Instagram is a part of our daily life. Not many would like to admit it but, it’s a fact. With over a billion users, Instagram is a wonderful tool to connect with other like-minded people, share our passions, get inspired or start a carrier. In 2016, in addition to pictures shown on our feeds, Instagram introduced a new feature: the stories. Since then the importance of those short videos only grew. Creating an appealing post feed and stories on instagram is not easy. It requires consistency, imagination and a lot of work. Luckily as Instagram bloomed, so did the businesses around it. There are many helpful apps to make your Instagram posts & stories more captivating. In this article, you will find a list of the best applications to up your instagram game!

Best apps for Instagram Stories

Mojo

Mojo is one of the best applications to create stunning video stories. Why do we love it? It’s the easiest app to use and there is a big choice of free templates. To access more free templates click the brush icon on the bottom right of a template. Select Layout from the bottom menu. Another 69 templates are available for free. You can also change the text and the colors.

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Ash

Ash is another Instastory maker. It has a big variety of templates, clearly organized by themes. The best way to use this app and access all the beautiful patterns is to purchase the full version for 31.99 EUR per year. However, the free account allows you to use 19 templates and all of them are really stunning.

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Story Art

Story Art is an Instagram Story editor application that will help you create beautiful collage layouts. The app offers over 2000 templates both for your videos and pictures. The templates are divided into categories like Film, Lifestyle Animation, Digital or even Baby or Wedding. Each category allows you to use few templates for free. To access the rest you have to buy a monthly (4.49 EUR), yearly (10.49 EUR) or forever (21.99 EUR) access.

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In Shot

In Shot is without a doubt one of our most used apps. It’s very easy to use, you don’t really need to purchase the full version (if you don’t mind watching a 5 sec commercial at the end of your editing) and it’s very handy when editing both videos of photos. You can crop the videos, reverse them, change the speed, record a sound, add filters, stickers and so on. You can also easily create a GIF from your photos and it will be saved with great quality.

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Loopsie

Loopsie is a fun app we recently discovered. It allows you to animate your pictures or videos. With help of this app you can add dimension to your photos, animate the picture by simply drawing on it, or create light and speed effects. The down side? You can see the effect for free but have to pay 20.99 EUR to save the edited videos or pictures.

Over

Over was voted one of the best Apple Store apps in 2019 for a good reason. It’s one of the great apps for Instagram Stories that lets you overlay text and graphics onto your photos and videos. The selection of templates and graphics is really impressive. We must admit we find the app a bit overwhelming sometimes. The basic versions storage is not that impressive, therefore we suggest to purchase the full app. It does costs 80 EUR per year or 11.99 EUR per month, but if you want to invest in your Instagram it will be money well spent.

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VSCO

VSCO is an app where you can simply edit both your pictures and videos. We love it specially for the huge selection of their presets. For just 4.99 EUR per year (what a bargain!) you can have access to over 200 photo and video filters. The basic version is also pretty good, allowing you to use standard tools like Contrast, Saturation, and Grain and use original filters.

Best Apps for Editing Pictures

Lightroom

Lightroom Adobe is without a doubt n°1 application to edit your pictures like a pro. The mobile version of it is free and it’s a good way to learn the editing process. I (Martyna) found it much easier to first edit with the mobile version. Only once I learned how to do that, I moved to the full desktop version.

Editing with Lightroom is not as hard as it looks at the beginning. We highly recommend watching few youtube tutorials to get the general idea and then play with the settings. Using presets is also a great way to learn how to edit. Presets are ready filters that you can easily apply to your picture as a base. After that, you’ll have to do to adjust it slightly (like lower the exposure or edit the blues) to have the perfect photo.

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Snapseed

Snapseed is a photo editing app that gives you the tools to edit your photos well. There are many good filters, light settings or brush which allows you to edit only selected parts of your pictures. There are also tools loved by many insta-models like skin smoothening, teeth whitening or making eyes bigger. The app is great, but we would not recommend to use those last settings. Faces edited with Snapseed can quickly look grotesque and fake.

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Afterlight

Afterlight is a great image editing app to easily and quickly enhance your pictures. I used Afterlight a lot, before I moved to Lightroom. It has all the necessary settings as well as great special effects tools. You can add dust, light and color effects with just one click.

↬ Note : Of course you can use all of the apps above to retouch pictures for your Instagram Stories.

Other useful Instagram apps

Preview

Preview is visual planner for Instagram. Keeping your Instagram consistent is one of the most important factors to grow your audience. Pictures you show on your profile have to match colouristically (yes, it’s an actual word ??‍♀️) and be variant. Preview allows you to view Instagram feed before you post on your real feed. You can move pictures you plan to post around, to see which order works best. The app has also analytics which are useful if you try to grow your Instagram.

↬ TIP : However, we suggest not to use this app to schedule and post the pictures for you. Since Instagram changed its policy last year, algorithm might shadowban photos posted via third-party applications. It means that your post will be shown to smaller public, thus blocking you from growing.

Iconosquare

Iconosquare is the most powerful analytics, management & scheduling platform. They offer a 14 days free-trial which allows you to view it’s potential. Thanks to Iconosquare you can analyze your engagement, reach, activity and community. You can also view your post and stories according to most/least likes/views/impressions. It’s a very useful tool for anyone thinking about growing their Instagram.

A SPECIAL GIFT FOR OUR READERS

We have been on our voyage for 6 months now and decided that it’s time to give something back to those we create our content for- YOU ?

We came a long way since we started and our self-learned skills are only getting better & sharper. Today we are confident enough to share them with you!

If you would like to have your pictures professionally edited in the style of Voyage In Style, send us two of your pictures and we will do it for you FOR FREE.

Follow those 4 steps :

• choose 2 pictures you would like to have edited
• attach them to an email
• send the email to contact@voyageinstyle.net
• leave us a comment down below to say hi ??

We will send you the edited pictures in no time! It’s that simple!

We hope this post and our recommendation of apps for instagram & stories will help you in your creative process like they help us everyday!

THANK YOU FOR BEING WITH US ALONG OUR VOYAGE

&

FOR YOUR SUPPORT ?