Noelle Freeman

In today's social media climate a mediocre shot can be a death sentence. However, we can't have a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens with us at all times. Here are the best photo editing apps and a few simple techniques to take your shots from drab to fab.

Snapseed is a user-friendly mobile version of Adobe Photoshop without the membership fee and complex UI. Try lifting the shadows, lowering the highlights and increasing the ambiance to achieve the vibrant filtering as pictured below.

The moon and sun are two of the most difficult subjects to photograph. In fact, if you're using a phone camera you can forget even trying to capture them! Cue Lenslight, the app where the sun, moon, and stars come to life with the touch of a button.

Facetune 2 has endless features that can turn your photo into Instagram perfection. The two most valuable tools that I use are patch and vibrance, as exampled below. The patch tool allows you to extract unwanted items from your shot. In this case, I removed cigarette butts and other unsightly trash including a highlighter in the left corner. The next best feature this app has is the vibrance option. With a drag of your finger you can make any area more colorful and then adjust it's vibrance with a slider. Unlike other vibrant filters, this feature allows you to highlight only the areas you specify, leaving your subject the most prominent part of the shot. 

The cardinal rule of photography is that your subject should be well lit. Mextures has a variety of lighting filters that allow you to keep the focus on your subject without the hassle of a three-point lighting set-up. 

Pixlr has a variety of filters that I can't live without including Ingrid, the filter used below. Great for brightening an entire landscape, Ingrid is one filter no other app has been able to replicate. As the muted and washed out color trends come and go, so do the apps that brought them to light. Pixlr is a must-have for creating a dynamic aesthetic on Instagram.

Be sure to follow me on Instagram →​ @noelle

Off to my next meeting with no time to spare! So thankful for @californiaalmonds for keeping me charged throughout crazy busy days like these! Head to the link in my bio http://izea.it/aPbVDts to learn more about the health benefits of my favorite snack.