There used to be a time when only the most high-end cameras could capture something share-worthy, but now in an era of instagram and social media it’s easier than ever to take beautiful photographs (and we don’t just mean selfies!) and edit them well without expensive photo equipment. If you’re still lacking the know-how to produce beautiful photos with your phone or device, look no further, here’s our guide to the best photography apps available on Apple and Android smart phones and tablets.
#1 Instagram
Free IOS & Android
Instagram is by far the most popular photo editing and sharing site, but many people don’t use Instagram alone to edit their photographs. However, having instagram is a must if you want to get serious about your mobile photography, with over 300 million users and a selection of classic filters and editing tools it’s really worth downloading it now.
#2 VSCO Cam
Free IOS & Android
VSCO Cam (which stands for Visual Supply Company) is what you need if you’re looking for more editing capabilities. It contains a number of great filter packs, plus more that cost a little extra, and also comes with editing tools to make touch-ups like changing the brightness, contrast and adding shadows and highlights.
#3 Touch Retouch
£0.79 IOS, £0.62 Android
Touch Retouch is a revolutionary little app. You can erase elements of a picture just with the stroke of a brush, I’ve used it to erase forks from a table and telephone wires from my dreamy pool scene. It works by cloning the background of the photograph and deleting the element you don’t want to see anymore. Magic!
#4 Afterlight
£0.79 IOS, £0.59 Android
Afterlight has 74 filters, 78 textures and a great amount of frames and transforming tools. You can use afterlight to crop your image into any shape with a white frame, which is quite a trend on Instagram at the moment, or use it to add light leaks and a polaroid frame to make your photographs look vintage.
#5 Adobe Photoshop Express
Free IOS & Android
Where would we be without Photoshop? This handy little app contains everything you need to edit your photographs, from basic tools and filters to neat features such as noise reduction (to get rid of that graininess that screams ‘mobile photo’) and it’s completely free. It may take a while of playing around to get used to it, but it’s perfect for making your photographs look high quality.
#6 Snapseed
Free IOS & Android
Snapseed has a huge amount of easy editing tools, from one tap auto-correct to the selective adjust tool which allows you to adjust only one component of an image. It also includes some great filters that can be edited in app!
I have all these apps and think they’re well worth it if you like playing around with photography and uploading your faves to Instagram! Let us know what your fave photo apps are, and if you download any of these ones!