with Lens Light you can have all your visual effect dreams come to life! Lens Flares, Light glows, glitter! You name it Lens Light has it!
#therighttools
Now that you have edited your picture to perfection its time to make sure you have a plan in place for optimization. The last thing you need is to drop a dope ass pic that no one will see.
Hashtags.
We know.. Some people swear them off but in the present times, hashtags have become a vital element of each and every popular social media channel.
It’s proven that #Hashtag marketing boost social media effectiveness up to 40%
Studies have shown that businesses which use hashtags on Twitter and Instagram are improving their engagement rates up to 12.6%
Leetags
One of easiest way for you to grow and get more followers on Instagram every day is by using hashtags in all your photos, videos, stories, etc. so you reach and engage with a lot more people around the world.
Leetags allows you to generate trending hashtags related to a theme or content, paste on Instagram and reach a better target audience. Easy Peasy.
Tell a Story
One of our favorite things about Instagram is the Story feature! We feel like a picture a day is great, but to really connect with our friends and followers we love keeping them with us throughout the day!
Whether we’re at an event or just hanging out with family; IG Stories allow us to bring in our audience on a more frequent basis.
Just posting a 15 second video isn’t gonna cut it anymore though! You have got to get creative!
Don’t fret, we’re here to share some of our favorite story apps with you that will turn your 15 seconds, into a work of art!
Unfold
You have seen these Unfold templates used all over the place! They are the ones that look like an old film strip or ripped piece of paper!
Elegant layouts and editable templates for your photos and text are clutch.
With unfold, you basically just plug and play! Add your pics, add your text, change the font and let your creative juices flow!
Hype Type
We love to set our stories apart by giving them a little bit of motion. With Hype Type you can add beautiful animated text over your photos and videos.
Boomerang
Boomerang is straight from Instagram themselves! It’s a video app that lets you turn everyday moments into something fun and unexpected.
Boomerang takes a burst of photos and stitches them together into a high-quality mini video that plays forward and backward
8mm
Create old-fashioned 8mm movies in real time!! We love this one! You can choose from a variety of old timey looks like 1920’s, the 60’s or 70’s, Siena, 3-X, 2 Strip, Two color, Tuscan, indigo, Pela, Noir and more!
Fun Fact: After running out of money, director Malik Bendjelloul finished shooting the Oscar nominated documentary ‘Searching For Sugar Man’ on this app.
Over
Build your brand. Effortlessly. Instantly. Fun-fully.
Officially our go to app for stories! Over has changed our story game sooooo much!
Choose from gazillions of royalty-free, hand-picked photos, fonts, graphics, templates, and tools to filter, blend, mask, and blur like a pro!
Kirakira+
KiraKira+ Make the pretty lights and rhinestones in the room sparkle… Simple as that
VideoShop
Videoshop is a fully functional video editing app that allows you to edit video on your phone and upload to Instagram or anywhere, without the hassle of pulling it into a computer and learning a heavy, complicated editing software!
It’s honestly premier pro for dummies! They have amazing transitions and and we love that you can edit the whole video and save it seamlessly cut up into 15 minute increments!
It’s so simple!
We have figured out a way to film, edit and put out our stories in real time that look like we went home and edited them on our desk top!
Hyperlapse
You know those time lapse shots of someone walking through the whole music festival on their story. Well they most likely used Hyperlapse.
Hyperlapse is another mobile app created by Instagram that enables users to produce Hyperlapse and time-lapse videos. The app enables users to record videos up to 45 minutes of footage in a single take, which can be subsequently accelerated to create a Hyperlapse cinematographic effect
We like this because it fits in the Instagram format and there is built in stabilization! Just make sure to close it before you record another video or story.. It will make your audio all choppy if you don’t!
Pro Tip: If we plan to post a picture in our stories. We snap the picture in the IG app, save it, import it into Lightroom cc, edit it, export back out and then upload to Instagram. It may seem like a lot of work but it’s so worth it when you can get the whole photo in your story!
Go Forth and Share your Vision
Well Folks, those are our go to apps for Instagram at the moment that have us growing like a weed in the spring time.
Let us know in the comments below if you use any of these! OR if there are any we missed that we should be using!
Also, if you want any tips or tutorials on how to use any of these apps let us know and we will send them your way!!
Thanks for reading!
XO
Callie & Leo
Thank you soo much for sharing your tips!! U are going to change my ig game for sure!!
AHHHHH I love you so much! Thank you for all your love and continued support!!!! Cant wait to watch your IG grow!
Thank you for sharing! I don’t know many people who’d lay out their editing tips like you just did, I very much appreciate it! Can’t wait to use these for my adventures! ☺️📸
Oh thats so great to hear! We just wanna share the wealth!