Mobile photo-sharing service Instagram updated its application today with a new filter, enhancement feature, and a makeover to its user interface.

Instagram lets you take a photo with your iPhone and layer it with different filters for that extra hip look. You can then connect it to your social networks and share it with the Instagram community. Now, the company is introducing a new, sleeker interface that’s easier to navigate. The updates include a new header, as well as different menu buttons on the bottom of the screen. The company explained in a blog post that these were the “first steps towards making it easier to understand and interact with our app.”

Notifications have also gotten easier to use by taking you directly to the referenced comment, photo, or profile when clicked.

The company has also added a new filter called Sierra. Filters are really what give Instagram its charm. They allow anyone to be a photographer with their phones. Sierra makes the yellows pop on your photos. If your photos don’t have exactly the look you want, or if they’re too dark, you can use Instagram’s new Lux feature, which automatically brightens dark photos and brings out more details, again catering to the amateur who loves beautiful photos, but may not know how to take them.

These updates aren’t the only love the application has seen lately. Kaitlyn Trigger, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger’s girlfriend, created an application that lets you turn your Instagram photos into virtual Valentine’s Day cards. She calls it Lovestagram.

hat tip The Next Web

Filed under: media, mobile