VSCO Cam: The most underrated photo-editor

In a world divided by pro-Instagramists and pro-Photoshopists, VSCO Cam is an application that attempts to bridge the gap between the two, democratising the process of photo-editing whilst lending the image its signature post-processing style.

The biggest advantage of this easy-to-use mobile application is that it does not resize images like Instagram or Photowonder. It has ready-made, adjustable filters which are easy on the eyes and subtle, unlike Instagram's excessively bright ones with gaudy colours and deep shadows. It has features like crop, straighten, adjust colour temperature, sharpen, saturate, vignette, exposure and contrast adjustment, among others. Muted hues and restrained light and colour changes professionals make through complex manipulations on Lightroom or Photoshop, are easily achieved here. VSCO Cam makes an image look polished without making it look overtly edited, giving it depth with very little effort.

What sets it apart, however, is that VSCO Cam is responsible for a very visible paradigm shift towards elegant minimalism in terms of aesthetics in photography - even, and especially - on blogs and Instagram. A mattified, de-contrasted image is the consequent trend, leaving behind harsh, saturated images that scream over-processed.

The disadvantage is that this app is not available on platforms outside Apple's App store or the Google Play Store, so one does not have the option of using it on their computer as an online editor or as one uses Photoshop or Lightroom. This is a problem because the average phone does not support non-.jpg files. Moreover, transferring files from the camera to the laptop and then to the phone is a hassle.

VSCO Cam is a free, nifty application that is a huge time-saver for professionals, and a good nudge towards slightly advanced post-processing for amateurs.