You’ve taken a great picture and you’re ready to share it far and wide. But wait. With a little editing, that brilliant photo could become an epic one.

Editing an image doesn’t need to be a complicated or daunting process. Once you’ve learnt the basics and downloaded a great photo editing app, such as Enlight Photofox, you can enhance any image you capture.

And don’t worry about airbrushing, vignettes or darkroom effects just yet. Instead, give these tweaks a try and watch as your images get an instant upgrade.

Where do you start when editing an image? It’s tempting to rush in with big, dramatic changes, but subtle alterations to the photo’s brightness, contrast and saturation levels can make a big difference.

To tweak these levels, first enter the menu of Tone tools.

Now tapping Adjust will let you alter these levels (as well as others) on individual, pop-up sliding scales.

With Brightness, sliding left will reduce the overall brightness of your shot, adding depth to shadows and bringing out darker, more striking tones.

Sliding right, however, will brighten things up, make whites pop and lift gloomy areas. This is perfect for lightening cloudy or indoor shots.

Changing Contrast levels affects the degree of difference between the dark and light parts of your photograph. Making darker parts darker and lighter parts lighter, these adjustments work especially well, when working with a black and white image.

Good for enhancing images captured on a dull, grey day, the Saturation setting lets you give colours a warmer hue by sliding right or cooler options by sliding left. Going to the far left of the scale will give your image a monochrome effect.

Pressing and holding the progress button in the bottom right corner – the one that looks like two overlaid photo frames – allows you to compare your original and edited images.

Great pictures are often let down by scruffy backgrounds, or someone wandering into the corner of the shot at just the wrong time. Cropping can remove these blemishes and put the focus back on the subject of your image.

To crop your photo, tap Tools > Canvas.

Here you can drag the corners of the image frame to trim your shot as desired. Once you’re happy with your new framing, tapping the check mark in the upper right corner will confirm your changes.

This doesn’t mean that the rest of your image is gone forever. Tapping the back arrow in the lower left corner will revert your edits, while using two fingers to pinch and zoom lets you reposition your shot within its new canvas.

For those in a rush, filters can give you a quick pre-set visual style. You can add these changes to any image you like using Enlight Photofox’s extensive array of options.

Accessed by pressing Tone > Filters, the app offers dozens of options ranging from a subtle, warming of images or monochrome to out-there colour splashes.

Once you’ve selected a filter that you like, sliding right or left across the picture changes the filter’s intensity. And remember, holding the progress button lets you compare your old image with the new.

Now your images have been upgraded, it's share time. Instagram, watch out.