VSCO Cam - Photography App for Better Instagram Photos

If you're searching for a fun app to make your Instagram photos look awesome, check out VSCO Cam. This app not only offers beautiful filters that resemble film for editing your photos, it also allows you to have more creative control while shooting. You are able to manually focus, control your white balance, shutter speed, aperture, ISO and use exposure compensation. Pretty sweet, right? Oh, and it's free. VSCO Cam has hardly any text on the interface, so navigating the controls can be a little confusing. Here's a quick rundown to get you started using VSCO Cam.

This is your main menu screen; when you click the menu button on the bottom left (stacked lines) you will get this screen. If you'd like to open your camera to take a photo, click the bottom left icon on this menu page (the box with the circle). I want to access my library and add photos to VSCO Cam so I click on library. 

To add photos into your VSCO Cam library from your camera, click the + button in the middle of the top menu (see below). 

You can select more than one at a time. Click the check mark at the bottom when you're done selecting your photos. 

If you want to take an image, this is what you'll see. The top left button turns on your control menu bar at the top of the screen. The top right button will flip your camera to the one on your screen. I have the grid tool turned on, which can help with composition.

In the image above you'll see the bottom left sunshine button opens more controls; setting your white balance, manual focus, ISO and your shutter speed. 

These two images below show how I can select my white balance using a Kelvin scale; the smaller the number (or closer to the left) the cooler it will be; the larger the number (to the right) the warmer your image will be. I use this scale on my Nikon for white balance and love this feature in VSCO Cam. 

In the image below, you'll see some controls at the top of your viewfinder; the control menu button, setting a grid, low-light boost (white dot), white balance lock, and advanced-brightness control. The far right button switches your toolbar and background to be white or dark gray. 

To take an image, press the circle on the bottom. To access your images, click the image icon on the bottom right of your screen. This will take you back to your library. To edit an image, select the image and press the button on the left (see toolbar below - it looks like sliders). 

To add a filter to the image, click the paint brush and scroll through the filters. You can click the filter twice to select the strength that the filter will be applied, just like Instagram. Click the wrench icon to edit your image; brightness, contrast, straighten, crop, saturation, skin tone, and much more. 

The button to the right of the wrench is an Undo button. The far right button acts like Photoshop layers. If you made an edit earlier on that you want to undo, you simply click this to alter the edit you made or delete it completely without losing all of the changes you made to your image! The image below shows an example of what the layers look like. 

Once you've finished editing your image and you're back on your library screen, click the dotted circle button (see below - far right button) to save or share your image to social media. 

This is your exporting screen. 

VSCO Cam also allows you to create a profile and browse the work of other users, like Instagram. There are many photo-editing apps out there but VSCO Cam is easily one of my favorites! Some say it is a "more artistic and curated version of Instagram". Plus, being able to have more camera controls on an iPhone is pretty fun. 

Check it out and give it a try!

iPhone App Review - Whitagram

Whitagram is an awesome app I use all the time for Instagram. I love it because I can easily keep the exact size I want my image (for instance, a vertical image instead of square) and I get to add my own border or frame. Instagram still crops some of the edges of certain vertical images, and it doesn't allow for selecting a border around an image.

This is how Instagram cropped my image (left) compared to my framing in Whitagram (right):

I love having a clean white border to my images; it makes it look like a matted print. Using Whitagram also makes your Instagram feed look clean, showing a little more space between the photos (see image below). I like this look.

Let's get to it! This is Whitagram's home screen, where you choose to take an image with your camera or select one from your library. 

Once you bring it in from your library, you'll see this screen. This is what it looks like without a border. I'd like to add a white border around the top and the bottom, so I'll click the white square in the middle of the toolbar below the photo.

Choose your frame color and size by sliding the bottom slider to the right. I usually end up around 10-12 for the extra white space around my image.

If you'd like a different color of background, you can choose from all the colors below. I usually stick with white, but these can be fun to use as well.

To save those changes, just click anywhere on your image. The icon on the left  of the toolbar below your image (the three circles) will allow you to edit your image using Aviary. Here you can add filters (effects), change the brightness, saturation, sharpness, add text and more.  

Once you have your final image, click save on the top and you'll come to an export screen that looks like this:

I always save mine in the Large file size. Then choose to save it to your camera roll or send it straight to Instagram or other apps like Twitter or Facebook.

Whitagram is a pretty awesome app that is easy to use and can really take Instagram photos to the next level!  

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