Best Photo Editing Apps | Photography Tips & Tricks

There are so many photo editing apps available for phones these days that it can be hard to know where to start. Not all photo editing apps are equal, and a lot of them do pretty much the same thing. From free apps to paid ones, finding a photo editing app that works for you can become a very personal thing. Today I wanted to share with you what I consider to be 5 of the best photo editing apps that I use on an almost daily basis.

2016 UPDATE: For an updated list of my favourite editing apps click the image below...

Click Here for the 2016 update

I take a lot of photos on my phone and I love to tweak them a little before I upload them to my social networks. Sometimes an image doesn't need anything more than a little cropping, other times I want to tweak it or add a filter to create a certain look I have in mind. Whether you're just wanting to create a simple collage of photos, or create a photo that would also look great hanging on your wall, these are my Top 5 recommendations.

Top 5 of the Best Photo Editing Apps

1. Vintique

I absolutely love this app. I discovered it a couple of years ago and aside from Instagram, it's my most-used app. In fact I often use a filter from Vintique and then don't use an Instagram filter when I upload it there. Vintique is all about the filters and it has lots of them. There is a great selection available in the initial purchase of the app, with the option to add extra packs at a decent price.

Even if you don't want to buy the extra packs you are almost guaranteed to find a filter to suit your needs. The one time that my photo was chosen as a Fab Four in Fat Mum Slim's Photo a Day challenge (image above), it was a photo I had edited in Vintique. This app is super easy to use and you can customise each of the filters. It's well-worth the US$2.49 price tag, and, in my opinion, if you're only going to have one other app for adding beautiful filters to your photos then this is it. Android users are also in luck, because there is a version for you too, and it's actually cheaper for you guys.

2. Camera+

Camera+ is pretty well known amongst iphonographers and for good reason. Not only does it have some pretty awesome photo editing capabilities, but the actual camera you use to take photos with it is considered to be better than just using the camera function in the iPhone itself. For those who understand it, you can control your focus and exposure independent of each other when composing your shot.

If you want to be able to make precision adjustments to your photos then this is the app for you. It also has a range of filters, many of which you'll fall in love with. Some of the old-school filters are the best I've found, and like I said, the actual camera-function itself is worth the price of the app (US$2.49). There is no Android version of this app, but if you check out this website here you'll find a list of some other pretty awesome camera/photo-editing apps that are comparable, some of which I've used (Snapseed, Camera Awesome, VSCO Cam) and can also recommend.

3. Instacollage

There is a free version and a Pro version of this app, and the Pro version is actually available for free for a limited time right now. This is the only collage app I use as it has a huge selection of collage options and layouts, and you can easily change the width of the frames, as well as the colour and drop shadowing.

Instacollage also has fun frames you can use to add to your photos, as well as a limited selection of filters and text options. Personally I don't use the filters or text options, as there are better apps available for this elsewhere, I just use it for creating photo collages and it hasn't disappointed me yet. I'm not sure if there is an Android version of this particular app, but if any Android users have a collage app they can recommend, please let me know in the comments and I'll add it in.

4. Camera 360

Camera 360 is one of the first photo apps I downloaded when I got my iPhone after playing with the Android version that Dave had on his phone. It's lots of fun and has some really cool FX that you can add to your photo.

Everything from making your skin look positively luminous, to turning your photos into sketches worth of an art prize, it's lots of fun to play around with. It's free on both the App Store and Play Store, with the option of buying more fun FX in-app.

5. Face Juggler

This app is purely for the laugh-factor. Basically, you take a photo with two or more people in it and then juggle their faces! It swaps the main facial area of each person with often-times hilarious results! Dave and I spend a good hour sitting on the lounge juggling faces and wetting our pants.

Useful? Not really, it does nothing but juggle the faces. Lots of fun? Absolutely! Face Juggler is the iPhone app and it's free if you only want to swap two faces. I paid up for Face Juggler Plus which allows you to swap more than 2 faces at a time and I believe in the new version you can share your double face juggles to get access to the Plus version. Android also has a version of this, Face Swap. I don't know how similar it is to Face Juggler, but from looking at it on the Play Store it looks pretty similar.

Bonus: There are also a number of apps that I haven't mentioned above that get more than a workout on my phone and are rightly deserving of a special mention and more than likely a future blog post!

They are:
Little Moments by Fat Mum Slim
Rhonna Designs
A Beautiful Mess
Lumie
Flipagram
and for creating awesome visual quotes, you can't go past WordSwag.

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