What App?

Time and time again, we receive comments on our social channels asking “how did you edit this?” or “what app is this?”When it comes to editing the photos we post on the blog and Instagram, a lot of what we do depends on personal preference. We spend a lot of time in Photoshop, and each person who contributes to the blog has their own way of enhancing a photo. There are a lot of tricks to editing, and I find myself learning something new everyday. The more time you spend in an editing program, the more you will learn. But, these editing programs can be expensive, and by no means is it absolutely necessary to have one to produce a cool image. There are thousands of photo editing apps out there right now that you can download within a matter of seconds to your phone, and most of them are free! I have several that I like to use, and all for different reasons. Today I wanted to share 5 of my favorites that are fun, easy to use, and produce some awesome results.

Afterlight

afterlight

I recently switched from an Android phone to an iPhone, and I was finally able to download Afterlight. All of my friends use this app, and I felt pretty left out before I made the switch. This app offers cool faded filters, basic enhancing, light leaks, and a lot of customization. One of my favorite features is the ability to put your image inside a shape like you see above.

Snapseed

snapseed

Our intern Madisyn introduced me to this app. Snapseed is great because it allows you to pinpoint the areas you want to edit. You can click on certain areas of your photo, then brighten or darken specific spots to your liking. This app gives you a lot of control over how you want your picture to look, while still being user friendly!

Moldiv

moldiv

I’m a sucker for cool collages and mirrored images. Moldiv is a collage editing app, and I have a lot of fun playing around with it. With over 100 framing options, you can make some amazing collages in really interesting shapes. I also love that you can flip and rotate each image within the frame to create that psychedelic kaleidoscope effect.

Instasize

instasize

Since instagram only allows you to upload images that are a perfect square, you sometimes lose detail in your image after cropping. Instasize allows you to add borders to your photo so that you can post your entire image without having to crop anything out. I recently started doing this to all of the images on my personal account because I like the way the borders space out the images in my feed. Instasize also offers a lot of cool filters and light leaks. I love the vintage effect that light leaks can add to an image!

VSCO Cam 

VSCO cam

VSCO Cam is by far my absolute favorite. Created by Visual Supply Company, the app is just as clean and inspiring as their website. You can browse through beautiful presets, all producing different results. From vintage to modern, some of the presets they offer can make a phone picture look like it was taken with a film camera. You can also go in and edit things like saturation, shadows, tint, and fade. In addition to editing, VSCO cam offers its own photo sharing platform called VSCO Grid. I’ve lost many hours scrolling through this and discovering some amazing photographers. From editing and sharing to discovering, VSCO Cam is definitely the app to download.

photo editing collage

Do you have a favorite photo editing app? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to try it!

Follow FP Jana on Twitter. 

5 1 vote
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
33 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Julie
9 years ago

Thanks for sharing this with us ! I love all your photos !

Lauren
9 years ago

These are some great photo editing apps. Personally, I love the app Retrica. It has some great effects, and it’s free! :)

9 years ago

It’s always a good time discovering new photo apps! My go to is Afterlight..but I’ll have to try our these!

http://www.sunshinedaydreamphotography.com/

Lily
9 years ago

I love the Afterlight app, but my all time favorites have got to be Vintique or PicsArt. They allow you to do all of the above effects but sort of all in one, I hate having to switch my photo around from app to app

http://www.etsy.com/shop/farenorth

9 years ago

I love afterlight and vsco, but definitely want to try snapseed!! Great tips!

http://juliettelaura.blogspot.com

9 years ago

I love afterlight for the same reason you spoke of with instasize. It also has a frame that keeps the photo size. I love vsco because you have the ability to separate the focus and exposure points and it allows you to pick your light source while focusing on another area. I don’t know of another app that does that. It is such a huge help in being able to fix what would usually be a very dark photo if taken with an app that only allows you to light source and focus in one spot.

Katelyn
9 years ago

My favorite apps I love are abeautifulmess and picfx and camera+

I’ll have to try the ones y’all talked about.

9 years ago

I totally agree with you on that vsco cam life. They are such a do-good brand / amazing creative community who are dedicated to not only their users, but to the world…. Plus, it’s essentially a mini Photoshop at your fingertips! The best.

9 years ago

Perfect! You were able to bring light to something I didn’t think I need but now I do! Thank you! Can’t wait to try out Moldiv and InstaSize.

FP Brigette
9 years ago

Oh my gosh. You’re the best. You know exactly what I’m talking about.

9 years ago

Love VSCO forever. I use VSCO Films for Lightroom 5. SO dreamy.

9 years ago

I’ll have to try these-thanks! I use vintique a lot :)

http://thoseknots.blogspot.co.uk

9 years ago

Thank you for sharing!!! You always have the most gorgeous photos!!!

The Weaver Of Words…..give me 15 words and I’ll tell you a tale
http://www.averyfairytale.wordpress.com

Dakota
9 years ago

Rookie is a great iPhone app!

9 years ago

Great post. I will definitely check these out. I also really like paper artist. It is a paid app, but really cheap and great quality.

Katie
9 years ago

I personally love using Piclab! Lots of great filters, allows you to put the borders around pics that are not square (white or a variety of fun patterns), place shape or pattern/texture or light filters over pics and you can even add text over the picture in a huge selection of fun fonts! I’ll definitely have to try Snapseed though. It looks great!

9 years ago

Rhonna is a great app for adding words and making your pictures into typography :-)

Madison
9 years ago

I personally LOVE Shark photo app its amazing! Picsart has to be number one though…you can do anything you want with it. There is a package you can buy with Picsart it is called Peace, Love, Happiness….LOVE IT.

9 years ago

I really love pixlr and photogrid. pixlr has awesome filters, light leaks, and other lovely overlays. photogrid resizes your pictures to fit instagram, and also has filters and other editing options like cropping, sharpening, contrasting, etc.

9 years ago

These are all such beautiful photos!

9 years ago

I love all of these apps, when I want to do something a little more funky I add light filters/stickers from various apps and go to Effexy which has a melt effect to give your photo a more trippy look. I’ve also fallen a little for the effects in Glitche.

9 years ago

The VSCO app is amazing! I love it too. Thanks for the suggestions. Definitely downloading Snapseed and Moldiv.

Nice apps collection! I have used 3 of these apps, but I personally prefer using Snapseed because of its easy interface.

9 years ago

Thanks for the app! This really improves! This makes so simple yet so amazing!

9 years ago

watching callou from spraut