I know i'm not the only blogger out there that has their woes with Instagram, with their follower count going up and down like a yoyo and struggling to stick to a theme but for the most part I do love Instagram and how unique it is to anything else out there. If you do follow me on Instagram then you'll be familiar with my usual white backgrounds, flat lays and the odd selfie here and there, but I couldn't achieve those white backgrounds and sharpened flat lays if it wasn't for a few apps, that I literally call my 'insta saviours'.

If you've been reading my blog for some time then you'll of probably read my post on Instagram Tips/Photo Editing, where I shared some tips on how to grow your audience and how I edited my photos back then. Mostly every point in that post still applies but since then i've discovered newer apps or i've changed the way I now use those apps and you'll notice my followers have doubled since that post (not that it was easy).

Afterlight - For me this is my favourite photo editing app and I have been using this ever since I decided I wanted to dedicate myself to growing my Instagram. Back in the day I used to use the fancy filters to help brighten up images and bring back the colour that was sometimes lost, but now I prefer to use the manual aspect of this app and you can do pretty much anything you want. From cropping an image, to applying a white border, or brightening up a dull image and adding some sharpness to it, the possibilities are endless. I personally love this app for adding on the white borders to my photos, as I find they just make my feed look so much cleaner but I also use this app to do the majority of my photo editing. For an app that costs now 79p (used to be 69p) you really cannot complain, as you can edit an image solely using this app. 

Aviary - This app is more of a recent discovery for me as I was on the hunt for an app that you could whiten a dull or yellow toned background, but without paying the ridiculous price of Facetune as I wouldn't of used it for anything else. Thats when I discovered Aviary which is a free photo editing app that you can use similarly to Afterlight but with this app you can whiten up any background. I find that the manual editing on this app isn't as good as Afterlight, but I often use these two apps hand in hand to edit photos, especially those that have a really dull background to it. As this app is free you cannot go wrong and is one i'd definitely recommend, especially if like me your office has hideous lighting!

Below you can see the before and after of using these two apps hand in hand. Firstly I opened up the image in Afterlight and adjusted both the brightness and contrast to brighten the image, but to also bring some colour back into it. I then sharpened the image as I find this helps to bring back detail that can often be lost when brightening an image. I then saved the image and opened it up in Aviary to whiten the background, where you literally swipe over the screen like an eraser to whiten the areas that you want, and tadah! 

I hope this post was somewhat helpful, especially if you're wanting to try out some new photo editing apps as I would highly recommend trying these, not only because they are cheap as chips, but because I have noticed such a positive difference in my content and pictures appearance since I began using these apps.

What are your favourite photo editing apps?