Smartphone Photography Editing Apps

These are the best apps!

I have downloaded over 100 apps on my smartphones. Many of them were not worth the free price stage! These six apps are my go-to apps for all of my photo editing!

My recommendations

Available on iPhone and Android

Snapseed

Lightroom

Retouch

After Focus

PicsArt

Polarr

Snapseed by Google

iPhone

Android

Snapseed is a very intuitive, easy to use app that has more advanced tools and capabilities hidden away for the more serious photo editing. This completely free app can be as simple or advanced as you like as your photo editing knowledge and skills develop.

Looks/Styles are filters that can be quickly applied
Tune Image includes the basic Brightness, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, etc
Sharpening tool as a standalone of inside the Selective tool for area-specific editing
Advanced Curves tool including RGB, Luminance and some helpful presets
Crop, Rotate and Perspective are great for re-composing your image
The Selective tool is one of my favourite. Selectively apply editing to a specific area
Brush tools include: Dodge and Burn, Exposure, Temperature and Saturation
Healing removes unwanted objects from your image
Various filters are also standalone tools; HDR Scape, Vintage, Noir, Grunge, Retrolux, etc
Tonal Contrast is a fantastic tool to add sharpness and clarity
You can view your edit history, re-adjust and delete steps - non-destructive editing
The best feature is the ability to mask any of your edits using the Brush tool inside the History (Stacks) section

I have a full photo editing course using this app - here

PicsArt by PicsArt Ltd

iPhone

Android

PicsArt claim to be the only editing app you'll ever need... and, they are probably right. It has so many tools available for the Android and iPhone user. This app does have some premium tools that are only available on the subscription. That said, they are very generous with the free tools.

This app can be a little overwhelming and difficult to navigate when you first open it. You can bypass the subscription page and make use of the free tools
To start, tap on the + icon in the centre at the bottom of the screen. Check out all the options. Not only can you edit photos, you can edit video, create collages, the app also has a camera.
Open a photo to find menus of tools at the bottom of the screen.

Tools - All the basic tools, including crop, adjust, enhance, perspective and some really cool extras dispersion, motion and clone.

Effects - This is where you can create abstract pieces, oil paintings, add different types of blur, turn your photo into a sketch and a whole lot moreage

Retouch - Most of the tools in these face retouch are the premium skin smoothing, blemish fix, eyes, teeth and more

Sticker - If you are creating photos for social sharing, you are no doubt familiar with stickers to add your personality to the photos.

Be mindful that the free version has advertising. In my experience, some of it is very adult that I would not like my kids to see them! If you are an adult, you will love this app.

TouchRetouch by Adva Soft GmbH

iPhone

Android

This paid app (subscription) is the leading app for removing distracting and unwanted elements in your image. Every professional image that you have fallen in love with has had parts of the image removed to assist composition. This tool has all the automatic and manual tools you would find on a desktop editing program.

The file does not degrade in image quality when saved. This occurs in many free apps making it difficult to print in the future
Tutorials are available when you first download the app or at any time in the home screen
Quick Removal and Quick Repair - remove objects by swiping over them. Didn't work? You have lots of options
Blemish Remover - in a single touch, you can remove spots and blemishes - zoom in 1st
Line and Segment Remover - removes sections or complete lines in your image
Clone Stamp - this is my favourite feature. You can tap where you want the app to source image content to replace over where you are swiping to remove. If it is not blending very well, tap on settings to change the size, hardness and opacity of the brush.
Before and After icon to see how amazing this app works

I have a tutorial on this app inside my photo editing course - here

Lightroom by Adobe

iPhone

Android

Do not be intimidated by the word Adobe. This is a mobile version and is as intuitive to use as most apps. You tap and swipe around the various tools. All you need is a registered Adobe account to get started. Choosing the paid subscription will provide some extra tools and the ability to sync your images to multiple devices. I will cover some tools in the free version

Photos can be saved and exported as file formats JPG, TIF or DNG
You can include a watermark and/or embedded copyright information in your images
Multiple images can be organised using a rating, flag and keyword system
You can import filters (Presets) and create your own to speed up your workflow
Editing tools are broken down into easy sections - Light, Colour, Effects, Detail, etc
Light tool includes Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks
Colour tool includes White Balance, Vibrance, Saturation and HSL sliders
Effects tool includes Texture, Clarity, Dehaze, Vignette and Grain
Detail tool includes Sharpening, Radius, Detail, Masking and advanced Noise Reduction
Powerful and versatile selections (masking) to refine exact areas to specifically edit
The best part of this app is that it is also a manual control camera app
As a camera, LR mobile allows you to control shutter speed, ISO, white balance, exposure compensation, manual focus peaking, RAW DNG file formats and more.

After Focus by MotionOne

iPhone

Android

This app is still really helpful for images we captured before we could select and re-adjust background focus during and post photo capture. This paid app (one payment) works incredibly well to selectively blur the background around an object of your choice

If you have two subjects in your scene at different distances from your smartphone, the automatic depth mapping in most smartphones will make you choose one! It can only have one distance from the smartphone in focus
Easy to use, tap Focus and swipe on the areas you want to keep, Background for the out of focus areas and Mid for areas that you want to apply 50% of the blur
A negative for this app is the export size of the image is reduced to 2048px. This is still more than enough for social media sharing
Adjust the lens or motion blur, change the aperture shape
A great feature is the Fading Background. This provides a natural-looking gradient from no blur at the bottom of the image to strong blur at the top
A new Double Take feature helps the app identify the background to blur by taking two photos. I am not a huge fan of this feature. Stick with Select Photo and edit your image

I have a video tutorial on using this app - here

Polarr by Polarr

iPhone

Android

This app has some features that are a struggle to find elsewhere. It is my go-to app after Snapseed and Lightroom.

Styles (filters) - very generous amount of free filters organised into groups
Liquify tool for creative perspective control and distortions
Split toning a little more user friendly than Lightroom
Opening a free account lets you create and share Styles. A Pro account (subscription) gives you more masking options, Styles and future features.
This is my go-to app for more advanced tools: Fringing, Pixelate, Gradient Overlay
Advanced free masking tools including; Luminance, Sky, Ground and more
This app lets you move the centre location of the vignette and different blur tools
Fantastic overlays that you can apply to a selection only. An example is being able to add a sun flare to a sky selection
Polarr has an extensive tutorial page on their Wiki -here
Snapseed is a better option if you want to apply a global edit (whole image) and then mask in exactly where you want to apply it afterwards.

Yes, this is a subscription app. You do not need to navigate around ads that trade/sell user data to cover the costs of creating and maintaining a stable and updated apps.

Learn how to edit your photos

Inside the Smartphone Photography Club, you get access to premium video courses, eBooks, checklists, workbooks, community forum and Live training.

One of the courses available with your membership is the Mobile Photo Editing - 4-Step System.

Other inclusions:

15-Step Smartphone Photography Roadmap
Podcast episodes, tutorials, article and YouTube videos
Community Forum - photo themes, discussions
14-Day Photo Creativity Challenge
30 Days of Lightroom Mobile - video course
Blurry to Tack-Sharp Photos 4-Step System - video course
Stronger Photo Composition 4-Step System- video course
Mobile Photo Editing 4-Step System- video course
FULL Smartphone Photography Transformation Program
LIVE monthly Zoom call - photo feedback and check inmask in exactly where you want to apply it afterwards.

Learn More About the Smartphone Photography Club

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Smartphone Photography Editing Apps

These are the best apps!

My recommendations

Available on iPhone and Android

Snapseed

Lightroom

Retouch

After Focus

PicsArt

Polarr

Snapseed by Google

PicsArt by PicsArt Ltd

TouchRetouch by Adva Soft GmbH

Lightroom by Adobe

After Focus by MotionOne

Polarr by Polarr