10 Best photo editing apps for android and iOS
Photography plays a vital role in how we experience life in the digital age. Every special occasion and social event are captured on film and shared for others to see. It allows people to live vicariously through the experiences of others. In such a scenario, it is necessary to make our photos as presentable and appealing as possible.
This is why photo editing is so essential. It allows us to provide the finishing touches to these pictures and apply our stamp. This makes the photos even more personable and unique in our style. Sometimes, the image isn’t able to capture the essence of the moment to the desired degree.
Photo editing allows us to add the required effects later to communicate our story better. We can also use it to remove any visual blemishes and inconsistencies to make the shot look better.
Most of the time, professionals prefer desktop-based photo editing software. These generally offer more features and a higher degree of customization and control. However, there have been several advancements in mobile technology in recent times. Nowadays, we have a wide range of Android and iOS-based apps that can edit photos on the fly.
We can now take photos and edit them on the same device. Such apps are beneficial to both professional and casual photographers. To learn more about photography as a profession, click here.
What to look for in a Photo Editing app?
• An Easy to Use UI
Accessibility and ease of use are the key features of any app. If the menu navigation is complicated and tedious, the app won’t be as efficient.
• Basic tools and filters
Any photo editing app should have basic cropping, flipping, colour correction, and red-eye removal. A large portion of the casual users uses the app for these functions only. The availability of a varied filter selection is also essential. These filters allow users to be more creative with their pictures and add different styles to the same image.
• In-app Camera
Being able to take pictures directly from the app is a useful feature to have. It allows the user to experiment with the various filters before taking the picture.
The Top 10 Mobile Photo Editing Apps
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Adobe Photoshop Express
Overview: Photoshop is the most recognizable name when it comes to photo editing software. The Adobe Photoshop Express app compresses it into a pocket-sized mobile version. This app is free to use. It requires the user to have an Adobe account, but it can be a free one. You can choose to upload a photo from your phone, take a new one from the in-app camera or download one from the Cloud. To download the Adobe Photoshop Express, click here.
Pros: Photoshop offers a reliable and efficient experience for free. It has a simplistic interface and lots of features. The app lays heavy emphasis on the social aspect of photography.
It has a variety of filters and meme formats and allows you to share your creations easily. The app also offers some of the best layer customizations that are available on mobile.
Cons: The main con about this app is undoubtedly the paywall. Several features need a Creative Cloud subscription. Even though the app offers many essential tools and features for free, more sophisticated usage will often require a monthly subscription.
Snapseed
Overview: This mobile photo editing app by Google rivals the features and customization of most of its desktop counterparts. It is completely free to use and available on both Android and iOS. The app offers a large range of preset filters and tools. It also has some of the best customization options available on mobile platforms. To download Snapseed for Android, click here. To download Snapseed for iOS, click here.
Pros: The app is entirely free to use and advertisement free. It consists of all the basic tools such as cropping, flipping, sharpening and vignettes. Another key feature of the app is that it allows you to create your filters from scratch alongside the wide range of preset filters. Snapseed also offers more sophisticated features like Selective Adjust and Precision masking. You can use these tools to give your photos a more professional look.
Cons: Probably the only slight con when it comes to this app is the learning curve. It isn’t as beginner-You can even share these presets with the rest of the community friendly as some of its counterparts. The social media integration features can also be improved.
VSCO
Overview: VSCO is comparable to Instagram in terms of what it offers. It has a wide array of filters and its own community with which you can share your photos. The app is free to use and allows you to share your creations with the community on VSCO or to other platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram.
To download VSCO for Android, click here.
To download VSCO for iOS, click here.
Pros: VSCO probably has the most sophisticated filters out of all the mobile photo editing apps. It provides the basic tools as well, but the filters are the main attraction. The presence of an online community allows the user to browse other users’ creations and draw inspiration as well.
Cons: The main complaint that users had with this app was the buggy interface. The app is known to have several bugs and crashing issues. Also, some of the more desirable filters are locked behind a paywall.
Afterlight 2
Overview: Afterlight 2 is a very versatile and useful photo editing app. It covers all the bases when it comes to the basic tools and offers a large variety of advanced features as well. It has a clean and easy to use interface. The app also has a wide range of default and customizable filters. In short, it is a well-balanced app that offers a good experience for all sorts of users. To download Afterlight for Android, click here. To download Afterlight for iOS, click here.
Pros: The Afterlight 2 application is a solid competitor in the mobile photo editing software market. It allows the user to customize filters and save them as presets as well quickly. You can even share these presets with the rest of the community. The user interface is also very beginner-friendly. It also has an efficient text overlay tool and selective adjustment for lighting and hue.
Cons: The menus for the app can be a bit clustered due to the presence of unnecessary tools.
Canva
Overview: Canva is an app that is essentially known as poster creation software. Several businesses use it for their online websites and promotions. The professional visuals and effects make the app perfect for such purposes. To download Canva for Android, click here. To download Canva for iOS, click here.
Pros: Canva is the best app for editing photos to make social media promotional posts. It is also excellent for creating business cards, posters and logos. This is due to its extensive gallery of clip art, fonts, templates, formats and backgrounds.
Cons: There aren’t any major cons to point out as Canva is excellent in the field it specializes in. The only potential con is that some of the more desirable clip art and images are behind a pay wall. More free images and art is a popular demand amongst Canva users.
Adobe Lightroom CC
Overview: This is another mobile iteration of the popular desktop photo editing software. However, this app is geared more towards advanced users. It provides a set of professional editing tools to use on the go. To download Lightroom CC for Android, click here. To Download Lightroom CC for iOS, click here.
Pros: Lightroom CC provides a variety of sliders for specialized adjustments. It has a wide range of ready made and community shared filters. You get even more features by subscribing to the Adobe Creative Cloud. This includes selective editing and Adobe Sensei. This is an AI software that automatically tags your images based on their content.
Cons: The image manipulation is not as sophisticated as Photoshop. The data management system has also received criticism.
Picsart
Overview: Picsart is a great app to edit pictures for social media use. It has all the basic photo editing tools you need. It also has various filters, frames and effects to create the perfect posts. The app also has a lot of fun features such as sticker makers and live effects. To download Picsart for Android, click here. To download Picsart for iOS, click here.
Pros: Picsart is an extremely reliable and popular app. It has 500 million+ downloads on Android alone. The UI is interactive and easy to use. It also has an extensive community with millions of posts and weekly competitions.
Cons: The primary con of Picsart are the ads. The app is free to use. However, they have recently introduced a premium membership for more features. This feature is advertised extensively on the app.
Pixlr
Overview: Pixlr is a mobile photo editing app that gives its desktop rival a run for its money. The app is still in active development. This means that several features are still in beta and require refinement. However, this also means that the developers are constantly considering any criticism and recommendations to provide a better experience. To download Pixlr for Android, click here. To download Pixlr for iOS, click here.
Pros: Pixlr is a free to use app. It consists of a clean and easy-to-use icon-based interface. The filters can be customized using sliders. It offers advanced tools and features that rival the best desktop software. These include customizable brushes and sophisticated layer management.
Cons: Some of the features are slow and inefficient as the app is still under active development.
Photo Lab
Overview: Photo Lab is a photo editing app that covers the basics really well. It is not meant for the most advanced users or professionals. However, it is excellent for editing and embellishing photos captured on your phone to give them a vibrant look. To download Photolab for Android, click here. To download Photolab for iOS, click here.
Pros: The app knows its demographic and does well to satisfy. It has all the basic tools such as cropping, framing and resizing. The wide range of preset filters are easy to use and customize. Its UI is simplistic and most tools can be used with a single click.
Cons: The main con of Photo Lab is that the most desirable features are available in the Pro version of the app. This is a paid subscription service. The free version of the app also watermarks the images edited it. This can be not very pleasant for many users.
AirBrush
Overview: AirBrush is an excellent app for personal photography. It has a lot of tools and features centered around editing pictures of people. It is the ideal app for touching up selfies to remove any issues or blemishes. To download AirBrush for Android, click here. To download Airbrush for iOS, click here.
Pros: The app provides a wide variety of tools such as red eye removal, pimple removal, skin smoothening and teeth whitening. This makes it perfect for editing selfies before uploading to social media. The app also has a ‘Bokeh’ mode, allowing you to focus the photo on the subject and blur the background. The in-app camera also makes it possible to test edits out before even taking the picture.
Cons: The app was free on release. Since then, the developers have added a lot of new features. However, most of these features are available through a monthly subscription. This has hurt the popularity of AirBrush amongst the users.
