10 Best Smartphone Photo Editing Apps | For iPhone and Android

10. Enlight

There are many free photo apps to choose from when it comes to editing your photographs. But why use many when you can just use one?

Enlight aims to make them all obsolete by offering a range of features, wider than the Nile. It also works as a high-quality camera app, as well as offering the chance to double exposures.

Once you get past the annoying tutorial pop-ups, the workflow becomes fluid. It has all of the bells and whistles of any normal photo editing apps, yet its magic is in the creative areas.

You can blend images, add text, and many more things. They are all easy to use too. Try it out.

9. Film Born

Breaking away from the digital world isn’t easy. Some of us fight against it by using analog film cameras. Others search for a way to obtain something more realistic but don’t have access to cameras and films of former times.

Film Born is an app letting you recreate and re-imagine your captures as if they were taken on specific film stock. By controlling the white balance and exposure, you apply presets that immediately give your shots a cult status.

It is an image editor, allowing batch editing and highlight clipping, among many other features. It also works as a free photo camera app, possible for selfies.

8. TouchRetouch

This app has a very specific niche. It allows you to remove unwanted elements from your images. They could be people, street signs and power lines.

All the fixes come via a one-touch solution, getting you sharing those images faster than you can say ‘gone’.

7. Darkroom

Darkroom is a multi-app workflow solution. Discover the most well-designed, integrated, and powerful editing app for iOS. It doesn’t utilize any other the fancy, fake things that some editor apps offer.

Darkroom is all about the necessary areas that photographers need to concentrate on when editing.

It has a dedicated library, allows RAW and large camera support and allows batch editing. A workhorse of an app that will ensure better images today.

6. Afterlight 2

The Afterlight 2, unlike the other photo editor apps, offers newly updated content each month. No new subscription fees on top of the one-off payment.

It has regular, everyday options, such as crop, brightness, and exposure. it also has more in-depth tools like Curves, Selective Hue/Saturation, Clarify and Tone.

Filters can be created, used and further edited to help with batch processing, making a seamless and speedy workflow option.

5. Carbon

For all those photographers who look to creating black and white content, look no further. Your camera automatically captures in color, so what to do when you want something a little more artistic?

Carbon is the ultimate B&W tool. Developed in partnership with photographers, this app presents you with stunning monochrome filters. They aim to take your work to the next level.

4. Snapseed

Snapseed is a fantastic photo editor, putting even some of the desktop software a run for their money.

A free app, offering you the usual cropping and rotation tools, it also features that allow you to modify the depth of field, perspective, curves, and brightness.

Expand is one of Snapseed’s most interesting tools. It calculates what the area surrounding the subject looks like, using this data to make the canvas larger. Snappy!

3. VSCO Cam

Whereas Instagram is good for basic photo editing, VSCO is the more advanced version.

Not only do you have plenty of editing options, including exposure, contrast and temperature correction, but you also have access to an alignment tool.

This is perfect for those perspective problems creating distortion. It has more than enough photo editing tools, and perfect for an iPad.

Filters and presets are the way to go, offering you enough to get by. They can be tweaked for a personal touch.

VSCO also has a readily available community, making you feel part of something much bigger.

2. Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe is groundbreaking in its photographic editing software. The mobile and smartphone editions are just as powerful in editing your images.

Photoshop Express offers all the basic editing tools you’d expect. Rotate and crop as standard, selections of smart filters also a wide variety of borders and artistic effects.

All of these can be adjusted using simple sliders. Social media sharing is also possible.

The app is available both for iPhone and Android, and you can find it in the iTunes app store and the Google Play store.

1. Lightroom CC

Adobe Lightroom CC is one of, if not the best mobile apps for editing out there. Not only is it free, but it also hooks up to your Lightroom on your desktop computer.

You can almost do as much as you can on the desktop version. Exposure, white balance and detailed settings are easy to find and change.

It works as a free photo camera app, removing blemishes as they appear. Perfect for Apple smartphones, and can be upgraded from in-app purchases. It allows you to share straight to social media.

The free version gives you more photo editing tools than you’ll need.