Professional photographers know that there is no replacement for a DSLR camera when it comes to adjusting the camera’s settings like ISO, shutter speed, focus points, etc. manually, but all this doesn’t mean that smartphones cannot provide you high-quality results. With the evolution in the smartphone industry, people are looking for better and better features in a smartphone like a good camera, screen resolution, compact size etc. All these features combined with the latest apps make the best use of a smartphone in terms of photography.
Here are the best 10 apps that can help you get much more out of your smartphone’s already-amazing camera:
1. A+ Signature
Platform: iOS
A+ Signature app has many image editing features, but one of the best features it has is that you can add your mark/signature on any photo that you capture. You can also add copyright information in your images to ensure that whoever uses your picture, gives you the correct accreditation.
2. Pixlr
Platform: iOS
Pixlr consists of over 2 million combinations of effects, filters, overlays, and many more interesting things – all for free! You can also create amazing montages from your photographs. If you already have a great picture that needs minor touchups, you can use Pixlr it easily.
3. The Photographer’s Ephemeris
Platform: iOS
The Photographer’s Ephemeris, an odd name for a mobile app, but it is one of the best photo apps across the world for the features it offers. If you are a photographer who needs accuracy and perfectness, TPE app will help you plan your outdoor photography shoot by focusing on available natural light. It is a great choice, especially for landscape, architecture, and astrophotographers.
It is a kind of calculator that will tell you how the light will fall on land (on night and day), for any place in the world. Indeed, a perfect app for people who want to become professional photographers.
4. VSCO
Platform: Android and IOS
VSCO stands for Visual Supply Company. This is a great app for photography lovers who want to edit their photos in terms of contrast, saturation, exposure, fade, temperature, etc. These minor tweaks allow you to transform your ordinary photos into engaging content. It isn’t just a useful app for photographers but also small businesses that want to create portfolios and increase their online presence.
You can also get inspiration from others’ work on VSCO. Another great thing is that it syncs across multiple devices that enable you to edit photos from anywhere. It is available in both free and paid versions. The free version consists of 10 presets, basic editing tools, and the ability to share your work and explore other photos. If you want more advanced features and over 170 presets, you can pay $19.99 a year for their membership.
5. Camera+ 2
Platform: iOS
Camera+ was a successful application on Apple’s app store, whose 14 million copies were sold. Camera+ 2 is the second adaption of it that allows you to take full control over all the aspects of editing your photos. Manual control, RAW images, and depth editing are just a few of its great features.
In short, if you want full control over every setting, this app is for you.
6. TouchRetouch
Platform: iOS and Android
If you are a photographer, you must have experienced this – you take a perfect shot only to find out that there is a dustbin or a group of people obscuring your shot. Now, the work of Photoshop can be done on your smartphone via smart apps like TouchRetouch. All you have to do is highlight the area you want to fix and tap Go. Clone stamp tool can also be used to fill in gaps and duplicate elements.
Price: $1.99
7. Snapseed
Platform: iOS and Android
Snapseed is also a photo retouching app, developed by Google. It comes with many professional tools and features that can help enhance the overall look of your photo. You can use the brush on objects or any area in the photo that you want to focus on, instead of working on the entire frame. If you don’t feel like editing your photos over and over again, you can take advantage of its autocorrect features that consist of color, saturation, and sharpness adjustments. It can also blend two images together to create a double exposure photo.
8. Photoshop Express (FREE)
Platform: iOS and Android
Who doesn’t love to Photoshop their photos to make minor adjustments? If you want professional-grade photography tools, then there is no match for Adobe Photoshop. However, this mobile app is an express version of its desktop counterpart and not as powerful as it, but it still packs a number of features that can help improve your smartphone photography. You can even create your own presets that can save you plenty of time when editing photos on your phone or tablet.
9. Afterlight
Platform: iOS and Android
Afterlight is a one-time purchase mobile editing app that has all those features that you require to improve the looks of your photos. It has built-in filters, frames, RAW support, and many more features. For more convenience, the app also lets you create your own filters so you can save time and have a distinct look in every image.
10. Superimpose
Platform: iOS and Android
As its name refers, Superimpose mobile app works great in blending multiple images to create a professional-grade look. You can do editing from basic to advanced. Some of its many features include scaling, resizing, filters, adjustments, and many more. Just like Photoshop, you can also work on layers in this app; all this without having any advanced knowledge of photo editing.
Superimpose is available on iOS devices for $1.99 and Android devices for $0.99.
Conclusion
Photos with some minor adjustments here and there can make your photo look great. All the apps discussed above are some of the best ones available in the market that can provide you all those features that you need to tweak your photos and improve your smartphone photography.