Instagram, as well as being a fun social network, is now a pretty decent editing app. You’re no longer just slapping over-the-top filters on low resolution images; now you can actually make considered edits. Instagram only posts photos with a max resolution of 1080x1080px, though. The photos most smartphones take are much higher quality than that. If you want the original photo resolution with your Instagram edits applied, you need to save them elsewhere. Here’s how.

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Go to the “Options” screen.

Scroll down and, under the “Settings” category, turn “Save Originals Photos” on.

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Now, when you post a photo to Instagram, a copy of the original with the edits applied gets saved to your phone.

You can also automatically save the photos you post to your Instagram Story. On that same “Options” page, in the “Account” category, tap the “Story Settings” option.

Turn the “Save Shared Photos” option on.

Now, when you post something to your Instagram Story, you’ll also have a copy on your phone. This is especially useful, since they vanish after 24 hours.

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Harry Guinness is a photography expert and writer with nearly a decade of experience. His work has been published in newspapers like The New York Times and on a variety of other websites, from Lifehacker to Popular Science and Medium's OneZero.
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