Alternatives to Instagram [obligatory post, but needs to be said]

Seriously, I meant to write this a while back, so it’s not a copy of some of the multitude of other blogs out there…

I won’t even get into the arguments about the folks from the iOS crowd who said it should be for iOS only, and then there’s the flood into the G+ community, and finally yesterday — the announcement that Facebook was buying Instagram out for $1,000,000,000

Wow… that’s a lot of dough.  And what will FB do with it?  Will it be just a plugin for their social network?  Will it be a separate entity but stronger ties through sharing?

Anyways, I’m not really all that anti-instagram… more so cookie cutter lazy photography.  I’m not photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but I totally get the purist point of view.  Carl on my G+ stream said it best (sorry for sharing Carl)

I take the school of thought that it’s best to shoot your photos in their ‘rawest’ form (though I still have to understand RAW) and then you can apply whatever you want to it LATER.  I learned early on in digital photography that if I shoot in B/W, or Sepia, etc… that I can never get back the colour I had and do something different to it.

So, today I thought I’d take a few moments to show you what I have that you might like to use instead of Instagram (especially if it’s going to that ‘other’ social network).

Like I said, if you shoot ‘naked’ shots, even though they may be bland, you can use one of these apps to ‘spice it up’ after, and Android is all about the ‘sharing’… just look at all the options I have to share a photo with.

that photo only shows like 12… I have 28 options in total.

Aviary Editor

Either as a stand-alone “share to” app, or as a built in feature for Minus.

A great amount of standard editing, and some other ‘plugins’ and those cookie cutter features, but you can adjust.

ICS Photo Studio

if, you have a device on ICS, you have it built in, if not, you need to get … okay, can’t find that app now … but there is a Gingerbread version available in the Play Store.

Anyways, again, same standard editing features with some sliders for the effect as well as some of the ‘artistic’ stuff.

Photoshop Express

There’s also the tablet version, but you most likely aren’t taking photos with your tablet… are you?  If so, I’ve reviewed the Touch version of Photoshop before.

It’s funny how ‘basic’ the Photoshop looks in comparison.  For most of the standard editing you have sliders to control the amount of adjustment, and then there’s also the standard types of ‘filters’ to apply as well.

Other options?

There’s tons… really, just tons.  Those are the 3 that I use on a fairly regular basis (in actuality I do most of my editing on the computer with the actual photoshop… but even Google+ ‘creativity kit’ now has some good features!)

I also reviewed RETOUCH a while back, if you want to look at it.

But those are some ones to get you started.  Follow these steps and you’ll be a much happier, less filled with regret photosnapper in no time:

1. Take a picture (take many, it’s digital!)

2. Look at the picture (either via the Gallery App, or right from your camera there’s an option)

3. either ‘share’ or ‘edit’ the picture and choose one of the services

4. do what you like with the photo (it doesn’t matter to me how it looks, it’s how YOU like it)

5. SAVE AS A COPY (now you’ll have 2 photos, one unaltered, one all doctored up)

6. with the altered copy SHARE to wherever you please!

Which ones did I miss?