Tips From the Pros: Best Apps for Your Instagram Travel Photos

Finally, I open my image in Instagram and use the filters provided to finish my shot off. I prefer Mayfair but also often use Rise, Hudson, and Valencia.

This may seem like a lot of work for an Instagram upload, but the work I do in Photoshop is to prepare a high-resolution image for my tourism clients and for Facebook.

2. Cara Llewellyn, @Llewllewtoo

Favorite Apps: Snapseed, VSCO Cam, Afterlight

I use the VSCO (Visual Supply Co) app for all of my initial photo editing. The filters are stunning, myriad, and easy to adjust within the app. My feed’s aesthetic is a combination of bright and faded, with buttery, almost matte-looking shadows that I achieve primarily with the F2 and M5 filters. I hardly ever use the filters at full power, usually opting to scale them back a few notches for a subtler effect. Since the majority of my images include people, the last step I do in VSCO Cam is adjusting the skin tone (a great free download option) to counteract the blanching effect of the filter. After I get the tones and colors where I want them, I export the image and open it with the Afterlight app. I’ve found that Afterlight has the best shadow options — perfect for really pulling out the matte black I love so much. I often straighten, crop, square, and tweak the brightness/contrast there as well.

3. Putri Anindya @puanindya

Favorite Apps: Snapseed and VSCO Cam

My favorite photo-editing apps are Snapseed and VSCO Cam. Bonus, they’re free! I always do the basic edit in Snapseed then apply some gorgeous presets in VSCO Cam. I love Snapseed because it’s easy to operate; it’s like Photoshop in your mobile phone. So many great features for adjusting a picture. I love Snapseed’s Selective Adjust. It’s just awesome. The character of my photography is often defined by its mood. I love moody pictures. VSCO Cam helps me set the mood. VSCO Cam presets are beautiful — the result is just like it came out from Lightroom! I have all the VSCO Cam presets. I always try each one but usually end up sticking to G1, M5, M3, or HB.

4. Sierra Fox @LilFoxx

Favorite Apps: VSCO Cam, Snapseed, and SKRWT

My favorite editing app for the iPhone is VSCO Cam, hands down. Not only does this app allow you to make adjustments to the image (such as brightness or contrast), but it also has a large range of filters that bring your photos to the next level. It can give your photos a crisp, minimal blogger feel with the S and N filters, or a film-like vibe with the F or E filters. This app is seriously magic.

I usually edit my photos first in Snapseed. It’s where I adjust the shadows and contrast and can use Selective Adjust to edit only small parts or details of a photograph. Then I take the photo into VSCO Cam to add filters and make any further needed adjustments (usually temperature, brightness, or highlights). I love VSCO Cam so much I bought almost all of the filter packages they offer (which is worth the few dollars!). Over time, I’ve developed an eye for what filter will look good on a picture, but I have a few favorites that are my go-to filters (F, C, S, M, E, and N). I try those out and then usually make a few adjustments here or there in the tools section of the app.

Another app that’s great for traveling and taking pictures of architecture or structures is SKRWT. This app can be difficult to learn but helps to perfect the perspective on an image. Sometimes, especially on the iPhone, when you take a photograph of a building it can appear warped because the lens is made for a wide angle (so that it can get more of what you see into the photo). This app helps to straighten the pictures back out to what they look like in person.

5. Matthias Barker, @matthiasjbarker

Favorite App: Snapseed

My favorite photo-editing app is Snapseed all the way. I love the control it gives you with your exposure, contrast, and structure. You can really control the depth of your photo and draw people in with your edit. To me, it’s the most organic and intuitive app on the market.

6. Daniel Taipale, @dansmoe

Favorite App: VSCO Cam

I’ve always loved film photos. Nowadays, when I shoot most of my photos in digital, I still want them to have a finished film look. VSCO Cam is an app for the iPhone that gives my photos this beautiful film look. The app is very advanced. I love how I can organize the tools and presets to my own order. This makes the app fast to use. It works the way I want. You can’t make your photos look too processed with the app; it just gives them a nice, clean faded look.

7. Alex Spatari, @spatari

Favorite Apps: Snapseed and VSCO Cam

My all-time favorite editing app is VSCO Cam. I discovered it about a year ago, and since then I use it for almost all of my pics. The best thing about it is its flexibility. It has a lot of different options, which gives you plenty of space for really great post-processing. And of course the filters! All of them have this amazing old film feeling, and at the same time the shot doesn’t look over-processed with them. The other things I like about this app are how you can organize your library and keep only the best photos from your phone. Plus it’s awesome how the creators of VSCO Cam managed to create the whole community around this app. I’d say it’s even become a lifestyle already. You should check their curated Grid — it has some really great shots on it! Regarding new options from Instagram — I like some of the features. Sometimes I add additional highlights or make the shadows lighter, and that’s probably it. I think these and other features were realized really well, and for those who think VSCO Cam is too complicated for them, Instagram’s editing features give them a lot of possibilities for post-processing.

8. Ashley Lewis, @ash

Favorite Apps: Snapseed and VSCO Cam

You want me to pick one photo app? That’s just impossible! These days there are just TOO many photo-editing apps on the market. I couldn’t pick just one, but I can tell you about the two I use the most and why. The first app in my roster has to be Snapseed by Google. I use Snapseed right at the start of my post process. I use the Tune Image set of tools to clean up the saturation and contrast, lighten shadows, and adjust the white balance. I then add some clarity to secure the details and preserve sharpness. Second on my list is VSCO Cam. If you don’t know about VSCO Cam, then you’re definitely missing out on one of the best tools on the market to date (FACT!). I use VSCO Cam as an alternative to the Instagram filter set. My favorite presets are the F, T, and K filter sets. It’s hard to explain, but they provide that little bit extra to the photo, whether it’s fade, saturation, or tonal adjustments. For me, these filter sets really just add that final magic and polish to my photos.

9. Michael Lax, @michaellaxphoto

Favorite App: Snapseed

My favorite photo-editing app is definitely Snapseed. It offers basic editing tools but also has some advanced features similar to Photoshop. One of the tools I use most in Snapseed is the Selective Adjust tool, which allows me to pick a specific area of the photo and only apply edits to that area. For example, your camera will often expose for the sky during sunset, which leaves your foreground looking too dark; this is where the Selective Adjust tool comes in handy. You can lighten up the shadows in the foreground without touching the beautifully exposed sky.

10. Christian Becerra, @throughthetinylens

Favorite Apps: Snapseed and VSCO Cam

I have two favorite editing apps, and they’re pretty much the only ones I use. The first one is called Snapseed (free in the App Store). I’ve been using this app since I started using Instagram. The Selective Adjust tool is fantastic! It lets you fine-tune certain parts of the photo. I really recommend this app to anyone. It has a lot of tools and is very easy to use. The second one is VSCO Cam (free in the App Store). I usually only use this app to add a filter to my photo after doing all my fine-tuning in Snapseed. I normally don’t like to go overboard with the filters. I use them halfway, and that’s it. My favorite filters are the A, C, N, S, and B filters.

This post was originally published at Travel Break and is reprinted here with permission.