There's more to taking a great photo on your smartphone than simply tapping the capture button. The chances are you've looked at other people's glamorous pictures and asked yourself how they caught them. That's where photo editing apps come in.
If you want to get the best out of your photos, you need a great photo app on your smartphone, plus photo editing software on your tablet or computer that enables you to express your creativity.
We've put together this definitive guide to the best photo apps – covering iOS and Android apps – and also listed the finest photo-editing software for desktop, tablet, or browser, so that your snaps can stand up there with the best of them. If you want to edit video, then see our post on the best video editing apps.
Apr 9, 2018 - Thankfully, there are a number of third party desktop apps that can be better for using Instagram on your PC than the standard desktop website. Textgram adalah aplikasi iPhone dan Android gratis yang memungkinkan Anda mengirim foto dengan teks buatan anda melalui Instagram. Aplikasi ini menambahkan teks. Aplikasi edit foto ala awkarin. 7 Aplikasi Edit Foto yang Bisa Bikin Feed. Foto apa saja yang bisa kamu gunakan untuk bikin foto se-estetis di Instagram.
Let's start with photo apps. We've divided them up into three subsections: image manipulation apps, camera apps for taking photos on your device, and artistic photo apps. You can navigate between them quickly using the links above.
Meanwhile, on page two, we reveal the finest photo-editing software available for desktop, browser, tablet – and some have smartphone versions, too. Every price point and ability level is covered, so you're bound to find the right applications for you.
Image manipulation apps
01. Afterlight 2
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Afterlight Collective Inc
- Price: $2.99
From basic functions such as colour editing, all the way through to more complex functions including curves and selective colours, Afterlight 2 provides an easy way for users to fine-tune their photos. Supplied with a set of of basic filters from the word go, this budget friendly photo editing app can also be topped up with more collections for free.
There's fun to be had for typographers too, as lettering can be overlaid onto your snaps. Topping off the release is a double-exposure tool that can give your photos some truly unique blends.
02. Snapseed
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: Google LLC
- Price: Free
After a powerful Google tool that rivals even desktop editors? Look no further. This impressive app comes armed with 29 tools and filters, the ability to open JPG and RAW files, as well as letting users save personal settings and apply them directly to future works.
What puts Snapseed in a league of its own though, is its precision masking tool. Perfect for photographers looking to blur backgrounds and give their pictures depth, this control is sure to transform your snaps for the better.
03. Photoshop Lightroom CC for mobile
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: Adobe
- Price: Free
Adobe makes a number of photo apps but if you’re serious about photo editing on your device, you only need one: Photoshop Lightroom CC for mobile. It's a free app that gives you a powerful yet simple solution for capturing, editing and sharing your photos.
You can shoot raw photos (on compatible phones), or transfer from your camera onto your device, and easily organise and tweak them, then automatically upload them to the cloud so they don’t take up space on your device. It has presets to keep your edits quick and simple, but you can also go deeper and fine-tune images to perfection.
Signing up to a Creative Cloud account – including the Lightroom CC plan, adds the ability to work across phone, tablet and desktop with instant synchronisation.
Today's best Adobe Creative Cloud deals
04. Photoshop Express
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: Adobe
- Price: Free
As you would expect from Adobe, the interface and user experience of the Photoshop Express photo app for Apple and Android devices is faultless. It fulfils all the functions you need for picture editing and will probably be the one you turn to for sheer convenience. Straighten and Flip are two useful functions not included in many other apps.
However, none of the filters really jump out, and some are surprisingly naff for an app that comes from the developer for designers. Ultimately, if you are looking for a more professional tool, look towards Lightroom CC for mobile, but the cut-down feel and familiarity of PS Express will suit some.
05. Photoshop Mix
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: Adobe
- Price: Free
Photoshop Mix is an app that caters more for those looking to make big statements than those making subtle adjustments, and it’s none the worse for it. PS Mix enables you to cut out and combine elements from different images, blend layers and make adjustments to your creations on your device, and it majors in ease-of-use.
Usefully, it live-syncs with Photoshop CC, meaning that when you make a change on your phone, it’ll show up instantly on your desktop – and you can take advantage of Creative Cloud benefits with an Adobe Photography Plan, which saves a fair bit of cash over a full subscription.
06. Photoshop Fix
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: Adobe
- Price: Free
With Photoshop Fix, you can make the most common image adjustments very easily, right on your smart device, without having to transfer your photos to a desktop computer and use expensive photo editing software. At your fingertips are the tools to liquify, heal, lighten, colour and adjust your images to perfection, plus you can experiment with painting tools and vignettes, control exposure, contrast, saturation and focus.
As with all Adobe mobile apps, having a Creative Cloud account opens up the ability to instantly share your work with other CC apps on desktop or mobile, but Photoshop Fix is probably best Adobe app for those just looking to make their smartphone photos better without requiring deep knowledge of editing tools.
07. MuseCam
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: MuseWorks Inc
- Price: Free
Massively popular on the App Store (and with a 4.6 star rating, to boot), MuseCam is a fantastic all-round photo app. It gives you the all-important manual camera control (with compatible iPhones): custom exposure with independent control of shutter, ISO, white balance and focus.
The built-in photo editor lets you take even more control of your images, and with film-inspired presets plus professional grade tools, it's a great tool to help you move from novice snapping to great photography. The app is free to download but there are various packs to purchase in-app for the photo editor.
08. Google PhotoScan
- Platform:iOS, Android
- Developer: Google
- Price: Free
It's all very well being able edit photos on your phone or computer, but what about those old pre-digital prints you have lying around? If putting them all through a scanner's too much for you, there's an app that makes digitising your ancient snaps much easier. Google's PhotoScan enables you to scan photos with your phone in seconds, without unsightly glare and shadows.
09. Qwik
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Guillaume Babusiaux
- Price: Free
Qwik describes itself as 'the fastest and easiest way to make pretty photos,' and with over 50 filters, plus tons of fonts and frames, it's hard to argue with it.
Edit your images in seconds with straightforward hands-on tools, and share them with Qwik's online community. With new filters and features being added every week, Qwik is constantly keeping itself fresh and exciting.
10. PicLab
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: WHI Inc
- Price: From free
PicLab is a nifty app for creating those inspiring images that you get all over the internet these days. You know, the ones featuring a photo – probably with at least one retro filter applied – with a helpful aphorism layered over the top in an attractive, friendly typeface. PicLab HD makes them an absolute doddle to create, enabling you to either snap a photo or grab one from your photo library, then go to town on it.
As well as adding typography – lots of fonts and full control over size, positioning, opacity, rotation, and colour – you can also layer illustrations, ornamentation and other design elements on top of your image.
PicLab features full layer-based editing and also packs plenty of tools for making your original photo look its best, with loads of lighting and film effects to choose from as well as preset photo filters and adjustment tools for fine-tuning the brightness, contrast, exposure, saturation, and the blur level of your photos.
11. Handy Photo
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: ADVA Soft
- Price: $2.99/£2.99 (iOS), $2.99/£2.89 (Android)
The selling point of photo editor Handy Photo is its interface, which uses the corners of the screen to cater for rotating menu options. It's all designed to keep the central area of the screen clear, allowing you to use swipe gestures to tone your effects up or down.
It's a powerful photo editor; the UI isn't for everyone, but this is an amazing price for the effects you get.The Move Me tool enables you to clip out objects and move, resize or flip them.
12. Facetune
- Platform: iPhone, iPad, Android
- Developer: Lightricks
- Price: $3.99/£3.99 (iPhone), $5.99/£5.99 (iPad), $5.99/£3.99 (Android)
Embarrassed about your laughter lines? Feeling blue about those blemishes? Fear not, Facetune is here! Grab a photo from your Camera Roll and start your makeover; you can remove unwanted freckles, blemished skin or hide bags under the eyes with Smooth; reshape that wonky nose or misshapen jawline with, er, Reshape; and make subtle tweaks of colour using Tone.
The results of this photo editor are truly impressive.You can share results over Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr – if you dare.
13. PhotoWonder
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: Xin Guo
- Price: Free
An excellent user interface makes Photo Wonder one of the speediest smartphone photo apps to use. It also has a good collage feature with multiple layouts and photo booth effects. The filter selection isn’t huge, but many are so well-designed that you’ll find them far more valuable than sheer quantity from a lesser app.The Vintage filter works magic on photos of buildings or scenery. Combine with Sweety for a dreamy retro effect.
Software Edit Foto Terbaik
14. Rakuga Cute
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Tatsumi Electronics
- Price: Free
At first glance this iPhone photo app seems aimed at Japanese schoolgirls rather than discerning designers, but Rakuga Cute actually contains some unusual editing functions that make it an interesting addition to your photo repertoire.
The Mosaic option lets you selectively pixelate any part of a photo, which is quite useful for blurring out license-plates, identities or should you feel so inclined, body parts.
Best camera apps
15. ProCam 6
- Platform: iPhone, iPad
- Developer: Samer Azzam
- Price: $5.99/£5.99
ProCam 6 is another app for the iPhone that gives you full manual control over your camera, enabling DSLR-like camera functionality and full-featured photo and video editing capabilities. Worried that this will mean an impenetrable user interface? Not so – ProCam 6's UI has pleasingly intuitive gestures and menus, so there is little to scare off the newcomer.
The best feature has to be the overexposure warning that comes up on the screen when shooting still or video – very handy – as well as a fast and reliable tracking focus, and the all-important portrait mode, which is arguably more subtle that Apple's own and just as adjustable.
16. Halide
- Platform:iOS
- Developer: Chroma Noir
- Price: £5.99/$5.99
If you love the convenience of mobile photography but miss the control you get with a full-on SLR, Halide is well worth snapping up. It'll work as a simple point and shoot, but with a swipe you can open up a whole load of lovely manual options, giving you tactile control over focus, ISO and shutter speed, as well as a live histogram to help you get the right exposure.
You can review your photos Tinder-style, with a right swipe to add them to your favourites, and a left swipe to trash them, and Halide can even export as RAW to give you more flexibility when you edit your shots.
17. Camera MX
- Platform:Android
- Developer: Magix
- Price: Free
The Android-exclusive photo app Camera MX combines powerful enhancement tools with a beautifully simple user interface. Thanks to intelligent image processing you can take visibly sharper snaps, as well as cutting and trimming them to perfection in the edit.
In the latest version, you can create dynamic photos with the Live Shot feature. By saving the last seconds before you actually take the photo, this app lets users capture moving snaps that can be relived and shared.
18. Lensical
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Apptly
- Price: Free
Lensical makes creating face effects as simple as adding photo filters. Lensical is designed for larger displays and utilises one-handed gesture-based controls making it the perfect complement to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S Plus's cameras.
19. Camera+ Legacy
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: LateNite Apps
- Price: $2.99/£2.99
The Camera app that comes on the iPhone by default is not brilliant: yes, you can use it to take some decent shots, but it doesn't offer you much creative control. This is where Camera+ excels. The app has two parts: a camera and a photo editor, and it truly excels at the latter, with a huge range of advanced features.
Camera+ doesn't just limit you to editing new pics – you can quickly import your existing photos into the Lightbox so that you can breathe new life into them. Driver sound card sv550 yamaha 724.
20. Clone Camera Pro
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Peta Vision
- Price: $1.99/£1.99
A smart photo-compositing app that allows you to double up on your images. Clone Camera lets you produce a 'photo' of a scene with the same person in it multiple times. It's simply a case of taking up to four photos of the same person in a different location, and then selecting the areas you want to stitch together into the final photo. The app works best if you have a tripod, or can otherwise keep your device still.
21. Camera360
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: PinGuo
- Price: Free
Camera360 is a remarkable smartphone photo app. Download lagu ungu aku ingin engkau tahu. It's perfectly self-contained with a huge range of functions, no ads and no insistence in promoting paid content.
Touching the photo after applying a filter produces a nifty quick comparison of the 'before' and 'after' versions. One drawback is that the process of importing photos is slightly tedious, with one too many clicks involved. Tip: go to Enhancement > Night for a great filter to correct slightly dark or underexposed photos.
22. LINE Camera
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: PEGI 3
- Price: Free
Sleek and easy-to-use, LINE Camera comes with a solid range of filters, borders, icons and stamps. You can also add text to your pictures in over 100 fonts and 20 colours, making this free smartphone photo app one of the best for typography.Check out Stamp > Heart Symbol > Shine for a nice selection of kitschy sparkle brushes.
23. Paper Camera
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: JFDP Labs
- Price: $2.99/£2.99
Filter effects aren't exactly a new thing, but Paper Camera takes a different approach to the post effects found in the likes of Instagram. What does it do? Well, it displays effects in real time on your camera as you're using it. There are some neat effects on offer – including cartoon, half tone and sketch.
24. Lifecake
- Platform:iOS, Android
- Developer: Lifecake Ltd
- Price: Free
Save and organise pictures of your children growing up with Lifecake. In a timeline free from the adverts and noise that clutter most social media channels, you can easily look back over fond memories and share them with family and friends.
Touted as 'a time machine of your child's life', you can skip to select stages and compare different dates. You decide who can see your images, and because Lifecake is now a Canon company you can order a printed album of your precious photos.
25. VSCO Cam
- Platform:iOS, Android
- Developer: Visual Supply Company
- Price: Free
Connect with amazing photographers from around the world, and create your own stunning photography with VSCO Cam. Create your own VSCO Journal to join in with the community and find inspiration form other users. Unlike other social platforms, your followers and clout are not displayed, giving everyone an equal creative playing field.
VSCO Cam comes packed with top performance features, including high resolution imports, and before and after comparisons to show how you built up your edit. Introduce yourself to the community by downloading it for free.
Artistic photo apps
26. Prisma
- Platform:iOS/Android
- Developer: Prisma Labs
- Price: Free
Better than any filter-based photo app, Prisma can transform your photos into masterpieces in the style of famous artists such as Van Gogh, Munch, Mondrian and Picasso. It uses an AI technique called style transfer to do its artistic magic, and it's no longer restricted to still images; it now works on video as well.
27. Instagram
- Platform: iOS, Android
- Developer: Instagram, Inc
- Price: Free
Even if you're new to the world of photo apps, chances are you've heard of Instagram. Capable of turning the most everyday photo into something glamorous thanks to its range of custom-designed filters and editing tools, Instagram has won over billions of fans and dedicated users.
Put simply, there is a reason Instagram is so popular. It's powerful, versatile, and best of all it's free. A wide range of filters and features allow you to create unique images, Stories and videos, a thanks in part to its ownership by Facebook, Instagram has also become a social media platform in itself. Instagram Stories let you communicate a diary of images or videos to your followers, and new feature Instagram TV now focuses on longer videos.
28. PixelWakker
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Joseph Wrigley
- Price: £5.99
If you're a fan of pointillism then this is the photo app for you. PixelWakker breaks down your images into their component pixels and that's where the fun begins. You can apply one of four great effects – pixel image, dots, line, or colour rain – to your pics and watch in wonder as dot art unfolds before your eyes.
29. Sktchy
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Sktchy LLC
- Price: Free
Connecting with people around the world in a new way, here you can choose from a selection of photographs, uploaded by the Sktchy community and create a portrait from that image.
Sktchy co-founder Jordan Melnick comments: 'Our community of artists is growing every day because Sktchy is the perfect place for them to find inspiration and share their art with the world, in part because of the neat way we layer portraits over the photos that inspired them.'
30. Photochop
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Big Bucket Software
- Price: $0.99/£0.99
We probably like this app for its name (in full: Photochop – Chop Up and Distort Your Photos) as much as for its function. It's a cheap and cheerful little photo editor tool for mucking about with pictures. Simply pick a snap from your iPhone's photo library, chop it up into a set of tiles and then go wild.
You can either work directly with the tiles, dragging them around, rotating and resizing them to create a collage effect, or there's a warp mode that works in the same way but results in a distorted image rather than a collage. Obviously it's nothing you can't easily do in any image editing app in a couple of minutes and you'll be hard pushed to find a serious application for it, but it's a fun graphical toy to have in your pocket.
Cara Edit Foto Instagram Di Pc
31. Path On
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Peta Vision
- Price: $1.99/£1.99
Path On lets you add funky text to photos in unique ways. You draw the path you'd like the words to take, then type in your message – the text then flows along the path. The custom options are the real killer feature here, with you being able to adjust the font, the letter space, and the alignment. Although it's a little fiddly, Path On is probably the best adding-text-to-photos tool around.
32. Geló
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: James Moore
- Price: Free
A splash of colour can alter the look of an photo dramatically. Give your iPhone shots some extra oomph with this cool app for the iPhone. Gradients have become a lost art in iPhone photography, but Geló fills that gap in the market well. It needs a little more patience than your average photo app, but persevere and the results are excellent.
Once you've taken or imported an image, you see a carousel of 'gels'. Cycle through to choose a colour, tap it, and then it’s applied to your shot. Using the sliders you can tweak how the filter affects your shot, and you can easily apply specific RGB values though, that might mimic your favourite tints in iPhoto or Photoshop, say.
33. Retromatic
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Peta Vision
- Price: $1.99/£1.99
1950s-inspired photo app Retromatic enables you to import your photos, cut them out using an instant alpha tool, and then apply vintage effects to them. It's quick and easy to use, and looks great, although expect frustration if you want to do anything more than the basics. The instant alpha tool works well, but you have to hold down on the screen to make it switch between a brush and pinching to zoom.
34. Tadaa
- Platform: iOS
- Developer: Menschmaschine
- Price: Free
Tadaa lets you adjust the strength of all its filters, which is ideal for people who like fine-tuning their photos with subtle effects. This iPhone photo app tries to get you to use its own social network, but you can still use all features without a login.
Click on the frame icon to access a nice range of photo film borders. Unlike Instagram and Magic Hour, you're not limited to a square and can apply the film border to a photo of any size.
Next page: the best photo editing software..
Instagram is a hit on mobile platforms, and for good reason. There’s no better way to make your selfie pop5 Things To Avoid When Taking Selfies5 Things To Avoid When Taking SelfiesSelfies shouldn’t be taken lightly, and there are many things you need to avoid.Read More than a little artistic touch, even if that touch comes from a standardized filter. The only problem with Instagram is the fact its app only works on Android and iOS. What if you want to filter your photos later, on your PC, and upload them directly to Facebook or some other network? You have a few options.
Vintager
Exeone’s Vintager is a purpose-built tool for adding filters to photos on your desktop. It exists for no other reason and is entirely free to download and use. The developer’s other (paid) apps are unrelated to this one; it seems a side project.
Edit Foto Instagram
Even so, the app does what you’d expect, and does it very well. A solid selection of filters are included alongside basic crop, rotate, resize and contrast adjustments. You can also choose from seven different “frames” (i.e. borders), as well as an optional depth of field effect.
You can edit images in a series, one by one, using the “previous” and “next” navigation buttons. There’s no batch editing7 Free Apps to Batch Edit, Resize, & Rename Images7 Free Apps to Batch Edit, Resize, & Rename ImagesSome of the most common edits your images will have to go through are simple things such as resize, rename, format conversion, basic color fixes, etc. While you can’t be expected to sit through an..Read More option here, but this is the next best thing. Vintager is a solid choice if you want a simple, free, no-nonsense filter app.
Camerabag 2
Though it performs a similar task, Camerabag 2 is otherwise the direct opposite of Vintager. The latter is simple, but also fairly limited. Camerabag 2 is more complex, but offers a huge volume of options.
Most of these options come from the ridiculous variety of filters available here. You’re spoiled for choice, and at least some of the filters are arranged in a unique way; by year. In other words, you can select a filter based on the vintage you’d like to apply to your photo, with preset choices ranging from 1937 to 1985. But don’t worry; you can add all the usual named filters you’d normally expect, and a lot more besides.
The filters are joined by a wide range of more precise adjustments. You can crop, change color temperature, alter exposure, move the RGB curve and far, far more. We’re talking Photoshop-level detail adjustment. Oh, and borders? You’ll find plenty of those, too.
What’s the catch? You have to pay $20 after a free 15 day trial. Also, the program crashed at launch when I first downloaded it. Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2013 is required, but oddly was not installed alongside the software.
Pixlr-O-Matic
Pixlr is known for its online photo editor, Pixlr Editor, which is basically a stripped-down Photoshop that’s available for free through your web browser. The organization also provides Pixlr-o-matic, however, which is very basic filter app for the PC.
There’s not a ton to say about this app. The selection of filters is excellent (better than Vintager, in fact), and joined by some very basic editing tools, like aspect ratio adjustment. Other basic tools are missing, though; there’s no crop, no exposure adjustment, no color balance.
But hey, it’s free and it’s online, so you can use it at any moment on any computer with an Internet connection. You can also use if offline, if you’d like, by downloading the app’s tiny executable.
BatchPhoto
Most people, most of the time, only need to add a single filter to a single photo at a time. But what if you’re the exception and you want to add a ton of filters at once? Then you need BatchPhoto from Bits & Coffee.
This tool isn’t built for adding filters specifically, but filters are a significant part of its feature set. There are about 36 filters in total, and they’re joined by image color adjustments and the ability to add watermarks. You build a job by deciding what filters you want to use and then apply them to all the photos in the batch in one go. With all of this said, not all the filters are great for providing a vintage look, and you may need to get creative to produce the results desired.
While it doesn’t match the fine detail as CameraBag 2, BatchPhoto does offer more options and detailed adjustments than Vintager. The big downside, once again, is price; this software will set you back $29.95, but a free trial version is available. Check out our full BatchPhoto reviewEasily Edit Multiple Photos At Once With BatchPhoto for Windows and Mac [Giveaway]Easily Edit Multiple Photos At Once With BatchPhoto for Windows and Mac [Giveaway]Have you ever taken a lot of photos and needed to edit them all at once? Whether they need to be resized, rotated, or combined into a photo album, editing the photos one-by-one can be..Read More to learn more.
Fotor
Another solid choice for batch editing, Fotor is a multiple-purpose app for the PC that offers Photoshop-style image editing, collaging and batch editing with filters and other effects, like borders. Since we’re talking about Instagram from your desktop we’ll just focus on the batch features.
There is a very wide varity of options here. Detailed image adjustments are less than what you’ll find with BatchPhoto or CamreaBag 2, but there are almost as many filters as the latter. You can also batch edit photo names, add borders and throw in some additional “scene” effects like sunset and clouds.
Surprisingly, Fotor is free. The app does include advertising for additional software from the developer, EverImaging, and frequently prompts users to review the software. This pop-up asks users to post reviews on Chrome’s Web Store even when using the desktop version, which is arguably deceptive.
Conclusion
Normally, I like to round up an article with some best-of recommendations, but that’s hard to do here. All of these apps will let you mimic the photo filtering capabilities of Instagram, but do so in different ways. Some users will like the detail of CameraBag 2, others will demand the batch capabilities of BatchPhoto, and still others will prefer the simplicity of Pixlr-O-Matic. Each app defines itself in some way.
What’s your choice? Is it one of the apps here, or have you found another Instagram-a-like? Let us know in the comments.
Explore more about: Batch Image Editing, Image Editor.
Thank you very much for this helpful article. I really need Instagram like app for PC.
Check out Photolemur.com it's a real cure for photos. I use it as first aid and the other filters work better with it.
Hey, I'm interested in how they effect the quality of the photo as want to print my photos to relatively large sizes but instagram strips to much - do these vary or do all leave high megapixel images? Thanks
pixlr-o-matic does save your photos as a smaller file, the 1.2 MB photo added a filter to got saved into 765 KB. I would also like to keep the size for printing, if you found how let me know.
Did you ever figure out how to keep your size?
I recommend Adobe Lightroom :)
koi nhi sab jhoot hai
Thank you Matt Smith for an interesting and useful article. As a photographer even I sometimes appreciate the simple programs mentioned here, to give my images that little bit of extra pop or creativity while also saving bags of time. Cheers.
XnRerto
Thanx. All these are quite simple apps to edit photos otherwise desktop photo editing softwares are hard to master at.
Fotor is also available for the Mac in the Mac App Store.
Vintager!