How to Use Instagram Edits App

Perfectly edited Instagram photos and videos don't just happen by accident, they're the result of knowing which buttons to push and how to craft a signature look. This tutorial breaks down how to use both Instagram's built-in editor and a few powerful third-party apps to make your content stand out. We’ll cover everything from basic adjustments for photos to creating a cohesive feed and editing your Reels.

Mastering Instagram's Built-In Editing Tools

Before you jump into dozens of other apps, it’s worth getting familiar with the powerful editor hiding right inside Instagram. It’s quick, convenient, and often all you need for a great-looking post. Once you’ve selected your photo or video and tapped “Next,” skip over the “Filter” page for now and tap “Edit” at the bottom.

Here’s a breakdown of the most useful tools:

Essential Adjustments

These are your go-to controls for fixing common image problems. A light touch is usually best, small tweaks often have the biggest impact.

• Adjust: Use this to straighten your photo or fix perspective issues. If your horizon is crooked or a building looks tilted, a few taps here can fix it.
• Brightness: Makes the entire image brighter or darker. Perfect for shots that are slightly underexposed (too dark) or overexposed (too bright).
• Contrast: Increases the difference between the light and dark areas of your photo. A little more contrast can make an image “pop,” but too much will make it look harsh and unnatural.
• Structure: This tool brings out detail and texture in your image. It’s fantastic for landscapes, architecture, or textured fabrics. Be careful about using it on portraits, as it can over-sharpen skin.
• Warmth: This shifts the color temperature of your photo. Move the slider to the right for a warmer, golden, sun-kissed feel, or to the left for a cooler, bluer tone. This is great for correcting lighting or setting a specific mood.
• Saturation: Controls the intensity of all the colors in your image. A slight boost can make colors more vibrant, but pushing it too far can look artificial. For a more refined effect, try the Vibrance tool instead, which only boosts the less-saturated colors.

Creative and Stylistic Tools

Once your basics are covered, you can work on the more artistic elements.

• Highlights: Controls the brightness of only the brightest parts of your image. If the sky is washed out, try lowering the highlights to bring back a bit of detail.
• Shadows: Controls the brightness of only the darkest parts of your image. If you have dark areas where you can't see any detail, try increasing the shadows to reveal what’s hidden.
• Vignette: Subtly darkens the corners of your image, which helps draw the viewer’s eye toward the center of the frame. It adds a classic, focused look.
• Tilt-Shift: This effect blurs parts of your image to create a false sense of depth, making your scene look like a miniature model. It’s a fun, creative tool but use it thoughtfully.
• Sharpen: Makes the edges in your photo appear crisper. A small amount of sharpening can add a professional finish, just don't overdo it or the image will look noisy.

What About Filters?

Filters get a bad rap, but when used well, they're just one-tap presets that apply a series of edits at once. The key is subtlety. After tapping on a filter, tap on it again. A slider will appear, allowing you to reduce the filter’s intensity from 100 down to 0. Dialing it back to around 20-50 often gives you a nice stylistic boost without overwhelming the original photo.

For brand consistency, try sticking to just one or two filters across all your posts to build a recognizable visual identity.

Level Up: Pro-Level Edits with Third-Party Apps

When you're ready to move beyond Instagram’s native editor, a few dedicated apps can give you a completely different level of control and creativity. Here are three of the best, from simplest to most advanced.

Snapseed: Powerful, Precise, and Free

Owned by Google, Snapseed is a professional-grade photo editor that’s shockingly easy to use and completely free. It’s known for its incredibly precise tools that let you edit select parts of an image.

Must-Try Tools in Snapseed:

• Tune Image: This is your control center for basics like brightness, contrast, ambiance, and saturation. Swipe up and down to select what you want to edit, and left and right to adjust the intensity.
• Selective: This is Snapseed’s standout feature. Tap on a specific part of your photo - like an overly dark face or a washed-out sky - and a control point appears. You can then brighten, darken, or saturate just that small area without affecting the rest of the image. It’s incredibly powerful.
• Healing: Got a light switch, a stray person in the background, or a blemish you want to remove? The Healing tool lets you brush over small objects to magically make them disappear.
• Brush: Lets you "paint" adjustments onto your photo. Want to make just the grass a little greener? Select the Saturation brush and paint over it.

VSCO: For a Signature Style and Aesthetic

VSCO is famous for its beautiful, film-inspired presets. If you’re trying to achieve a specific mood - like a moody, vintage, or airy aesthetic - this is a fantastic starting point. While it has a subscription for its full preset library, the free version comes with a solid set of starters.

How to Make VSCO Work For You:

1. Choose Your Preset: Start by scrolling through the presets and finding one that matches the vibe you’re going for. M5 gives a faded, vintage look, while A6 provides a clean, bright feel.
2. Adjust the Intensity: Just like with Instagram filters, you can tap the preset again to adjust its strength. Never just stick with the default 100%.
3. Fine-Tune with Tools: After applying a preset, head into the adjustment tools. You might want to fix the exposure, add a bit of sharpening, or adjust the skin tones. VSCO’s Skin Tone slider is especially useful for making sure people look natural, and the Clarity tool adds a nice punch of detail.

Adobe Lightroom Mobile: The Ultimate Control

Lightroom Mobile is the industry standard for professional photographers, and its free mobile version is one of the most capable editing apps available. It gives you precise control over every part of your photo, from color to light.

A great place to start with Lightroom is by adjusting the lighting and colors manually.

• Light Panel: Here you can adjust Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, and Blacks. The Tone Curve is its most advanced feature. The curve represents the tones in your image from darkest black to brightest white. By creating an “S” shape with the curve (pulling the shadows down and the highlights up), you can create beautiful contrast in your shot.
• Color Panel: This is where you can truly define your style. The Temp and Tint sliders control your overall warmth, while Vibrance and Saturation control color intensity. But the real game-changer is the Color Mix tool. It lets you adjust the Hue, Saturation, and Luminance of individual colors. Want the blue in the sky to be deeper? Select blue and dial it in without affecting the rest of the photo.

Editing Instagram Reels and Stories

Editing videos for Instagram is a whole different ballgame. While you can apply the same color grading principles using an app like Lightroom or VSCO Video on your clips, the assembly happens right inside the Instagram app or a dedicated video editor.

Using Instagram's Native Reel Editor:

1. Assemble Your Clips: You can upload pre-recorded videos or film directly in the app. Use the timeline editor at the bottom to trim the start and end of each clip.
2. Add Audio: Choose a trending sound or a song from Instagram's music library to set the tone for your video. The video automatically syncs to some sounds.
3. Add Text & Stickers: Use the text tool to add captions or commentary. You can set the text to appear and disappear at specific times in the video, which is a great way to tell a story or keep viewers engaged.
4. Add Voiceover: If you're creating a tutorial or a vlog-style video, the voiceover tool lets you narrate what's happening on screen.

For more complex edits with smooth transitions, special effects, and detailed captioning, many creators turn to apps like CapCut. It's user-friendly, feature-packed, and a great way to take your vertical video production quality up a notch.

Final Thoughts

Becoming confident with photo and video editing is about finding a workflow that fits your content and personal style. Whether you stick with Instagram's quick and easy tools or master the manual controls in Lightroom, the goal is to develop a consistent look that helps your brand stand out and connect with your audience.

Once you’ve perfected your edits, laying them all out to create a stunning, cohesive grid is the critical next step. At that stage, I find that using a visual planner like Postbase is a huge help. It lets me see all my edited photos and Reels in one beautiful calendar view, so I can drag and drop them to get the perfect flow before anything goes live. It just makes bringing a whole visual strategy to life feel so much more organized and streamlined.