The Best Instagram Filters You Need to Try!
Filters are one of the most exciting features on Instagram. There are tons of different types of filters to help spruce up your content. There are photo filters to enhance the look of pictures and AR filters to make selfies ten times more fun. In the platform, you can find tons of filters to play around with. Today, we’ll take a look at the best Instagram filters you can use.
Using Instagram filters is a fun, creative way to boost your content’s visual appeal. They’re also great for elevating your aesthetic with a consistent feel and mood for your Instagram photos throughout your page. Let’s look at some of the best ones on the platform to spruce up your Instagram photos and videos.

Popular Filters for Instagram Feed Posts
Instagram currently has dozens of unique and awesome photo filters available on the interface. Each one brings its pizzazz and personality to your Instagram photos.
Here are some of the most popular filters for Instagram:
- Clarendon: This is many people’s favorite filter. It adds a cool, blue tint to your photo while boosting its contrast. It’s perfect for snowy landscapes and winter content.
- Gingham: This filter makes your post look warmer and more vintage. It gives off a nostalgic feel. It also adds a light, white vignette around the photo for a faded look.
- Moon: This filter is the app’s classic black-and-white filter. It will be your go-to if you’re trying to make your feed look as monochromatic and minimalist as possible.
- Juno: Want to add warm tones like pink and orange to your photo? Then this is the filter for you. It also increases the contrast, making it more dramatic.
- Slumber: This subtle filter softens your image and gives it a faded, dreamy look. It also brings out the lighter and more pastel shades of your content.
- Lo-Fi: This filter boosts color saturation and contrast, making your Instagram photos and videos pop. It’s fantastic if you want to build a vibrant Instagram feed.
- X-Pro II: Add a strong vignette to your Instagram photos using this filter to get that retro photograph vibe. It also boosts your photo’s contrast, making it striking and intense.
You can find these filters in the filter gallery when you create and edit a new feed post. For all you know, using one of these filters will get you your most liked photo on Instagram.
Best Instagram Story Filters for a More Aesthetic Look
Instagram Stories are the perfect type of content for daily updates and interactions with your followers. There’s not much pressure to curate your Stories since they expire after 24 hours. However, some people still enjoy making the Stories look as pretty as possible.
Make your Instagram Stories look polished and put together by using one of the editor’s built-in filters. Here are just some of the best Instagram Story filters that will spruce up your posts:
- Paris: The Paris Filter adds a soft blur to photos, making it perfect for enhancing skin tone in your selfies. It also adds a lighter tone to your content.
- Oslo: This photo filter boosts your photo’s exposure to make it brighter. It also adds warm tones to give your Stories a homey, rustic vibe.
- Tokyo: If you want dramatic, monochromatic Instagram photos, this is the filter for you. It turns your photos black and white while increasing its contrast to enhance shadows.
- Jaipur: As this Indian city is referred to as the “Pink City,” this filter has strong pink, warm tones. It also brightens up your Instagram photos for a lively and vibrant ambiance.
- New York: The Instagram New York filter adds a darker tone to your photos and a moody vignette. It is amazing for skyscrapers and urban views.
You can see these photo filters and effects in the Story Editor on Instagram. Just swipe to the left and right to see what the filters look like on your Instagram photos.
Best Instagram Filters for Guys Who Want a Moody, Minimalist Vibe
So, what are the best Instagram filters for guys who want something either more minimalistic or edgier?
For Instagram Stories, the best filters for guys include the Instagram New York filter, Oslo and Lagos. Looking for a more dramatic filter to make Instagram photos look moody and grungy? Go for the Instagram New York filter. If you want warm tones that will make your images pop, try Oslo. Lagos, on the other hand, is perfect for those clean, minimalist Instagram feeds.
Moon is the ultimate black-and-white filter for men who want to make their photo collection monochromatic. Clarendon will add that boyish blue hue to your Instagram photos for added charm and coolness.
That said, you don’t have to limit yourself to these filters if you’re a guy. Any in-house Instagram filter will work beautifully with your photos.
Augmented Reality: Best Instagram Face Filters Customized by Others
Photo filters aren’t the only filters you can use on Instagram. One of the biggest Instagram trends today is augmented reality (AR) filters on Stories. These filters augment what you see behind the camera and add loads of fun and surprising elements to your content.
You can see all the AR filters on Instagram in the effects gallery. You’ll find this gallery at the bottom of the screen. Simply browse through this gallery to see the best Instagram filters for face tuning fun. The filters form categories such as Games, Humor and Trending effects.
Want to find the best Instagram face filters that use augmented reality? Here are some of our top recommendations, depending on your needs.
See Yourself in a Different Light: Best Instagram Filters for Selfies
First, let’s look at the best Instagram filters for selfies. Filters can make your regular selfies a lot more interactive and interesting by adding beautiful or wacky elements to them. This makes your content more entertaining, thus driving engagement through likes and replies to your Stories. It also adds a storytelling element to your content, which can drive more video views.
If you love cute, girly elements in your selfies, check out this Glitter and Blue Devil filter by rahmamqf. It covers your face in sparkly glitters while enhancing your skin tone. You also get little blue devil horns on the top of your head.
AR filters can also change the way your face works in your Stories. One filter that can do that is the Cartoon Princess filter by paigepiskin. This photo filter shows you exactly how you would look if you were a baby Disney princess.
Pair your Instagram photos with fun captions for selfies. Now you’re ready to engage your followers with these quirky Instagram Stories!
Instagram Filters That Double as Fun Games
Another type of popular Instagram filter on Stories is game filters. These allow you to play games in real-time as your camera records you. These are awesome for engagement, especially if your followers want to try the game themselves after seeing your Story.
One viral Instagram game filter is Guess the Country by lestermanalo. This filter shows you a random combination of emojis, from which you must try to encode a country.
Another interesting one is Word Scramble by gu_christopher. The filter shows you a bunch of scrambled letters. You then have eight seconds to figure out what word the letters spell out.
Instagram Filters That Double as Fun Games
Another type of popular Instagram filters on Stories are game filters. These allow you to play games in real-time as your camera records you. These are awesome for engagement, especially if your followers want to try the game themselves after seeing your Story.
One viral Instagram game filter is Guess the Country by lestermanalo. This filter shows you a random combination of emojis, from which you must try to decode a country.
Another interesting one is Word Scramble by gu_christopher. The filter shows you a bunch of scrambled letters. You then have eight seconds to figure out what word the letters spell out.
Best Instagram Filters for Reels To Elevate Your IG Aesthetic
You can also use AR filters for Instagram Reels to make them stand out. You can use face filters like those mentioned above. But some filters can elevate your Instagram aesthetic and make it look trendier and more polished. Here are the best Instagram filters for Reels if you want to style your videos in a specific aesthetic:
- Vertical Palette by the.spacegal: The filter creates a color palette from the hues in your video or photo.
- Cute Camera Roll by corinthsuarez: Shows a grid of nine different frames. Each provides a new angle of where your camera is facing. It arranges these frames into what looks like a camera roll.
- Moody Sparkles by corinthsuarez: Adds sparkles all over the screen. It also lowers the exposure and color saturation of your Instagram photos and videos.
Experiment With Filters To Make Your Content Intriguing and Interesting
Photo filters for IG are excellent for making your pictures and video clips more beautiful. Meanwhile, AR filters for instagram make your Stories and Reels way more exciting and interactive. This in turn helps to attract and keep followers.
Some people may think using filters is just a “shortcut” to getting stunning Instagram photos. But that’s not a bad thing. Applying your favorite filter over your Instagram photos and videos, makes for aesthetically appealing content and engages followers.
Improve Aesthetics and Attract Followers With Path Social
Using good filters for Instagram is great, but it’s nothing without the right exposure. Want more people to see the content you’ve made with the best Instagram filters at your disposal? Give your posts a leg up with Path Social. Our targeting tool serves your content to the audience that is most likely to enjoy it. That means you have a higher chance of raking in not just likes and comments but new followers, too. Show off your content while growing your community of followers today with Path Social!
FAQs
Now you know all about the best Instagram filters, maybe you have a few more questions. Check out our frequently asked questions to learn more.
Can I save a custom filter?
Yes, Instagram allows you to create custom filters through Instagram Stories and save them to use again. Create your own using Instagram’s Spark AR Studio or find filters created by other Instagram users in the app. Once you apply a filter, you can save it to your effects tray for future use.
Do filters for IG work on videos?
Yes, you can apply filters for Instagram to videos in the same way as for photos.
Are there any Instagram filters for black and white photography?
Yes, Instagram offers filters that convert color photos to black-and-white or add monochrome effects. Try these:
- Willow: A softer, more neutral-toned black-and-white filter.
- Moon: High-contrast black-and-white sharpened filter.
- Inkwell: A simpler black-and-white filter.
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