A picture speaks a thousand words, they say. But a perfectly edited picture, with added enhancements and effects, could speak a million.
Inconsiderate of what kind of picture editing you are looking for, the quickest way to edit a picture is on your mobile phone. And while there do exist a lot of photo editing apps for both android and ios platforms, it becomes really difficult to choose one out of them.
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Be it casual photo editing, or polishing your photographs through high ended controls, there are apps for all needs. It is, however, also important to note that all photo editing apps are not the same.
While some might offer proper assistance and tips to the user, others would be designed for professionalism. While some might have a community of its users, most of them might not. Some apps might charge for the exclusive features that they are providing while others would not.
Keeping in mind the variations an editing app might have against other ones of similar functionality, we have curated a list of the 10 best Photo editing apps for ios and android users. In the list that follows, we have picked the top app for their respective function and have verified it with its ratings and reviews.
Let’s have a look at them!
Contents
Best Photo Editing Apps
PicsArt
Undoubtedly, when talking about the best editing apps for android and ios, PicsArt is the place to start with. It simply checks all the boxes of a perfect picture editor and especially for beginners.
The app offers really pretty and fun features like stickers, pre-capture effects, adjustment effects, frames and even texts. Moreover, it offers complete assistance to the users to learn the process of editing and then master it.
Picsrt also has a community and a daily challenge format. These features are specifically aimed at polishing your editing skills and getting you recognition for the same. Honestly, this app is a heaven for all my friends out there who are still learning.
The app is free to use. However, to unlock some premium features, you need to purchase the full version of the same, which costs about $55/year. The premium version also removes all the ads.
Paintation
The second one in the list of best editing apps for android and ios is Paintation.
This one is pretty different from the other apps in this list. In a way that it does not just help you change the brightness, hue and saturation of the pictures, but transforms them into some epic masterpiece with just a few clicks!
The app functions on a 4-step editing process model. The first stage is where you adjust your image and prepare it for being forwarded to the next stage- the painting transformation.
The second stage, or as the app calls it, Stylize stage, lets you transform your picture into a painting inspired by hundreds of famous paintings and painters. The third stage lets you add effects, and the final stage lets you revise all the edits and tone it again.
Moreover, the app is the most secure editing app and can be used offline. It has substantial features for free, but can also be upgraded to a paid version.
Snapseed
Unlike the other apps in the list, Snapseed is more on the professional side of photo editing. So, if you need an app with the most high ended features for absolutely zero cost, Snapseed it the answer!
It has some really amazing set of features that could come handy to a professional photographer or their kind. Tools like selective editing, brushes, toning, exposure and light effects make it one of the best apps for editing on android and ios platforms.
Moreover, it uses non-destructive editing mechanism. This is to say, that you can see all your edits in the form of layers and can choose to go back to any stage any time you want. This feature is a unique one in the species of editing apps.
Snapseed is a perfect app. The only thing that could keep you from it is the difficulty you would face in getting familiar with the features if you are a beginner. If you do not have any prior experience in editing pictures, the learning curve of the app is steep.
Pixlr
Next up in the list is a gem for our casual editor friends. It has all the features you need to make your capture instagram perfect!
With pixlr, you can add effects, adjust brightness, tone, contrast, saturation, and add stickers or text or even a drawing of your own. It makes your images pop up and come to life.
The interface of the app is also a super easy one, since it is designed to suit the casual users. Yes, if you are looking for something professional, you might want to skip this one.
The app is initially free to use, but to remove the ads that keep showing up every minute, and to expand the available set of features, you might pay a few bucks to upgrade to premium. It starts from $1.99/month or $11.99/year.
Adobe Photoshop Camera
Adobe photoshop camera is a powerful image tool that lets you edit a picture either before you capture it or after. While talking about apps with smart cameras installed, this one is my personal favorite.
The camera obviously has various lenses that you can add to the lens to enhance picture quality, but that is not what makes it so special. The best part about the app is its AI that automatically identifies whether the picture is portrait or landscape and also creates masks for the key aspects. Then, you can specifically edit only the masked item.
Further, some lenses have smart objects integrated into them, while others have animations.
Additionally, the app is completely free to use.
Adobe lightroom
Adobe lightroom is a part of the lightroom ecosystem, which is a cloud based technology for empowering and enhancing your pictures. However, when talking here, we will be talking about the highly detailed Lightroom mobile, available for android and ios devices.
Coming from Adobe, there is absolutely no gap spared in the set of features available. The tools available are so detailed, that it would actually take an eternity for you to try out every possible set. This is one major reason why the app provide full assistance to its users and even lets you explore the working of other professional editors- step by step.
Moreover, the app uses non destructive editing, so you can go back to any step, any time.
The app is completely beginner friendly. But, for people who do not want to spend time learning the deadly features of photo editing and are only looking for a few casual edits, this might not be the one.
Prisma
This app again, is not a conventional image editing app. It uses the latest AI technologies to access and understand your image, and then according to your selection, transforms the image into a piece of art inspired by the world’s most renowned painters.
With Prisma you can add artistic effects to your pictures and make it difficult for your viewers to guess that it was actually a camera shot. It then takes a few steps ahead and lets you add effects, and adjust light factors of the same.
The free app does offer a nice variety of features, but to make the best out of it, one shall pay a weekly, monthly or annual amount.
VSCO
The next one in the list of best editing apps for android and ios is VSCO with its rather limited set of features. Just like Snapseed, this was designed to deliver quality finish for the professional photo editors and not really to suit the casual image editors.
The features in low in number, but are of the best quality that an editing app can offer. Users can create upto 10 recipes- pre-set list of edits to be done to an image- and use it for quicker implementation.
To ensure that you get the most out of VSCO, it is advisable to upgrade to the premium version at the cost of $19.99/year. It includes more features and effects and a video editing mechanism too.
Facetune 2
Unlike the other apps in the list that are designed to enhance the landscape pictures or scenic beauty, Facetune 2 focuses on editing and beautifying portraits- selfies.
You can choose to edit the picture before or after clicking a shot. When you choose to do it after the shot, you have access to the best in town editing tools for a portrait. Apart from the basic features of similar apps like smoothening, teeth whitening and whiteness, the apps takes one step beyond and lets you add subtle make-up to the pictures.
You can contour your face, make yourself smile, add eye shadows, lip shades and even more with this powerful editing tool.
Although the free version of the app is officially enough, for enhanced feature set, you can always pay a few bucks and upgrade to premium.
Afterlight
Considering that the Afterlight app offers an acceptable set of features only when you use the premium version to it, it would not be fair to exclude this one from the list of best editing apps for android and ios.
Afterlight lets you intricately design every detail of your picture, in a non-destructive manner that ultimately allows you to create a flawless photograph every time. Yes, it is a time taking process to calibrate so many comprehensive features and then come up with a unique style and finish of your own, but this app lets you do it.
It is a nice platform for people who have no problem in spending a few bucks and some time to edit a photograph
