Best Photo Editing Apps You Must Have For Aesthetic Instagram Photos

Here are the best photo editing apps you must have on your iPhone or Android device. The top ones are FREE and have filters that give you professional photos for aesthetic Instagram feed photos or Insta story. These 5 apps are my recommendations. Prequel, Photoshop Express, Photoshop Fix, PicTapGo, Canva, Over.

In this digital age that we live in, photo editing apps are used by almost everyone. Whether you’re a professional content creator or just sharing moments on your private account with family & friends, you probably feel the need to edit your photos quickly and easily.   

Having ‘aesthetic photos’ is the trend on Instagram, and has been for a while now. I don’t think this ‘trend’ is going anywhere anytime soon. So, we might as well jump on the bandwagon. There’s nothing wrong with having an aesthetic Instagram feed.

I’ve tried quite a few different photo editing apps in the last couple of years, and have settled on a few that I keep coming back to. Here is the list of my favourite photo editing apps and what I specifically use them for.

Prequel:

First on my list is my latest favourite FREE app – Prequel. This app blew me away with its free filters. I use this app most often for my Instagram feed photos.

With most other free apps, I noticed that the filters available were not great. To get actually usable, good filters, you would have to upgrade to the premium version. Not with Prequel! 

It has many good, usable, aesthetic, Instagram-worthy filters even in the free version. Along with great filters, it also allows you to make basic adjustments such as exposure, contrast or saturation. It even has an ‘Effects’ tab for you to add cool borders, sparkles and other things to add to the ‘aesthetic-ness’ of your photos. 

Prequel is also great for Instagram stories! It has a canvas size perfect for stories and you can add all free effects and filters to them. 

My favourite filters: Pretty much all of them. They’re really good. Whatever the vibe you’re going for, there’s a filter for it. The one I currently use is ‘Toscana.’

My favourite effects: Again so many beautiful ones, but my current favourites are: Story, Golden Hour, #StayHome, Instant.

Overall, this app is my #1…for many reasons. It’s perfect for pretty much everything, from regular feed photos to stories or website photos. There are great options for filters and effects even in the free version. It’s super easy to use and I’ve never experienced any glitches while editing. I love Prequel. That is all.

Photoshop Express:

My next most-used photo editing app is Photoshop (PS) Express. I mainly use this app to correct the brightness, white balance, shadows and saturation/vibrance of my photos. Usually, before using Prequel for filters, I first fix the basic image using Photoshop Express.

This photo editing app is easy to use and has great correcting options. You can even select backgrounds or subjects, and edit them separately which is super useful. 

To use this app though, you do need a Creative Cloud subscription. The subscription allows you to use many different apps/software on all devices. So if you have a use for Creative Cloud and most of their products, definitely look into it. It’s very useful if you do a lot of digital creative work.

Photoshop Fix:

As part of a Creative Cloud subscription, you also get access to Photoshop Fix. This app really helps me with photos of my art. If there are ever certain areas of a photo that you want to cover up or kind of “paint over,” this app helps with that.

I mainly use the ‘Spot Heal’ and ‘Clone Stamp’ tools under ‘Healing.’ They help me smooth out certain light patches or marks on my photos, or clean up backgrounds and erase small objects from photos completely.

PicTapGo:

Another free photo editing app that is highly recommended by many. This app has many filters and also basic editing options like brightness, contrast and warmth.

In my opinion, their filters are pretty basic, but when you layer different filters and create what they call a ‘recipe,’ you can really get great results.

 I use this app a lot for my art phots too. But I usually save a ‘recipe’ of multiple filters layered on top of one another, to use for every photo and keep the feed looking aesthetic.

Canva or Over:

Over and Canva are two different apps that have similar functions. They aren’t exactly photo editing apps like the others but can be used to add text, stickers or other things to photos.

These two are my favourites for making text posts for my Instagram feed. Even without a photo, you can make your own graphics from scratch and share quotes, poems, slideshows, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Do you ever wonder how people on Instagram make those pretty slideshows to share information on specific topics? Or how people make those really cool graphics for their poetry? Or maybe you want to try adding text to your pre-edited photos? Canva and Over are the apps for you.

Over: best premium version. Free version is very basic but still usable for basic text addition and limited stickers/graphics.

Canva: best free version. Many more options for making graphics from scratch for free.

These apps are great for making Pinterest pins too. They really allow you to get creative and are very easy to use.

My Top Photo-Editing app:

If I had to just suggest one app for you to download and get the best of everything/the most useful features, I would recommend Prequel. For graphics, I would recommend Canva. These are my two most used apps for Instagram and blogging.

I use Prequel to edit all photos, whether for Instagram feed, stories, or website photos. They have some great filters and effects in the free version. No matter your preference, you will find something you like. It’s also very easy and simple to use.

There you go! These are my top 5 photo editing apps that I think everyone should try. I hope you found this helpful and download some of these apps to try them out.

Happy creating!