Have you ever had the perfect, Insta-worthy photo that was completely ruined by something random in the background? *raises hand*

It’s happened to me lots of times! Sometimes it’s a food photo made less appetizing by crumbs on the counter, power lines obscuring a beautiful sunset, or even a stranger in the background of a vacation memory. The good news is we have two new tools in A Color Story—one that was just released last week—to help with this!

These are both in the part of the app we call “Touch Tools,” meaning you can use your finger to adjust specific parts of the image. This section of the app allows you to lighten, darken, saturate part of a photo and more, and it now includes both Blemish Removal and Object Removal.

First up, Blemish Removal is our tool for fine-tuning the smallest details. It comes with an adjustable brush size, and you simply tap on the screen to remove any blemish. Easy peasy! See how it works in this video with a screen recording:

Here’s a before + after created using only blemish removal.

And our newest tool, Object Removal, allows you to remove larger items, like people. We are extremely excited about this update! You kind of have to see it to believe it, so check out this recent Reel we posted to Instagram:

Pretty amazing, huh? Here’s a longer look at this edit of me sitting on the Met steps (which is giving me serious travel nostalgia). When using Object Removal, you can adjust the brush size, color over what you want to remove, then tap the word “GO”, and the app takes care of the rest!

We’re so excited about both of these tools. A general rule of thumb is to use Blemish Removal for smaller items and Object Removal for larger, but we encourage you to play around and experiment yourself! Maybe there’s a travel memory you have that can be re-edited using these features.

Please feel free to DM us your edits on Instagram anytime, and we’ll continue to post some of our favorites. Thanks for letting me share! -Ana