Instagram has become a number one tool among all smartphone photographers. The application, which allows to apply filters to our pictures and make them more vintage, has been installed on millions of devices running on Android and iOS. But what about PC users? Well, there are two applications that let you feed your inner hipster.
Whether you envy smartphone users their Instagram access, or you would like to try some alternatives and quickly add a nice touch to your hard drive-based photo collection, it's worth trying the programs that we recommend.
1. XNRetro
XNSoft's - this company offers a great choice of graphic and sketch editors and image browsers (such as XNView) - lightweight program that presents its users with features undoubtedly similar to those offered by Instagram.
The program allows to apply filters in Retro style, add new sources of light, a vignette or a vintage-style frame. Apart from pre-made sets - a plethora of them, it's fair to say - XNRetro allows to play with all the settings to suit your taste. At any moment you can change brightness, contrast, colour saturation, gamma, colour balance, etc., etc. The application is extremely easy in use, and with its user-friendly interface all you really have to do is to open the file with a photo and to choose certain effect from a grid list.
While XNRetro is extremely easy in use and has quite limited choice of editing tools, Perfect Effects Free is a sort of a compromise between simple programs and more advanced tools. This application allows not only to apply vintage-style effects and create frames, but also to improve overall quality of your photos, sharpen the contrasts, apply HDR effects, fix the problem of the red eyes, or apply movie-style effects.
The program has an interface similar to Adobe's applications, such as Photoshop and Lightroom. It is by no means a coincidence, since there are also layers that can allow to separate the effects or mix them together. There is also a feature that allows to set how much certain layers should be hidden, additionally broadening the editing possibilities spectrum, along with adding minor corrections.
Furthermore, when you install Perfect Effects Free Adobe Photoshop's and Adobe Lightroom's plugins are installed (if you have these programs on your hard drive) allowing you to import and export your projects between these applications.
