Instagram is releasing an update to the popular app today. This update comes with a lot of photo editing tools that may mean you’ll never have to use that PhotoShop app again.

A Closer Look At Instagram 6.0

Things like brightness, warmth, contrast, saturation, shadows, highlights, sharpness, and vignettes are all part of the new Instagram 6.0. That means that those tried and true filters aren’t the only way to modify your Instagram photos. Now, you can really dip into each photo by playing with PhotoShop-like elements such as sharpness and contrast. To access the new tools, just tap on the wrench icon. From there, you will see the various new editing options.

You can also check to see what your photo looked like before and after you made the various edits. The only new editing tool that many Instagram users may not be familiar with is the vignetting tool, which keeps in line with Instagram’s original purpose of letting users create older-looking photos.

The Vignetting Tool

Vignetting is a technique used to reduce the brightness of an image around the edges of that image. This technique was used a lot in earlier films, and that’s the kind of research that the Instagram team did when perfecting this editing option. Why has Instagram decided to offer numerous editing tools now? There’s a lot of sense behind this decision, it seems.

If you look at the popular Instagram posts, you’ll see tags for things like #retrica. Instagram users are downloading and using other apps to make edits to photos, and that means that Instagram users are going elsewhere to edit photos – that’s not good news for the Instagram team. So, the team has decided to keep all users within the Instagram app by just offering the same (or similar) editing tools that can be found elsewhere. This way, users don’t have to look at another app to get the same photo effects.

Availability

The new Instagram update should be available today for iPhone and Android. If you don’t have the update quite yet, sit tight. Everyone that has Instagram should also have access to Instagram 6.0 later today.

The move to add more editing options to Instagram photos is a good one, and it’s one that many Instagram users will appreciate. But, how will the company’s newest editing options compare to other photo editing tools like Retrica? Even though people are using editing tools to post photos to Instagram, the fact remains that the photos are still being posted to Instagram and that’s saying something.

A lot of avid Instagram users spend a good amount of time editing photos before posting them, and these new editing tools will make a difference. However, most native phone cameras are still superior to the camera tool that Instagram offers, so the company won’t be able to keep people entirely in the app, but the editing tools are a good start.

Anyone checked out these new tools yet? Let us know what you think!