[sc name=”numlist” number=”1″ title=”Mextures”]
Mextures, featuring an award-winning workflow that makes photo editing processes a whole lot easier and smoother, was designed by some of the top iPhone photographers in the world, ensuring a quality that very few – if any – similar apps can. With Mextures, you can apply film grain, textures, light leaks, and spectacular gradients to your images in a matter of seconds. Thanks to an immense effects selection made up of more than 150 original textures – many of which were created from film scans using a variety of cameras and a wide range of natural elements to give them an authentic gritty, grunge, or vintage feel -, the photo editing possibilities are basically endless. Moreover, you can adjust your photos with peerless precision with a set of tools including fade, balance, exposure, highlights/shadows, saturation, and brightness, add as many layers as your heart desires, and tweak image adjustments anytime during the editing process. When you feel like you’ve cooked up something special you’d gladly use again for other images, you can save your edit as a formula, and apply it with a single tap. Speaking of single taps, in case you’re not into fiddling around with textures and adjustments, 200 readymade formulas courtesy of the aforementioned top iPhone photographers and 26 presets emulating popular film and post-processing techniques are at your disposal.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”2″ title=”Snapseed”]
Brought to you by an up-and-coming tech company called Google, Snapseed is a powerful photo editing app boasting approximately a gazillion photo editing tools (in our world, 26 qualifies as a gazillion) heaps of trendy, free-to-customize filters, and adjustable frames, bringing you everything you need to spruce up your selfies, skyline-at-sunset photos, and holiday pictures. Snapseed opens JPG and RAW files, and has a highly useful “Insights” feature crammed with tips and tricks about Snapseed and photography.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”3″ title=”Photofox”]
An all-in-one photo editor with Photoshop-like abilities. Lauded as arguably the best photo editor app for iPhone, Photofox, boasts an impressive resume as it was selected as the 2015 App of the Year by the App Store in 8 countries, was the number one top paid app in 121 countries, and the number one photo and video app in 128 countries. With Photofox’s unique tools and eye-pleasing filters, you can transform run-of-the-mill images into artistic masterpieces faster than you could say Robert Capa. Whether you’re looking for a retro feel, some black & white magic, surrealistic montages, a change of perspective, a street art look, or a dash of intelligent photo correction, Photofox delivers again and again – and does so on a beautifully designed user interface that’s a work of art in itself. A must-have app for graphic designers, photographers, and enthusiastic amateurs. Photofox costs $3.99, but in light of its capabilities, that sum is borderline laughable and guaranteed money well spent.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”4″ title=”A Color Story”]
A Color Story, named the Best New App by none other than Apple, bids farewell to gloomy filters and melancholic effects by specializing in bright whites and reinvigorating colors reminiscent of pop art masterpieces. Color Story’s effects and filters work best with well-lit photos, though the app is also perfect for bringing poorly lit images to life. Including purchasable packs (available from $0.99, all packs can be bought for $10.99), A Color Story has more than 100 filters, over 40 customizable effects, and 20 wholly free tools.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”5″ title=”Hipstamatic”]
A classic iPhone photo app that many people love to hate. Hipstamatic was the very first app named App of the Year by Apple, so regardless of your feeling towards Hipstamatic, you have to at least admire its longevity, genre-creating originality, and its ability to reinvent itself time and time again. Hipstamatic’s vintage powers bring dozens of wonderfully rendered, skeuomorphic cameras to your iPhone, allowing you to experiment with films, lenses, flashes, and even multiple exposure, marvel at how each combination produces a different image mood, and save your favorite film-lens-flash-combos for later use. In case old school is not your cup of tea and you’re looking for something more modern and more complex, you can go Pro and enjoy full creative control over your images by manually controlling focus, white balance, exposure, shutter speed, ISO, and aspect ratio. Moreover, Hipstamatic packs a Darkroom Editing Suite with 20 adjustment tools and 12 signature presets, and has a PrintLab feature delivering high-quality prints of your favorite photos straight to your doorstep (the PrintLab service is available in more than 200 countries).
[sc name=”numlist” number=”6″ title=”Priime”]
Despite being relatively new to the iPhone photo app game, Priime is rapidly gaining ground and has the potential to become a major player, though we highly doubt that it will ever overtake its big bully brother, VSCO, in terms of popularity and number of users. Speaking of VSCO, Priime is best described as a VSCO alternative, as it focuses on photo editing and photo sharing. Priime packs professional-grade photo filters created in collaboration with some of the best photographers in the world, smart filter recommendations, editing tools, edit copy-and-pasting with which you can apply the same effect to multiple photos, and a convenient edit history allowing you to undo image adjustments you’ve made several steps ago. Regarding Priime’s social aspect, it manifests itself in Priime Collections, and its concept is quite simple: you can publish your own photos to show off your best shots and follow other Priimers from all over the globe to see their photos and learn a few tricks from more experienced photographers.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”7″ title=”1967 – Vintage Filters”]
Inspired by vintage camera films, 1967 brings you a blast from the past with 64 authentically old school photo filters. The app contains exactly zero photo editing tools (save for the ability to adjust the intensity of the filters), but we’ve already shown you some of the category’s very best, so we’re quite sure that nothing will stand in the way of you editing photos according to your tastes. 1967 – Vintage Filters has as minimalistic of a design as we’ve ever seen, and we’d be lying if we told you that it doesn’t look good, but despite the controls being labeled as “intuitive”, all the minimalism takes some getting used to, which, albeit to a rather insignificant extent, diminishes an otherwise flawless user experience.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”8″ title=”Instasize”]
Instasize
has been around a really long time because it keeps adding new features that content creators and audiences love. What started as a basic resizing app is now a versatile creative toolkit with some of the best features tucked inside a seamless minimalist interface. You can create collages, add gradients, patterns, or other visuals as photo or video borders, and type in stylized text to fully customize your images. Iphone users also get access to Beauty Tools for retouching selfies, basic video editing tools, and access to Unsplash’s library of professional stock images straight from the app. The latest update also lets you add vintage effects such as film grain and light leaks. Stay on top of all visual design trends by downloading Instasize from the Apple App Store. If you want to unlock more cool presets and editing features, you can subscribe to Premium for $4.99/month.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”9″ title=”Polarr Photo Editor – Photo Editing Tools for All”]
Polarr Photo Editor is the polar opposite of a dime-a-dozen photo editing iPhone app – just ask all the world-renowned portrait and landscape photographers who make use of Polarr’s sophisticated filters and auto-enhance tools during their course of work on a daily basis. With Polarr, you can perfect even the most minute details of any photo with an amazing assortment of micro-adjustment tools for color, light, toning, hue, saturation, and luminance, to name just a few. Polarr’s strongest suit is its advanced suite of face-editing tools, though it’s important to note that to unleash the app’s full potential, you’ll have to shell out $19.99.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”10″ title=”Filterloop – Photo Filters and Analog Film Effects”]
Filterloop pulls off the feat of being trend-sensitive and paying homage to the old school at the same time, and we haven’t even mentioned that it comes equipped with image editing tools allowing you to adjust photo properties such as brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation with great precision. With Filterloop, you can recall the good old analog days with a wide range of wear-and-tear effects or you can go with the flow of the modern times and apply distortion effects to create trendy glitch art masterpieces. Moreover, Filterloop has a set of subtle color filters aimed at enhancing your photo rather than altering it, and since you have complete freedom in terms of applying any number of filters and modifying opacity levels, the image-editing possibilities are endless. Filterloop is free to download, but thematic effect packs are only available via in-app purchases starting at $0.99 per pack.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”11″ title=”Lens Distortions”]
Lens Distortions does one thing but does it exceptionally well. Featuring 100 percent optically-captured effects, Lens Distortion specializes in adding lens flares, light leaks, glistening particles of light, and layers of haze to your photos to achieve timelessly stylish images. You can adjust the properties of each added effect, and you can apply as many layers of effects as your heart desires. Lens Distortions is free to download, but certain effect packs are only available through in-app purchases starting at $2.99 and maxing out at $4.99.
[sc name=”numlist” number=”12″ title=”EyeEm – Best Photography Community”]
Now that you have all the tools to become a photo-editing extraordinaire, it’s time to start exploring the business aspect of photography. Fishing for likes on Instagram is fun, but if you have the talent, vision, and work ethic to train yourself into a professional photographer, why not start making money right at the beginning of your journey? With EyeEm – Best Photography Community, you can get the exposure you and your photos deserve. EyeEm promotes up-and-coming photographers in the app, on their website, and on social media every single day, ensuring that real talent will be discovered, rewarded, and celebrated. By licensing your photos on the EyeEm Market and other premium marketplaces e.g. Getty Images, you can easily sell your best pictures and see your artistry published by agencies, brands, and media outlets. Although EyeEm has an in-app camera, 24 customizable photo filters covering a wide range of styles, and image editing tools for fine-tuning details, we’re more impressed by the app’s social aspect. EyeEm has an ever-growing community made up of 18 million photographers, giving you another medium where you can get discovered by creatives and fellow photographers, and, more importantly, providing a forum bursting with likeminded people who have overcome the very same obstacles you might be facing and who will gladly give you all the tricks and tips you need to get better at your craft.
