Shaunae’s favorite photo & Video Editing Apps

We all want to create beautiful images for our social media, but what if we don’t have a camera and we just have to use our phones? Learning the basics of photography can help make your iPhone images better, but what if you want to add that special magic to really make your images pop? Thanks to some awesome photo and video apps, you can create crisp, clean, and bright images without having to use Photoshop! There are hundreds of awesome photo and video apps but in today’s episode, Shaunae shares her favorite photo and video apps that she personally uses.

Touch Retouch

TouchRetouch is an app that offers you all the tools you need to efficiently remove unwanted content from your iPhone photos. This app is $1.99 but it’s totally worth it. It allows you to clear distracting and unwanted things so your photos can really pop. It helps make your photos look clean and intentional.

ColorStory

A Color Story focuses on fresh photos and video, on-trend editing styles, and colors that pop. They have  over 300 filters designed by top photographers and influencers, over 100 movable effects and over 20 advanced tools, including HSL, curves, and selective editing. Shaunae uses this app for the tools like curves but if you are looking for fun filters, this app has a lot to offer. The app is free but you can purchase different tools and filters within it.

WordSwag

Word Swag easily and magically turns your words into beautiful photo text designs. It’s free and it allows you to share your own quotes, announcements, and deals in a stylish way. They have custom sizes so you don’t have to stress about cropping for Instagram, Stories, Facebook, and Twitter.

Facetune

This app is basically the crazy cousin of Photoshop. Facetune gives you the ability to retouch and add artistic flair to selfies and portraits with ease, from the convenience of your iPhone. This $3.99 is fun but you can definitely go overboard and start making people look “too perfect.” It’s great to use in moderation but try out all its features so you can see just how far you can go.

Over

This free app has inspiring templates, tools and effects to make your brand and personal projects shine! You can choose a template or create awesome graphics from scratch. This app is free and has tons of free templates. You can choose to purchase other templates and customize them in the app as well.

RotateNFlip

Super simple app but a true video life-saver. If you have ever wanted to rotate or flip your video or Boomerang but don’t know how, this app is for you. It’s self-explanatory and it’s an awesome app to have if you need to make any of those quick video edits.

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Podcast Transcription:

Shaune Teske 0:00
As a photographer, people are always like, Oh, well, then you must never use your phone for photography. And that’s just not true. I use my phone a lot because photography is my job. And carrying a giant camera around with me is always interesting. So if I’m traveling or, you know, wanting to capture something in the moment, I will just use my phone.

Welcome to the Creative Legacy Podcast, a podcast to help creative entrepreneurs build their business, while leading a life of intention, joy and adventure. I’m Shaune,

Sarah Schrader 0:42
and I’m Sarah. We’re going to talk about some favorite photography and video apps and definitely picking Shaune’s brain on this, what she is, is what she loves, because I love what she puts out, especially for like those non photographers out there and the photographers too. But just things that you could do simply on your phone, if you want to maybe do a couple edits to make that photo that you snapped a little bit better. So I guess do you want to maybe kind of list a couple of them, and we can talk about them a little bit more in detail?

Shaune Teske 1:16
I’m sure. So first of all, I just want to say that like, as a photographer, people are always like, Oh, well, then you must never use your phone for photography. And that’s just not true, I use my phone a lot because photography is my job. And carrying a giant camera around with me is always interesting. So if I’m traveling or you know, wanting to capture something in the moment, I will just use my phone. But what I think sets that apart from just use my phone now post to social media is that then I actually take the time to edit it on my phone, using these apps that we’re going to talk about and being able to create something that looks like my photography normally, but I’m able to then create it on my phone. Um, so then as at least cohesive. So I don’t think your phone is ever gonna replace photography, and you can definitely tell is a little grainier, a little more like, you know, it’s taken on a phone. But it is really nice to use. Because you’re in the moment, and you don’t want to carry a giant camera around with you. And most of us aren’t photographers. So how can you still create really fun images for your social media without being a professional photographer? So I want to talk about a few of my favorite apps that I use. So I want to just kind of instead of just listing them all, I’m just going to talk about like one. And then if you want to, I don’t know, ask questions. That thing that’s a little easier. So my favorite one that I use all the time is called Retouch, or it’s like Touch Retouch. When you look at the app, it just says Retouch. But then when you click on it, it says touch retouch. So what I love most about this app is that it’s really nice for eliminating distractions. So if you’re taking a picture, and there’s like a big sign in the background, or I don’t know, you know, whatever, like something crazy, you can pull up a photo and actually go in and try to remove it or clone it out kind of like a mini Photoshop. But of course, you have to be able to, remove it, but with something else in the photo. So there’s object removal, there’s quick repair, there’s line removal, and there’s clone stamp. And you can remove things in your image. I wish this part was a tutorial because I can show you. But it’s just really nice because if something is in the background, you can literally just take a little brush or the lasso tool and select it, and then find a different spot that you’re trying to copy in. Or if you’re just trying to remove it, you can just do the the object Remove button. Um, it’s not perfect, because just like Photoshop isn’t perfect, either. You have to control what you’re trying to remove. And then it might try to clone something else. So it’s just getting it in and playing with it is really helpful. But I really love this app, because if somebody is distracting, I’m trying to get it out of the picture. This app does a really good job of it.

Sarah Schrader 4:17
So if you said like a tutorial you wish you could do that. For those at least with an iPhone in the app store. I’m looking at it right now because I don’t have this one. And there’s a little like video you can see and watch how it kind of takes away..

Shaune Teske 4:31
They’ll probably do a better job than anyway so.

Sarah Schrader 4:35
It’s very interesting like it is pretty much like a little like a mini Photoshop yes.

Shaune Teske 4:42
It’s really just for object removals and like clone stamping and yeah, just removing things. So that’s my favorite one. I use that one a lot, especially if, like I said, someone’s in the background being distracting or there’s a sign here and I want it to be like more of a blank wall. And it’s not for like big things, you’re not gonna be able to take out like, all the people and all the things. But if it’s just like one little thing or one, you know something that’s going to take away from your photo, it’s really helpful to do it on the spot. So I love retouch. I use that one all the time.

Sarah Schrader 5:17
Now they’re showing like little power lines and stuff. And I’m like, I’m gonna download this now, because, I mean, I’m in Split, Croatia right now. So I’m taking lots of photos. And there’s this one photo that I brought into Photoshop. And it literally took me forever to do but, I just had like my purse sitting somewhere. And it happened to not be out of the frame of the person who took it. And I’m like, Well, I’m not going to ask them to retake it. But just Photoshop it out later. But this seems super simple. So

Shaune Teske 5:43
It is really like and then you use your little finger to do it. It’s kind of fun. I really like it. That’s my, that is my favorite one for all photo apps, I just think that one is the best to just make because I like my pictures crisp and clean and distraction free.

Sarah Schrader 6:02
Awesome. So what what’s next?

Shaune Teske 6:04
Yeah, that’s one’s great. And then I love Color Story. It is or A Color Story when you click on it. So this is where I will edit some of my photos, I don’t I don’t need to do any editing really in Instagram, or I don’t really apply presets. But in a color store, you can they have some really pretty presets and things to use. But what I like to use it for is I’m just pulling up a photo right now so I can like go through what I usually do. So what I like to use it for is they do have cropping and if you need to rotate it like flipping it horizontally or vertically, which is really nice. So it is just editing like that some simple cropping. But it has this tools button. And you can adjust curves, clarity, contrast, saturation, kind of like how your iPhone tries to do that, but it’s not really good at it. Like I never edit my photos in the iPhones, edit your photo thing because it just, it looks too extreme. I like a color story because you can kind of it’s more subtle, and it’s, I think it’s just better. So they have all the things temperature, tint, shifting, highlighting all that kind of stuff. But what I love it for the most is for the curves. button because I can then bring up the brightness and the exposure of an image without losing anything I love that just makes all my photos look bright and happy. You definitely can do crazy stuff with curves and get all contrasting whatever. But I love it because it just allows me to just get my instead of like, where you’re citing the brightness tool back and forth, you’re gonna start losing things like highlights and whatever it may be. But just just using the curves tool, it just kind of brings everything up a little bit, and then you like move it and make it a little more contrast. See, I’m just playing with it right now. And I’m looking at other things. So that’s really nice. That’s what I used to edit. I just take a photo and I’m like, Okay, it’s a little dark for like my taste. It’s a little shadowy, I’ll bring in A Color Story to kind of bring the curves up a little bit. And then like I said, you can edit contrast, you can do different things with saturation, brightness, all sorts of things. But then what else is great, if you are into filters and kind of getting cool with getting more artistic with your photos, they do have fun little filters to apply to your photo. And then you can also buy different packs. So there’s Island pack, and other people create it, which is really cool. They have a whole shop section for all their filters, which is really, really fun. And it’s just endless, it just keeps going. There’s tons of things you can buy that people have created and apply to your photos.

Sarah Schrader 9:02
Yeah, this one says it has 300 plus filters designed by top photographers. And 100 plus affects. moveable and blending. It just continues. Like that’s crazy. So much stuff.

Shaune Teske 9:16
I like it. I just use it to edit them. But yeah, you can totally have, there’s like I think, a few filters, but then you can just buy packs of them. I think they’re like $2 or $3. And then you can have more. I know a lot of people too, use the VSCO app or VSCO film app. It’s kind of…it’s filters that are supposed to make your pictures look more like film inspired. I think people go a little overboard with it. But if you are a film photographer or you just like the look of film, that’s a really good one too to kind of get that filmy look and I definitely used to use it when my stuff was more contrasty or when I was first starting out. I like things a little brighter. Now, I like things crisp and clean. So I like A Color Story for that. And I think it’s just really it’s super easy to use. And it’s really fun.

Sarah Schrader 10:11
Awesome. VSCO’s one that I have, but I don’t want to create an account for it. So yeah.

Shaune Teske 10:18
I think that’s the other thing. You have to create an account. I don’t know if you’re looking, at I already have these, but I think both Retouch and Color Story I think you had to pay for, is that correct?

Sarah Schrader 10:28
A Color Story is actually free in the Apple Store, App Store. And the touch was $1.99 in the Apple App Store.

Shaune Teske 10:37
Okay. Totally worth it for Retouch $1.99. Color Story, yeah, it’s free, but then if you want more filters, you can pay for them. And you’re supporting, obviously, the app, but you’re also supporting these photographers that put the them together, which is kind of cool.

Sarah Schrader 10:41
Yeah, I mean, to have that resource of photographers putting them together even. It’s just, that’s awesome.

Shaune Teske 10:55
Yeah, so that’s really fun. I really, those are my two, for sure, go to apps for editing things. Now, if you want to get a little crazy. And you want to really do some editing and making your photos or photos of people look different. Then there’s another app called Face Tune. And it’s literally for people. You can whiten teeth, you can smooth skin, you can take out red eye, you can do all sorts of things with that. People, I definitely have seen some people like overuse this app. And I’m like, you don’t look like that. But,

Sarah Schrader 11:36
It can get a little crazy.

Shaune Teske 11:36
Yeah, it’s kind of fun to like to play with it like that, and like to mess with it. But it is a good like, Okay, someone has, you know, you take a picture and they have red eyes. And you don’t want to your like, I’d like to post this. Now I don’t want to wait at home, get it in like Lightroom or Photoshop and take care of it. This does have a pretty good correction for red eye and things like that. Or, if you want to whiten your teeth, I don’t know. But it’s fun. It’s just kind of fun to use, if you want to kind of clean up faces, I guess. I do like that one. That one’s funny. Another one I use a lot, it’s less of a photography app, but it is, I mean it is, you can use it for photos, but what I like to use it for is creating graphics for my social media. So it’s called Word Swag. And it’s really neat, because it has, you can just pick a plain background, if there’s a certain color or a certain you know, whatever. Like they have some stock images too that you can use. And then you can choose your crop, if it’s going on social media, if it’s going, you know, Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Stories, they have different crops for that. And then they have all these different fonts you can choose from. And you can make these fun little graphics. So I’m trying to make something really quick. And I just want to be like, Hey, hello, or whatever. And I want to make this cute little graphic that goes with it, Word Swag is really easy to use. And then you can just save it and upload it to your social media. And then every time you try it out, it kind of makes us noise like shoooo. I don’t know, it’s just fun. So I really like it. I use it a lot for, if I’m making a graphic really quick, and I don’t want to get on a computer because I’m lazy or I’m out and about. It’s just a really easy one to use and send to your social media.

Yeah, I I’ve seen when you, especially if you do an event you’ve done those?

Or if I do a giveaway.

Sarah Schrader 13:44
Yes. And now I have a question for you. Because Canva is often like a go to one for social media and creating in terms of like, those types of graphics. Do you and they have an app. Do you have like a preference for Word Swag over Canva? Have you tried the Canva one?

Shaune Teske 13:58
I haven’t tried the Canva one. I know, I use it, online I’ll use Canva. I just haven’t. I downloaded Word Swag and I really liked it. So I never had the need to use Canva as an app. But I know people really love it. I use it online. I just love Word Swag, I think hasn’t really, it keeps updating their fonts too to make it fun and interesting and still relevant. And it does what I need. Like I just want a simple white backdrop. And I just want black text over it. Boom, there you go. And then it sends to social media. So I think if you want to get more intricate with your designs, maybe Canva is for you because they have so many I think templates but can’t Word Swag is just blank. And then you can pick whatever background you want. Whatever words you want, whatever font you want. I know you can in Canva too. But I think the beauty of Canva I like is that there are templates already and then you can just mix and match and kind of switch them up if you need to.

Sarah Schrader 14:59
I don’t know how intricate the app of Canva is compared to the desktop. So there might be some differences in that, but I’m gonna definitely check out this Word Swag one out too. Because for social media, I’m totally all for Canva and templates and stuff like this. So I love that.

Shaune Teske 15:14
Yeah, Word Swag is great. I think it’s, it’s just really fun. The fonts are really fun to use. And it’s just, it’s easy. All this stuff is super easy, so why wouldn’t you use it?

Sarah Schrader 15:27
A free one too so.

Shaune Teske 15:29
Yes, it is. Another one I like, now getting into a little video, because I love doing Instagram stories. I have two that I love for Instagram stories. So one is called Rotate And Flip. And this actually just, it’s literally what it’s called. It’s just rotating your video. But have you ever taken like a boomerang, and you have a group of people so you do it horizontally, but then you want to post it vertically, and you can’t turn the video in your iPhone app. I’ve had that. This literally just rotates your video or flips it if you need to be flipped. Because if you do a video on your phone’s camera, it’s one way and then I think it mirrors it or it doesn’t flip it or something. So if you want to flip it then if you wanna shoot it in Instagram, but then you want to flip it, so it makes sense, you could do that, too. So it’s just a nice way to edit your video if you need to flip it one way or if you need to rotate it.

Sarah Schrader 16:30
I love that it flips it because it’s so funny. Sometimes when you’re watching a video and they’re like sharing or showing something in the text was backwards and like, I love that. They can’t read it.

Shaune Teske 16:41
Yeah, so it flips it. And because I literally just did a boomerang or something when I was voting, and I did the Boomerang, obviously in Instagram, and then I’m like, Well, you can’t even read the vote sticker because it’s backwards; save the thing, bring it into Rotate Flip, flips it, re upload it, nowit’s the right side. I could just film it the other way, but I don’t know I had an on Boomerang, so it was an Instagram. So then I could just bring it here, flip it and then put it back on Instagram.

Sarah Schrader 17:09
I think that probably has something to do whether you use the forward or front facing camera. But I mean, use your convenience. It’s super simple,

Shaune Teske 17:18
Right? So and it’s just nice to have. So if you do make a mistake, and you’re like, oh shoot, it’s backwards, or whatever, or I wanted to turn it this way so I can upload it on to this platform, whatever it may be, you don’t have to refilm it, you can just flip it. So that’s really nice, or rotate it. I really like, that is one of my go tos for video, because I feel like I’m always not filming it correctly and I need to either rotate or flip it. So it’s really basic, but it works really well. And then the other one I really like is called Cut Story. So if you are ever on Instagram stories, and you see people talking for a few stories, it’s just them talking and then it just goes to the next one. I was always like, well, these people are how do they know to pick up right after where they were in these little 15 second intervals or whatever it may be. And I just didn’t want to keep doing that. I didn’t want to like okay, here’s a few seconds of me talking. Now create a new story. Here’s another few seconds of me talking. So what Cut Story does, is that you can upload a whole video and it’ll break it down into individual stories for you so that when they all play together, it’ll make sense on your Instagram story. So I did that when I talked about, just recently I talked about social media, and it was kind of a long, it was like 12 stories or whatever 12 separate pieces, but I just uploaded one video to Cut Story and it broke it down so it would still make sense when I uploaded them all to Instagram story. Does that make sense? It’s breaking it apart so then when you upload it to Instagram Stories, it still flows and nothing’s getting cut off because like the time has run out.

Sarah Schrader 19:02
Yeah, I have that app too, I’ve used that before.

Shaune Teske 19:04
Isn’t it awesome? You know even if Instagram Story does it you can go in and save it if you want but like cut story then it saves them all individually so then if you want to take a little snippet of that and post it somewhere else then you have that little video of just that section. So I really like that part of it as well.

Sarah Schrader 19:21
Yeah, that’s a good feature to be able to take it and use it elsewhere in the little short sections too.

Shaune Teske 19:27
Right. So I like to be able to, even though an app does that now like Instagram does it, I just love Cut Story for that, it breaks all the little pieces for you but then saves it so that if you want to then just take one piece from it and then post it somewhere else you have that you don’t have to go in and try to save it again on Instagram and then repost it, it’s already in your saved videos. I think it is a free to use but they put their logo on it, Cut Story puts their logo on it and then you can just pay 99 cents to have them take their logo off your video, but I don’t think that matters as much.

Sarah Schrader 20:01
No, I know. Especially since on Instagram staries you could like throw something over it.

Shaune Teske 20:06
Oh, yeah. But we would never do that Cut Story, we love you. I have another one that’s kind of fun. Again, using for social media kind of like a Word Swag and like a Canva. There’s one called Over. They have templates, which is great. And what’s nice about it is that they have a ton of free templates that match with what’s going on. So if it’s like, oh, it’s Mother’s Day, or it’s Fourth of July, they have like a bunch of like, already ready, again, kind of like Canva. I’ve just never downloaded the Canva app, because I love these so much. And they have a lot of great templates. Like I’m just downloading one right now that’s called my week in GIF, which is really fun. And then you can like use it to interact in your stories. So it’s not just for your, you can use in post, it’s ready to go. Like it is ready for your stories or it’s ready for Instagram or it’s ready for Facebook again. Probably just like Canva. But I love, I have this one, I have Over and I really like it.

Sarah Schrader 21:10
Do you have the cats collection in Over?

Shaune Teske 21:13
I do not. But it’s really cute because I have enough picture with my cat so….nut yeah, I really, I think that was really fun.

Sarah Schrader 21:22
Yeah, that’s one I’ve had for years, too. I’ve loved that one.

Shaune Teske 21:26
It’s really easy to use, because you can literally just have all these free templates that look great. And you can just download it and then if you need to change a word or two, it’s right there. But their templates are really really cute to use. Yeah, and I think again, is the app free? I believe.

Sarah Schrader 21:42
I believe so. I’m usually pretty good about like, I don’t love paying for apps. So.

Shaune Teske 21:48
So I believe it’s free. They do some of the templates you can buy, but they have tons and tons and tons of free ones that I’ve never had buy one because they have so many good free ones. And then you can create your own. You can you know, you can do whatever they have awesome, on their discover page, they have three ideas to ace your mother’s day marketing like they have these great topics that help you if you’re feeling stuck on something or you just want to keep learning they have a lot of really fun stuff. So yeah, those are my really go tos. Another one that’s just fun. It’s so dumb, and I’m I paid for it. I don’t know why, but I was really I’m obsessed with Hayley Paige and I love her Instagram I love watching her like stories and all her dresses and stuff but she would like do videos of these women in dresses and they’d be turning and their dresses would like sparkle and I’m like what the heck? That’s not dress! So there’s literally an app called Kira Kira plus, I don’t know, I don’t know if that’s exactly…if I’m pronouncing it right. But you literally just upload a video and they can just make it sparkle. Like if something’s shiny, it just sparkles. So I would do this on anything I just wanted to add a little extra oomph to in my video like my engagement ring or like my dress a dress or whatever. It’s just fun.

Sarah Schrader 23:15
How do you spell Kira?

Shaune Teske 23:17
It’s K I R A, so it’s KiraKira.

Sarah Schrader 23:23
Okay.

Shaune Teske 23:23
That’s how I would pronounce it, but I could be wrong. And there’s different levels of sparkliness. It’s ridiculous. And I pay for this app, which is even worse, but

Sarah Schrader 23:36
It was 99 cents.

Shaune Teske 23:37
It’s so fun, though. And you can make things sparkles. So if you just want to have a blast, like taking videos, you know, bringing your clothes to life, making things sparkle. It’s just a blast. So those are my favorite photo apps, video apps. There’s so many more out there. And there’s so many more I know tons of people use and love but these are my favorites. And these have worked for me really well. I think another one, just a side note for, not editing, but for planning is I use Planoly. I know a lot of people use it, but I never post anything on Instagram without it. It lives in Planoly first and then they post from there. It’s just a nice way to organize your Instagram feed before you post something so you know how to use it. I don’t schedule posts because I still like to take control of when I’m posting it. Because sometimes I, whatever something will change and I don’t want it to auto post, but it can. I love to use it to see how my photos are going to interact together, because I think a really engaging Instagram feed is when you’re thinking about what your photos look like next to each other and not just postint it and hoping it works when they all look nice next to each other. It’s refreshing on the eye of like, Okay, here’s this photos a little more busy. So this one’s a little more clean this one the colors are matching, you’ll find that people are more drawn to that. And that totally does not like, you don’t have to do that to have a great Instagram engagement and Instagram following. I just like it as a photographer, being able to make sure everything is pretty, and it makes sense and it’s all cohesive. So I love it. I know you use it too Sarah, right?

Sarah Schrader 25:29
I do, yeah. And I, same as you, I don’t do the auto post, but I do schedule them so I get the reminders and when to post them.

Shaune Teske 25:37
You don’t have to pay for it. I think it’s free to some level maybe. But I do pay the like…

Sarah Schrader 25:41
You get a limited number of posts you can get in a month for the free version.

Shaune Teske 25:44
And I don’t like that. So I do pay it and it’s like $8 or something a month, but it’s so worth it for me. Because then I can control when I’m posting. They have, you can schedule your posts, you can schedule stories, too, which is awesome.

Sarah Schrader 26:01
Do you really use that?

Shaune Teske 26:03
I don’t because my stories are so random. My stories are just things that come to me. If there’s something important I want to talk about, then I can put it in there. And then I know it’s saved, but my stories are more like, this is good idea, then I just do it that day. But if you want to be more, it would be smart, right? To plan your stories, that is a great place to do it. And if you don’t have a photo yet, but you know you want to talk about something, they have placeholders. So it’s just like, a blank color. So if you know like, Okay, I need to find a photo that fits this caption one, right, you can just put a placeholder there. They also have free stock photos, which is awesome, too. In case you’re not a photographer and you don’t have an image that fits what you want to talk about. They do have some free stock photos on there as well.

Sarah Schrader 26:53
Oh, I have not utilized that.

Shaune Teske 26:54
Yeah, you definitely should. It’s awesome. I haven’t used it because I don’t need you. But I mean, that’s the other beauty of this is that if you’re not a photographer, it’s okay to use stock photos. I know, there’s one group in Green Bay that used a stock photo for their cover photo of something forever. And people thought it was a real place. And I’m like, no this is just a stock photo. But it invoked that vision of what they were going for. And I see that a lot of for events, especially, people just use stock photos to invoke that feeling of whatever they want to feel like. And you can do that for your Instagram too. I just want to do it trying to sell stuff. If you’re trying to sell an experience, then that’s kind of not being very genuine. But if it’s just a photo of a cup of coffee, and it’s a free stock image, that’s totally fine, I think.

Sarah Schrader 27:12
Or something to throw behind a quote like, yeah, totally fine.

Shaune Teske 27:51
If it’s free. Never copyright. Never take a photographer’s image. I see this a lot. People just Google an image of a coffee cup, and then they just take it and it’s like you can’t do that.

Sarah Schrader 28:07
No, don’t Google images and pull from Google ever, you can get in a lot of trouble.

Shaune Teske 28:12
Right. And I don’t think I think people just don’t know that you can’t do that. So this is just you’re letting you know that someone worked really hard on that image, and they don’t need you to take it and then use it to promote your thing. Always the best practice I think is if you’re not taking your own photos, hiring a photographer to do a branding session, or something, you know, even if you just want product shots, or having a photographer teach you how to do that, it’s so, gonna be so much more beneficial than just stealing a photo, you’re gonna have photos that are tailored to you and your brand. instead of just stealing something that everyone else is using. There’s a photo of girls in jean jackets or something and they’re putting their arms around each other. And they’re holding flowers. I have seen people use that photo for their girl group. My church uses it for like….that photos everywhere, because it’s probably a free stock photo. But now, it’s not special, you know?

Sarah Schrader 29:11
And so one thing you can run into it the stack, especially the free ones, like I know, one that I go to a website for free stock photos is called Pixabay. But every time I pull a photo from that, or see a photo while I’m searching for one, all of sudden I’ll see it somewhere. And I’m like oh, that’s a stock photo. I’ve seen that. I mean stock photos, there’s options for pay too. There’s Adobe stack, there’s ShutterStock, 123 RF, those are just a few of them.

Shaune Teske 29:43
Yeah, that’s a great, those are great resources. And it’s definitely fine if you’re looking for something quick. But if you want something to reflect you or your brand, or it’s going on your website or it’s going for this event, you definitely need to have your own photos, or you need to hire someone to create those photos for you, because stock is just not going to get it up to the place you want to be. And it’s just not very, I don’t know, it’s not very genuine,

Sarah Schrader 30:14
It is so worth it to hire a photographer to take photos for brand photography and of your products. It’s just gonna make it so much more worth it. So much more consistent and clean and in line with your brand.

Shaune Teske 30:28
Right. And then you just have a whole database, then of your own images to use and you can reuse them. That’s the beauty of Instagram, there’s nothing that says if you posted a photo a year ago, you can post it again. It’s okay. I do that all the time. Someone had to say that to me, one of our past guests even, Meredith said that to me. You can repost it, the rule is like six months or something.

Sarah Schrader 30:50
Yeah, just don’t do it within like the next nine photos.

Shaune Teske 30:54
Yeah, six months should be, if you post everyday six months could even be like too far. But yeah, definitely somewhere in between not within the first nine photos and three to six months, I think is totally fine. You can reuse your photos, it’s great, then you don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel and keep coming up with new photos and how we’re gonna get them you can reshare that’s totally fine. So those are some of my favorite apps coming off a tangent with. But it so important. Yeah, if you’re not creating your own images, these are apps that will help you make your images better. But if you still are like, Nope, I just don’t know what I’m doing. I think the bottom line is to really hire someone to create them for you, then you can do it, like you can, if you’re just trying to create some really fun, easy social media pieces, you can totally do it with your phone, and you can use these apps to help you.

Sarah Schrader 31:49
Yeah, and it’s great that you don’t have to bring them on to a computer and do all the editing and stuff and then throw them back into your phone. But it’s just extra steps that aren’t always needed.

Shaune Teske 31:58
Right, exactly.

Sarah Schrader 32:01
Well, thank you for sharing your favorite apps.

Shaune Teske 32:03
Yes, and I will link everything in the show notes all the names in case I talked really fast and you didn’t hear it so I will link all the names of it and kind of what they’re used for so that you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Sarah Schrader 32:17
Perfect.