Favorite Photo Apps

My very favorite part of my iPhone is the camera. I still use my regular point and shoot but, at this point, it rarely leaves the house with me. My bag is usually overstuffed with important things like toys, snacks, milk, and board books.

Of course, all phone photos need some amount of post processing to look ultra-fabulous and here I am listing some of the top free apps out there for editing your photos.

No expertise needed. All you need to do is click a shot, add a few quick finishing touches using one or two of these apps, and voilĂ  your masterpiece is ready.

Window Photo Gallery

This easy-to-use photo-editing app is one of the best out there. Window Photo Gallery can be downloaded directly from Microsoft for free. There are some steps you need to do in a specific order to get your best photo. This app, or any photo-editing app, for that matter, needs to be used in a specific order. Adjustments to color or exposure can leave behind artifacts and noise, so those edits should be done first. Then retouching and red eye issues can be addressed. Finally, the noise can be removed. After that, filters can be applied, images converted to black and white, or even cropped.

Instagram

The Instagram Array of Filters
The Instagram Array of Filters

You may know Instagram as a popular photo community, but it also offers a fast and easy photo editing app. The filters are good enough for most people, but not for power users. People who like black and white photography should probably try a different app because these filters are not the best available.

Snapseed

While Snapseed is available for iPhone and Android interfaces, it truly shines on iPad and other tablets. Snapseed has an intuitive interface. Once photos are added to the app, you can select manual tuning. When you swipe upwards or downwards on the picture, you affect different variables such as contrast and saturation. Selecting one of the variables and then swiping left or right increases or decreases the value.

Photo Editor by Aviary

This is one of the best apps available for photo manipulation on a Windows Phone. The app still works really well, but developers have stopped updating the Windows phone version. It is under active development for iPhone and Android. It makes it easy to add things to your photos like stickers and text. It is ideal for casual users, and has all the basic editing tools including filters, effects, and rotate.

VSCO Cam

Fine tuned edits using VSCO cam
Fine tuned edits using VSCO cam

This app used to be paid, but it went free. It is one of the best available apps on IOS and Android, if you are looking for something a tad beyond basic. It has a ton of filters, and they are better than the ones on Instagram. Some of the filters are free, and some you have to pay for, but the free filters are enough for most people. The editing tools include contrast, saturation, tint, crop, rotate, brightness, highlights, shadows, and sharpness, and many more. There are certainly enough tools with this app for professional photo editing.

Out of these my favorites have to be Instagram for the ease of use, and VSCO cam for more advanced edits.

What are your favorite photo editing apps?

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