I’m sure everybody has upgraded their Instagram to the latest version already by now. If not, well why haven’t you?

So, what new features have you found out after starting up your new Instagram?

Yes, immediately you would have found that you’ve got 5 new filters! They are called in turn: Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Aden and Perpetua. I must say that they remind me of VSCOCam presets which I normally use, but then again that seems to be what everybody is into these days.

Instagram has also added a new filter management feature, where you can rearrange the order of the filters on the filter tray just by drag-and-drop any of them.

You can hide a filter by tap-and-hold the filter and drop it on the middle of the photos as indicated.

Or you can do all of these more conveniently via the new Manage screen, where you can rearrange and hide-unhide filters from one screen.


These are all nice features to have, but what really surprised me was actually the new tools that which I would had not picked up if somebody had not had told me about them, and I bet some of you didn’t know either.

The thing is, the more you use Instagram, the less you use any built-in features in Instagram. I’ve ceased to use Instagram camera since it allowed me to import from camera roll. I don’t remember when the last time I used Instagram filters. And as far as the editing tools, well let’s just that there are tons of apps that feature much better editor.

This was why I didn’t know about the new tools. Though it’s not entirely my fault as even the “What’s new” section which you can read when you update the app doesn’t mention anything about the new tools, nor does Instagram blog. They seem to focus more on the new Filters, and don’t seem to want the world knows about these new tools. That’s just bizarre!

Perspective Correction Tools

So, what are the new tools and where can we find them. You can find them, hidden – sort of, under Tools – Adjust icons.

Tools - Adjust

Tools – Adjust

In the previous version, you can only find the Crop and Straighten tools in this Adjust section, but now you can see 2 more additional tools.

The one of the left is the Vertical perspective whilst the one the right is the Horizontal perspective correction tool.

 

Blimey, a what correction tool?

The two photographic ‘distortions’ are common characteristics you would see very often happen when you take pictures in a particular situation.

For a full explanation of Perspective distortion you can read my original post when I reviewed the SKRWT app.

But in a simple term, Perspective distortion can happen when we take picture of an object from an extreme angle. This will result in a photo where the vertical and horizontal lines are skewed. Perspective distortion happens a lot when you take picture of a tall building from down below looking up to the top.

Now let me show you what these tool can do. Let’s consider the following photo I took. As you can see, not only the wall in the background needs to be perspectively corrected, but also straighten.

Tutorial - Instagram Perspective Tool

Original Picture

First let’s straighten it.

Tutorial - Instagram Perspective Tool

Straighten

Then let’s do some Vertical correction.

Tutorial - Instagram Perspective Tool

Vertical Perspective

Then some Horizontal correction.

Tutorial - Instagram Perspective Tool

Horizontal Perspective

Back to Vertical perspective correction.

Tutorial - Instagram Perspective Tool

More Vertical correction

Re-crop. And done.

Tutorial - Instagram Perspective Tool

Crop – Done

You can see here that the new Perspective correction tool can fix both vertical and horizontal distortion quite nicely.

Final Verdict

In the majority of cases, the two new tools would be good enough to handle the task for fixing the distortion. But if you want more granular adjustment, and even more type of perspective correction tools (Barrel distortion for example), you need to get the best app for it. You need to get the SKRWT.