Top 7 'Signature-Style' Editing Tools to Use for Creators Building a Cohesive Instagram Aesthetic
Have you ever scrolled through an Instagram profile and felt an immediate sense of awe? Every photo, every video, every Story seems to flow together in a beautiful, harmonious visual story. It’s not just a collection of random posts; it’s a brand, a mood, a vibe. This, my friend, is the power of a cohesive Instagram aesthetic, and it’s one of the most effective ways to stand out in a sea of content.
Achieving this level of visual consistency can feel like a daunting task, reserved only for professional photographers or seasoned influencers. You might think it requires complex software and years of training. But the truth is, the secret lies in one key practice: consistent editing. By finding a 'signature style' and applying it across your content, you transform your feed from a simple photo album into a compelling, professional portfolio.
The great news is that you don't need a high-end desktop computer to do it. The most powerful editing tools are right in your pocket. In this guide, we’re going to explore the top 7 editing tools that will help you discover, refine, and consistently apply your signature style. Whether you’re aiming for a dark and moody look, a bright and airy feel, or a retro film vibe, the perfect app is waiting for you.
1. Adobe Lightroom (Mobile & Desktop)
Let’s start with the undisputed champion of the photo editing world. Adobe Lightroom is the industry standard for a reason. It offers an unparalleled level of control, allowing you to go from simple one-tap adjustments to intricate, professional-level color grading. It’s the perfect tool for creators who are serious about developing a truly unique and precise editing style.
The mobile version of Lightroom is surprisingly powerful and, best of all, free to use for its core features. You get access to all the essential sliders: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, and temperature. But where Lightroom truly shines is its advanced color tools. The HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminance) panel lets you target and adjust individual colors. Want to make the blues in the sky a deeper, more dramatic teal, or make the greens in a forest more lush and vibrant? The HSL panel is your best friend.
A key feature for building a cohesive Instagram aesthetic is Lightroom’s preset functionality. Once you’ve perfected an edit, you can save it as a custom preset. This means you can apply the exact same look to all your future photos with a single tap, ensuring flawless consistency. This is a workflow many professionals, including photographers like Goh Ling Yong, rely on to maintain brand consistency across different shoots and lighting conditions.
- Pro Tip: Don’t just slap a preset on and call it a day. The best creators use presets as a starting point. After applying your signature preset, always make minor tweaks to the exposure and white balance to match the specific lighting of each individual photo. This ensures your feed looks consistent, not copied-and-pasted.
2. VSCO
If Lightroom is the professional’s powerhouse, VSCO is the artist’s soulmate. For years, VSCO has been the go-to app for creators seeking that coveted moody, film-inspired aesthetic. Its strength lies in its stunning collection of presets, which are meticulously designed to emulate the look and feel of classic analog film stocks. They are subtle, sophisticated, and instantly elevate your photos.
Unlike many apps with garish, over-the-top filters, VSCO’s presets are designed with nuance in mind. You can easily adjust the intensity of any preset, allowing you to find the perfect balance for your image. The free version offers a solid starting selection, but the paid membership unlocks a vast library of over 200 presets, giving you endless creative possibilities. This is where you can truly find a set of filters that speaks to your unique brand identity.
VSCO is more than just an editing app; it’s also a creative community. You can share your work, discover other creators, and find inspiration for your own feed. It’s an excellent place to experiment and see how different editing styles are being used in the wild. If your goal is a cohesive Instagram feed with an atmospheric, timeless quality, VSCO is an essential tool to have in your arsenal.
- Pro Tip: Find two or three VSCO presets that you absolutely love and stick with them. For example, you might use A6 for your outdoor shots, M5 for your indoor flat lays, and C1 for your portraits. This creates a subtle variation within your feed while maintaining an overarching consistent color palette and mood.
3. Snapseed
Don’t let its free price tag fool you—Snapseed, developed by Google, is an incredibly powerful and versatile editing tool that rivals many paid applications. It’s the perfect multi-purpose app for making precise adjustments before applying your final, stylistic filter. Think of it as your digital darkroom for fixing common photo problems.
One of Snapseed’s standout features is its "Selective" tool. This allows you to place a pin on a specific area of your photo and adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation of just that spot. Is your face a little too dark in a backlit portrait? Drop a pin and brighten it up without blowing out the background. This level of precision is a game-changer for creating polished, professional-looking images on the go.
Other powerful tools include the Healing brush, which effortlessly removes distracting elements (like a stray piece of trash or a photobomber), and the Brush tool, which lets you selectively "paint" on effects like exposure (dodging and burning) or temperature. Snapseed’s non-destructive "Stacks" feature is another huge plus; it lets you view every edit you’ve made as a separate layer, allowing you to go back and tweak or delete any step without starting over.
- Pro Tip: Use Snapseed for the "technical" edits and another app for the "creative" edits. My workflow often starts in Snapseed: I’ll straighten the horizon, remove any blemishes with the Healing tool, and use the Selective tool to balance the light. Then, I’ll export the image and bring it into Lightroom or VSCO to apply my signature color grading.
4. Tezza
For the creator who is deeply in tune with current trends and loves a warm, grainy, film-like aesthetic, the Tezza app is a dream come true. Created by influencer and photographer Tezza Barton, this app is designed to help you achieve that popular, sun-drenched, vintage look with ease. It’s an all-in-one creative suite that offers not just photo presets, but also video filters, textures, and feed planning tools.
The presets in the Tezza app are bold and stylistic, perfect for making a statement. They often add a beautiful grain, soft lighting effects, and warm undertones that evoke a sense of nostalgia. What makes Tezza particularly valuable for building a cohesive Instagram aesthetic today is its video editing capabilities. You can apply the exact same filters to your videos as your photos, ensuring your Reels and grid posts share a perfectly matched visual identity.
Beyond its filters, the app includes a range of artistic effects. You can add dust and light leak overlays for an authentic vintage camera feel, or use creative templates for your Instagram Stories. The built-in feed planner is another excellent feature, allowing you to drag and drop your edited photos to see how they’ll look together before you post, which is crucial for curating a flawless grid.
- Pro Tip: Experiment with the "Dust" and "Glow" effects, but use them subtly. Dial the intensity down to 10-20% to add a touch of texture and atmosphere without overwhelming the photo. This small detail can add a layer of depth that makes your signature style even more unique.
5. RNI Films
If you’re a true connoisseur of analog photography, RNI Films (short for "Really Nice Images") is the app for you. While VSCO does a great job of emulating film, RNI Films is dedicated to authenticity. The app’s filters are born from real film stocks, meticulously scanned and profiled to replicate their unique character, color rendition, and grain structure. It’s the closest you can get to shooting on film without actually loading a roll into a camera.
The user interface is clean and simple, putting the focus squarely on the images and the film stocks. The presets are categorized by film type, such as Negative, Slide, Instant, and Black & White. You’ll find stunning digital versions of legendary stocks like Kodak Portra 400 (famous for its beautiful skin tones), Fuji Velvia 50 (known for its vibrant saturation), and Ilford HP5 (a classic black and white choice).
Using RNI Films feels less like applying a filter and more like making a deliberate creative choice about your medium. The results are often more subtle and natural-looking than other apps, making it perfect for photographers and creators who want a sophisticated, fine-art aesthetic for their Instagram feed. If your visual brand is built on authenticity and timeless quality, this app is a must-try.
- Pro Tip: Spend some time reading about the characteristics of different real-world film stocks. Understanding why a photographer would choose Kodak Ektar for a landscape versus Fuji Pro 400H for a portrait will help you use the RNI presets more intentionally to enhance the story of your images.
6. Canva
Wait, Canva? Isn’t that a graphic design tool? Yes, but it’s also a secret weapon for maintaining a cohesive Instagram aesthetic, especially for brands, bloggers, and creators who post more than just photography. Your feed’s consistency isn’t just about the color grading of your photos; it’s also about the fonts, layouts, and graphical elements you use in carousel posts, quote graphics, and Instagram Stories.
Canva has a surprisingly capable built-in photo editor for basic adjustments like brightness, contrast, and saturation. You can even apply simple filters. But its real power comes from its ability to create and save brand templates. You can upload your edited photos into Canva and seamlessly integrate them into pre-designed layouts for your carousels, ensuring your text overlays, brand colors, and logo placement are always consistent.
Think about it: if you post a beautifully edited photo on Monday, and a messy-looking quote graphic on Tuesday, you’ve broken the visual flow of your feed. By using Canva, you can design a set of templates that complement your photo editing style. Use the same 1-2 fonts, the same color palette, and the same layout structure for all your non-photographic posts. This holistic approach is what separates a good feed from a great one.
- Pro Tip: Use Canva’s color picker tool to pull colors directly from your edited photos. Create a brand palette based on the dominant tones in your signature style (e.g., earthy browns, muted greens, and warm creams). Use this palette for your text and graphic elements to create a seamless blend between your photos and designs.
7. A Color Story
If the dark, moody, and desaturated look isn’t for you, allow me to introduce your new best friend: A Color Story. Created by the team behind the popular lifestyle blog A Beautiful Mess, this app is designed to do the exact opposite—make your photos bright, fresh, and full of vibrant color. It’s perfect for lifestyle bloggers, food photographers, product-based businesses, and anyone whose brand is built on energy and optimism.
The core philosophy of A Color Story is to enhance the colors that are already in your photo, not mute them. Its presets (over 400 of them) are known for creating crisp whites, deep blacks, and colors that truly pop. This is a fantastic tool for developing a cohesive Instagram aesthetic that feels clean, modern, and cheerful.
Beyond its vibrant presets, the app has a few unique features that set it apart. The "Effects" panel includes adjustable light leaks, color fogs, and flares that can add a touch of playful artistry. It also has incredibly powerful and user-friendly "Curves" and "Selective Edit" tools, allowing for a high degree of precision when you want to fine-tune your look. If your signature style is all about light and life, A Color Story will help you achieve it.
- Pro Tip: Dive into the "Essentials" preset pack that comes with the app. It's a fantastic, versatile starting point. The "Everyday" preset is brilliant for making whites look truly white, which is essential for a clean and airy aesthetic.
Finding your signature style is a journey of creative exploration, and the tool you choose is simply the vehicle that gets you there. The most important step is to experiment. Download a few of these apps, play with their features, and see which workflow feels most intuitive and best represents your unique vision. Remember, as Goh Ling Yong often advises in his work, consistency is the foundation of a strong visual brand.
The goal isn't to make every photo look identical, but to make them feel like they belong to the same story. Once you find a process that clicks, stick with it. Your audience will begin to recognize your work instantly, and your Instagram feed will transform into the beautiful, cohesive, and impactful portfolio you’ve always wanted.
Now I’d love to hear from you. What is your go-to editing app for maintaining your Instagram aesthetic? Share your favorites and any secret tips you have in the comments below
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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