The best smartphone cameras deliver stunning images, which makes it easy to see why Instagram is now one of the most popular social media platforms around. But while smartphones make taking pictures fun, many users aren’t equipped with the knowledge or resources needed to properly edit their digital photos.
That’s where an arsenal of photo-editing apps comes in handy. These powerful apps allow you to quickly enhance your iPhone or Android device’s photos by adjusting exposure, contrast, brightness, saturation, color balance, white balance, sharpness, and black & white mode — and even remove red-eye from portraits.
Here are some of the best smartphone photo editing apps available:
While Instagram doesn’t offer any specific editing tools, it does give you access to popular effects using the Photos app. You can adjust certain aspects of a photo like exposure and saturation, add a vignette effect, change the clarity of an image, etc., based on the photo’s light settings. The app also offers an option to apply the same edits to multiple photos at once.
1. Snapseed for iOS
Snapseed works somewhat similar to Photoshop, allowing you to work on any number of photos and tweak each element within the photo individually. It’s also compatible with RAW files. You can use this app to crop, rotate, and straighten images; adjust lighting, shadows, exposure, and contrast; apply different effects; and adjust colors, levels, and curves. This is especially useful for removing blemishes or dust spots.
2.VSCO Camera App for iOS
Similar to Snapseed, VSCO gives you full control over every aspect of your picture, including applying adjustments to the overall look and feel of the photo. Its “Film” section lets you choose between classic film effects (think Kodak Tri-X) and new ones like negative and cross-process (which removes haze).
On the back end are options to change things like the amount of graininess in an image as well as the intensity of highlights and shadows as we’ve seen with many online casino games. It’s extremely customizable, making it perfect for people who are used to traditional darkroom techniques.
3. Lightroom Mobile for iOS
Lightroom Mobile is Adobe’s version of Lightroom that runs on both macOS and Windows computers, but it also comes preinstalled on iPhones and iPads running iOS 11 or later. Like its desktop counterpart, Lightroom Mobile allows you to perform basic operations such as cropping and manipulating exposure, color, and contrast.
However, unlike the desktop app, it only allows you to open two photos simultaneously. When working with more than two photos, the app requires you to manually enter information about each file, rather than automatically doing so via a cloud connection. And if you want to do anything more advanced than what Lightroom Mobile provides, you’ll need to upgrade to the paid version that costs $1 per month or $15 annually.
