Last year I did a Five Great iPhone Editing Apps post that got amazing feedback from you all. It made me realise that not everyone lives in Instagram world like me and not everyone eagerly awaits things like the launch of the A Beautiful Mess App and downloads it the day it is released. A lot of people (who live in the real world) think, ‘I wonder how she gets the little arrows on the pic’ and then move on with their life.
That’s why I’m here, want to know my current favourite iPhone and iPad photo-editing apps?
Why not also, maybe check out my favourite people to follow in Instagram or my post on photographic vignettes; it explains what they are, why they are so popular on instagram and how to create and share them. But back to apps…
This is, hands down, my favourite photo editing app right now. It’s not just your average filters and boarders style app, (although it does have both) you can also add ‘doodles’ or clip art pictures to your pic; think speech bubbles, arrows, stars, hearts- basically anything that you scribbled in your year nine diary. There is also a good range of pre-written phrases to stamp on your image. It is not just good for funking up your snapshots – you can chose from a bunch of backgrounds (lined paper, geometric designs etc) and make notes or memes with it also. The only downfall that I can find with this app is that it doesn’t have an undo button. This can easily be gotten around by taking a screen shot of your pic after each step so if you decide you don’t like something, you can just load an earlier screen shot and go from there.
Price: 99c but you can spend a bit more on in app purchases like extra fonts, backgrounds and doodles.
This app has really beautiful filters and film choices, it’s as simple as that. There is a huge range to choose from and all of them are as lovely as the next one. You can also adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, exposure, shadows, highlights and tone. Most excitingly though, along with the more traditional boarder options, you can turn your pictures into different shapes including circles, hearts, crosses, clouds and letters. These sorts of things excite me, what can I say. So next time someone asks you, “What app do you use to turn a picture into a heart?” you have the answer, you’re welcome.
Price: 99c
If you had to choose just one photo editing app (I can’t think of any situation that would happen) then Fotor would probably be the smart choice. You can basically do anything on it except add text. Featuring seventy filters that can each be adjusted, HDR pictures, boarders galore, and options to perfect brightness, contrast, saturation, exposure, shadows, highlights and tones. It also has a really extensive range of ‘big lens’ features where you can chose your aperture size and a collage section so you can stick a bunch of pics together. It is a huge app with heaps of options, you could never get board of playing with it… or maybe that’s just me. You can also make those pics where most of them are black and white and just one area is in colour – just in case that’s the sort of thing that floats your boat.
Price: $2.99
This isn’t technically a photo editing app. It’s a drawing app but the reason I’m including it in my list is because you can import pictures into your ‘notes’ unlike others on the market. This means it is a great app for putting your own handwriting and drawings onto your photographs. I think it’s odd that more drawing apps don’t have this option, Paper 53 is the most expensive app I have ever bought and great for drawing but it doesn’t let you import your own images as backgrounds so I always end up using Bamboo Paper instead. It’s pretty fun to play with – the ink and highlighter options are very realistic and responsive. The options are endless.
Price: Free
It’s a bit more clunky than the other apps I have mentioned but it has some interesting features that others don’t. As well as the usual crop, colour and exposure controls it has some airbrushing options that will appeal to the more vain users. (myself included) You can smooth out skin, whiten teeth and make eyes appear bigger. If you have ever wanted to pix-elate part of a picture – like a number plate – the mosaic option makes that possible. For me this one’s a bit of fun. I like to use it to turn the kids into cartoon characters by majorly enlarging their eyes – but if you’re a bit more serious than me you can achieve something quite sophisticated..quite.
Price: Free