Instagram Review: still the best option for sharing photos with new features

Instagram is a popular photo and video sharing app that allows you to create vintage-looking projects in just a few actions and then share them with friends and other Instagram members. The latest version of the app adds three additional filters, as well as new ways to add interest to your photos, including a fade feature and color overlay options. It also features a new post notification feature that makes it easier to see what your friends have posted. Finally, you can now add emojis to subject tags to share your photos within the Instagram community.

But what makes the Instagram phenomenon so special is how users use the app to create stories about their daily lives through stylized photos and videos.

Getting Started
Start by signing up for Instagram with your email address, username, and password. from there, you can configure Instagram to automatically post to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare, and Posterous, or just choose to share images from within the app or via email. You can also turn any of these options on or off if you don’t want to share your photos with everyone.

Once you’re connected, you can take photos anywhere, move and zoom images, add effects with the touch of a finger, and touch Done to share your photographic moments with the world.

Add filters and effects
The app comes with several free, custom-designed filters that give your images a variety of vintage effects, a grainy black-and-white look, and even an adjustable tilt-shift option. The most recent update adds three new filters for iOS and Android; Lark, Reyes, and Juno. lark emphasizes the greens and blues in your photos, Reyes gives you another vintage effect (like many of Instagram’s filters), and Juno takes on warm tones and renders any whites.

The Android version of Instagram has been updated to add some new features for photos as well as new notification options. An iOS update with the same features should be rolling out soon.

To add more content to your images, you can add new fade options and color overlays as well as general adjustments. Fade makes your photos look older by softening the colors. Color Overlay has eight different colors to choose from, including yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, cyan, and green. They can be applied to shadows or highlights in an image.

When you’re happy with the photos you’ve taken, you can add captions and geotagging and then share them immediately.

Instagram Direct
Thanks to a recent update, the app now allows you to send a private photo or video to one or more friends without having to share it to your Instagram feed.In the top right corner of the home screen there is an inbox where you can view all the photos and videos you’ve sent as well as those sent to you. From there, you can send a new direct photo or video by tapping the plus sign and following the prompts.

Your friends can comment on the direct “grams” you send them, but no one else can see the likes or comments. The idea is similar to Snapchat, an app that sends private photo messages. The difference here is that images and videos don’t disappear like they do on Snapchat.

Video Features
With Instagram, you can take videos and add filters, just like you would with a photo. In camera mode, there is a button to switch from photo to video. Just like Twitter’s Vine app, when shooting a video, touch to shoot and release to stop shooting.Vine has a 6-second shoot time, while Instagram has a 15-second shoot time. You can also quickly fix a part of your video without having to start from scratch by deleting parts of the video as you’re making it. Then, you can choose from 13 new filters and preview each one in real time as your video plays – no need to wait for a render. To make your videos more stable, Instagram also offers what the company calls the Cinema feature, which helps make your videos smoother if you’re shooting on the move.

You also have the option to import existing videos from the library. Not all file types are supported, but the app can handle pretty much any mobile video you throw at it. The feature lets you browse the video to mark the desired start and end points, but of course, it will limit you to 15 seconds. Currently, Instagram can only import one video at a time, but perhaps in the future, the app will add basic editing features so you can piece together multiple clips.

It’s worth noting that with the video creation feature comes an influx of videos into your Instagram feed. What many may not like is that, so far, there is no way to filter out videos. Videos and still photos are mixed into one feed, which can be annoying if you’re only looking for one or the other.

Unfortunately, not all Android devices support the video feature. Users running Android 2.2 and above can only watch Instagram videos, while only those running 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and above can record videos.

Explore other people’s photos and video moments
Even with only the mentioned features, this free app is already easy to recommend, but some additional features make it even better. After signing up for Instagram, you can follow other Instagram users on the Feed page, which displays recent photos taken by you and your friends. This is where you can comment and ‘like’ photos, and Facebook integration means you can also ‘like’ photos on Facebook. Toggle the tab to see the popular list, which shows all the most popular Instagram images from all users. You can search for hashtags and users in the recently added Explore section. You can also view the News tab, which shows the latest actions (likes, comments, or other) of your connected friends so you can see what your friends are currently viewing. These features make Instagram an app you might check every day just to see what your friends are doing.

To help you know what your friends are posting, the latest version of Instagram offers a new feature called Post Notifications. This is an optional setting that ensures you see when specific people you follow post new photos. To set it up, simply go to your friend’s profile and tap the three dots in the upper right corner. Select the “Turn on post notifications” option and from then on, you’ll always know when a friend or family member posts a new photo. This new notification feature is available in both the iOS and Android versions of the app.

Location Features
Instagram also categorizes your photos and videos by location. The app automatically collects all past Instagram media where you have activated geotagging and places them on a map so you and your followers can browse by location. The app displays all geotagged images and videos by default (once you’ve identified them), but you can select or deselect photos and videos if you don’t want certain locations to show up on the map. There is a photo map button on your profile page that you can touch to display a map of all your images.

Be sure to note that sometimes you don’t want to post location information to the public (such as where you live). Parents of children who use Instagram should be wise to make sure their kids don’t geotag their photos and videos for the same reason. That said, this interface change keeps your work from getting lost in an endless synopsis and provides an easier way for people to view all the images you’ve created.

Final Thoughts
The sleek design of Instagram for Android keeps it fresh and easy to use. Its wide range of filters and video recording features also help it stay ahead of competitor Vine.

Instagram is a great way to take vintage photos and videos and share them with anyone. The app’s popularity provides you with tons of content to browse through and offers the possibility of your photos and videos being seen by many people. For taking and sharing photos and videos, we don’t think there’s anything easier to use or more enjoyable.