Turn Your Instagram Photos into Works of Art

Last Updated on June 1, 2019 by

We all know about Instagram and how to use it. (Well I hope we do.) For those of you that don’t know, Instagram is a picture sharing site that you download to your smartphone and allows you to instantly share pictures of your daily life and exciting activities…and some not so exciting. The App is simple and streamlined; with a touch of a button, you have a new picture that you can add different filters to (eg: toaster, amaro, inkwell, etc.) or just leave as is with no filter. If you have an iPhone, you can even get a clip-on lens called an Olloclip that gives you wide angle, fisheye, and macro capability. I use this product on many of my landscape shots.

“So Brian, what’s the big deal, we know about Instagram,” you say. Ok, ok. But what most people don’t know is that you can actually make beautiful prints from your camera phone pictures to hang on your wall. First off, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to download my iPhone pictures to my Mac so I Googled it and I found this website – OSXDaily – and followed their instructions. Who knew I had to open “preview” on my Mac to download them…not me. For those of you using an Android phone, you have to make sure that your phone is set up to be used as a “Disk Drive” when plugged into your computer. This will allow the computer to see the phone as an external hard drive and you can then access all of your pictures.

Once downloaded to your computer you can easily 1.) open your photos in Photoshop/iPhoto or Elements to bring up the brightness a little bit (’cause let’s face it, camera phone pictures are too dark a lot of the time.) or 2.) you can upload your photos straight to your favorite photo printing lab (Samy’s Camera, Costco, Wallgreens, etc.) and let them make the corrections for you. I prefer the second option ;).

“So Brian, how do the pictures look?” They look totally AWESOME! No joke! I was like, “What camera did I shoot these with? Surely not my iPhone.” You can easily get 5×7 prints like I did; I like a white border around them, gives them a classy vibe. You can even print up to 8×8, or larger with a more current phone. (I’m using iPhone 4.) So I urge all of you out there to get those pictures out of your phone. They look waayyyyy better on your wall than on a puny 4″ screen. Decorate your home or office, or print a small pic of your loved one for your car dashboard or visor (you know, 90s’ style). Keep your memories on your walls, not on a phone that you will eventually loose/break/get stolen.

Hope this was helpful. Just remember to go out and photograph your life memories, then put them in frames and on your wall. Just like at Grandma’s house.

Oh ya, let’s follow each other on Instagram – BrianLaBrada.