Twitter Photos vs. Instagram: What's the Difference?

Many Twitter users were shocked this weekend to find that Instagram photos directly on Twitter.com and in the mobile app (see the image below, which shows the "view photo" button on a post containing an image snapped with Twitter, but not one snapped with Instagram). They now—gasp!—has to click a link that opened in another window to view photos shared from Instagram.

By Monday night, meanwhile, , further tempting users to ditch Facebook-owned Instagram and move their beloved habit of editing the crap out of the color in their images to Twitter instead.

That's the short version, but there are more nuanced details to explore. Let's start with the filters each service offers.

Twitter vs. Instagram: Filters
Twitter. Twitter, which is only on day one of its new automated photo filters provisioning, has eight effects: vignette, black and white, warm, cool, vintage, cinematic, happy, and gritty. A ninth option in the interface is "No Filter," which I'm going to say doesn't count.

Instagram. Instagram's filters number 18: Amaro, Rise, Hudson, Valencia, X-Pro II, Sierra, Willow, Lo-Fi, Earlybird, Toaster, Brannan, Inkwell, Walden, Hefe, Nashville, 1977, and Kelvin. It too has one more option for "Normal."

Twitter vs. Instagram: Additional Tools
Twitter. The Twitter photo-editing features let you scale, move, and crop your photo. There's also an auto-enhance button.

Instagram. With Instagram, you can rotate your image, add a border, make one point in focus and the rest a little fuzzy, and turn the contrast up with an on/off switch.

Twitter vs. Instagram: Interface
Twitter. With Twitter, you can see all the photo filters applied to the same image in a grid, helping you decide which one is best among your choices. You can also page through them one by one in a slideshow style view. You can't see any options on the screen for where else you might share you photo, though.

Instagram. Instagram only has the option to view each effect one at a time. You have to remember which filter you liked best, and can't see a side-by-side comparison. Instagram does include tools for further sharing your image in one show with multiple social networks.

The Verdict?
If you couldn't guess by the feigned hyperbolic reactionary response at the beginning of this article, I'm not one to get in a tizzy over this kind of change to my social networks. All in all, it boils down to which social networks you use more, and where your community hangs. But granted, it is a royal pain for anyone who has liked using both social networks to now feel like they're being pushed toward making a choice. Twitter users don't want to open up images via an outside link, and similarly, Instagram users don't want to have to post their images twice. The whole point of mobile photo sharing is it's quick and immediate. When the person doing the posting has to fiddle about with multiple apps, the whole process is slower and more delayed.

Users who were previously happy to use both sites and services have a right to be annoyed at the change—to a point. Of course, it's small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, and it's an unfortunate to see a rift beginning to divide social online communities that previously interacted so well together. The real losers here are the users, and that's really the most unfortunate part—not having to open a secondary link.

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For more from Jill Duffy, follow her on Twitter @jilleduffy and Instagram @jeduffy.