13 of the Best Photo & Video Editing Apps for Mobile. Photo Editing Apps 1) Afterlight There was a time when I was a bit more old-school in my photo editing. It also contains 74 filters, including a Fusion feature that lets you mix tools, filters, and textures to create your own personal look. My favorite tools, though, have to be the ones for Brightness and Shadows. 3) Snapseed Snapseed is another app that's great for basic image enhancements. While the app has many of the classic photo editing tools like color tints, retro effects, and crops, there are a few gems that make it unique. 8) Foodie If you're anything like I am, your personal social media feeds are loaded with images of food. There's an app for that. Video Editing Apps 10) Splice It only seems fitting that the makers of GoPro would also release an app that allows you -- as the name suggests -- to splice together different video clips on your phone to create a moving collage. But what if you could make a video collage?
By now, it’s clear that creating great visual content is critical for marketers — and that’s especially true on social media.
It was recently announced that Instagram has doubled its monthly active user base since 2014, which means a lot more people are viewing and sharing photos. Plus, visual content is 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types. In other words, people like to be shown, not told — and in turn, they share.
For that reason, it’s important for marketers to know how to create compelling visuals for their business’ social networks and blogs. And while it can be worth putting the investment of time and money into photo editing software on your computer, many of us are exclusively using our phones to take pictures and could stand to edit them without uploading them to a desktop. That’s especially true when you’re posting in real time, like at an event.
Luckily, there are tons of great photo and video editing apps out there for mobile devices — some of them even cost a few bucks. But which are the best, free or paid? Check out our shortlist below.
Photo Editing Apps
1) Afterlight
There was a time when I was a bit more old-school in my photo editing. I counted on Instagram tools alone, sometimes combining them with the “enhance” feature on my phone’s Photos app. Then, I learned about Afterlight — a somewhat rudimentary tool, but one that has all the features you need to do a basic photo edit.
From controlling the color tones, to adjusting exposure and brightness, to rotating and straightening a photo, it has everything you need for lighting or color fixes. It also contains 74 filters, including a Fusion feature that lets you mix tools, filters, and textures to create your own personal look. Into frames? Afterlight has a whopping 128 to choose from, boasting a perfect pairing with Instagram.
My favorite tools, though, have to be the ones for Brightness and Shadows. Some pictures do well with a decrease in shadows and increase in brightness for cleaner, fresher look. But flipping those around can also create a more mysterious, nighttime feel — That’s what I did with this photo of tree ornaments.
2) VSCO Cam
Over the past few years, VSCO Cam has become a highly popular photo editing app for mobile. While it does boast a wider set of editing tools than most other editing apps, its main claim to fame is its filters.
These filters have a softer, more authentic look that resembles real film, compared to the over-saturated looks of many Instagram filters. Plus, it’s great for when you need to edit a photo on the fly. Simply upload the photo to VSCO Cam, slap on one of the great filters — I used C1 below — and call it a day. (There are more filters available for purchase, too.)
3) Snapseed
Snapseed is another app that’s great for basic image enhancements. It’s got all the classic adjustment tools, such as tuning, cropping, and straightening. Plus, its sharpening tool is one of the best we’ve seen — it really does enhance a photo’s detail, without making it look grainy, like many other photo sharpening adjusters out there.
But what makes this tool particularly unique is its “Selective Adjust” tool. It allows you to pinpoint an area in a photo and adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation of that single point. So if you want viewers to focus on a certain part of your photo — say, the buds in the center of a plant — then you can make the buds more vivid.
Want more help with Snapseed? Google, the maker of the app, created a dedicated support page with tips and instructions.
4) Camera+
$2.99 | iOS only
With the highest price tag on the list, you have to wonder what makes Camera+ so special. When it was first released, Lifehacker called it “The Best Camera App for iPhone,” with TIME writing, “If the iPhone’s standard camera is like a digital point-and-shoot, the Camera+ app is like a high-quality SLR lens.”
While the app has many of the classic photo editing tools like color tints, retro effects, and crops, there are a few gems that make it unique. First is its image stabilizer, which helps you capture the sharpest photos possible before you even take a picture. It also lets you zoom in up to 6X, which can really up the quality of your shot if you’re trying to hone in on something far away.
Finally, its Clarity filter is what The Wall Street Journal‘s Kevin Sintumuang calls its “secret sauce — it adds pro-camera crispness to almost any shot.” I’d have to agree — just check out how it enhanced this photo of my…
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