There are thousands upon thousands of photography apps available in the App Store, so figuring out which ones you should use can be daunting task. That's why I put together this list of my favorite photography apps available for the iPhone.
Photos are some of the most important things we keep on our iPhones. They capture our life and preserve those memories for us to look back on, so making sure they look great and are in a safe place is essential. This list will cover the best apps for shooting, editing, sharing and storing your iPhone photos.
Shooting
Simplicity and ease of use are the most crucial things I look for in an app for shooting photos. Obviously, features are important but if you have to spend too much time fiddling with an app you may miss that golden moment.
For taking photos in the moment, nothing beats the quickness of popping open the iPhone's built in Camera app from the lock screen and taking a quick shot. If you want some tips about taking better photos with the built in Camera app, check out my video tutorial.
However, if you want more control and creativity, there are much better options than the built in Camera app.
Camera+
Camera+ is a hybrid photo shooting and editing app, but I primarily use it as my go to manual camera app. It offers manual control over your focus, ISO, shutter speed and other options similar to a DSLR camera. The other shooting apps on this list offer similar features, but what sets Camera+ apart for me is the built-in “macro” mode, which uses the digital zoom to create a convincing macro effect. While it’s not quite as nice as using a real macro lens, it still does a great job without the need for extra hardware.
The app also offers a variety of tools for editing images as well. There are a number of preset adjustments like Clarity, which make for quick and easy photo editing. Of course you can also get more complex with manual adjustments for things like exposure and color. Like most every photo app these days, Camera+ comes with a large set of filters for simpler editing. What is a bit unique to this app is being able to layer multiple filters.
Even though I opt to use other apps for photo editing, which I’ll cover below, Camera+ could easily be a one-stop shop for many people for both shooting and editing photos. Camera+ is available on the App Store for $2.99.
ProCamera
Like Camera+, ProCamera gives you a full range of control while shooting photos. ProCamera’s standout feature is HDR mode. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and is used when the background of a photo is significantly lighter or darker than the subject in the foreground, like when taking a photo of a person with the sun behind them. I’m not sure what kind of secret sauce they used, but the team behind ProCamera created an HDR mode that is significantly better than the HDR mode built into the iPhone’s default Camera app. If you shoot a significant amount of photos outside in bright sunlight, this app is definitely worth a look.
The other stand out feature of ProCamera is the control over image quality. While the native setting on the iPhone takes good quality JPEG photos, ProCamera allows you to switch to a higher quality JPEG setting or even to TIFF format, which offers significantly better quality than JPEG photos. The cost is much larger file sizes, but if you need super high quality images for printing or more professional work, this is a great feature.
The app also offers a wide variety of editing tools for post processing your images. ProCamera is available for $4.99 on the App Store.
Manual
Manual is an app that’s focused on one thing and one thing only, giving you full manual control over shooting photos. While apps like Camera+ and ProCamera can be a bit difficult to figure out, Manual’s minimalistic design creates an enjoyable user experience that’s easier to get the hang of. But don’t let the simplicity fool you, Manual gives you control over every element of shooting photos you can think of from exposure levels to white balance. The app even displays a simple histogram at the bottom while shooting for monitoring exposure levels.
This app is geared more for pro photographers who know how to shoot using manual photography controls, and it is one of the best options out there. Manual is available for $2.99 on the App Store.
Editing
The iPhone, and iPad for that matter, are quickly becoming powerful photo editors on par with desktop applications. Professionals who do some seriously intricate photo editing may still need a full-fledged computer, but for everybody else the iPhone can handle anything you need.
Photo editing apps are a dime a dozen these days, so I’ve spent a significant amount of time discovering which ones work for me. What I primarily look for in an editing app is an enjoyable user experience that’s not overly complicated but still provides the editing tools I need.
Pixelmator
Over the last year, Pixelmator has become my go to app for editing photos. It was originally released as an iPad only app but has since been updated with an iPhone variant. Pixelmator was a staple photo editor on the Mac for years and has adopted most of its features for the iPhone and iPad versions.
Pixelmator is a powerful app and although it supports older hardware, it is certainly best with Apple’s more recent products. What I have found Incredible about Pixelmator is how the app has managed to provide such a staggering amount of features while maintaining a simple and user-friendly design. The user interface could be confused for an app created by Apple. If you are at all familiar with Apple’s apps like Pages or Keynote, you will feel right at home with Pixelmator.
There are a myriad of effects available for editing images, including more advanced options like support for different layers. Pixelmator has four primary options for editing, which include effects, colors, painting tools and retouching tools. One of the standout features is the repair tool, which uses the same repair engine that Pixelmator for Mac uses. You simply highlight the portion of the screen that has content you want to remove, anything from a rock to a pimple, and the app will use surrounding content to remove the element.
If you can’t tell, I’m a huge fan of Pixelmator and I’m amazed they only charge $4.99 for it on the App Store. If you are looking for a full-featured photo editor for your iPhone, it’s hard to beat Pixelmator.
Snapseed
Although it’s owned by Google, Snapseed is a go to photo editor for a ton of people, and for good reason. The app offers a bunch of editing tools for adjusting color and exposure, but the special effect filters are the best features in Snapseed. The app also includes a unique feature called selective adjustment, which lets you change certain elements of a photo like color and brightness in selective portions of the image.
However, the number one reason I included Snapseed in this list is the user interface. There are plenty of apps that offer similar features, but Snapseed keeps things minimalistic and extremely easy to use. I always appreciate the extra thought in making photo apps simpler because it lets me focus on the photo rather than constantly fiddling with the app. An extra perk is that it’s free on the App Store.
Afterlight
Unlike any other app on this list, Afterlight excels at shooting, editing and sharing photos on your iPhone. I put Afterlight in the editing section because that’s what I normally use it for, but the app manages to do it all and maintain a simple user interface.
Afterlight offers solid manual control over shooting photos and a load of editing features including standard editing tools, filters, textures, transforming tools and frames. You can easily share photos to just about anywhere straight from the app along with options to create a postcard or photo book.
I could go on and on about this app, but let me just say for the person looking for a complete one-stop photography shop, this app is probably what I would recommend to most people. And at only $0.99 on the App Store, this app is an absolute steal.
Sharing & Storing
The built in Photos app has made some major strides over the last year and for most people, I think it will serve just fine for your sharing and storing solution. You can choose to have all of your photos backed up to iCloud and you are able to share photos everywhere straight from the Photos app. However, if you want to get a little more serious, or if you don’t completely trust iCloud as a backup solution, there are some great alternatives.
Lightroom
I know you’re familiar with Adobe and their suite of creative apps. Lightroom for iPhone is an example of an excellent alternative photo management system.
The app can hold its own in the editing department, but it really excels as a photo organization tool. Similar to Pixelmator, Lightroom for iPhone maintains most of the features of its desktop counterpart. It organizes photos and groups them into collections which is more desirable in my opinion to Apple’s native Photos app.
The only negative to this app is the price. While it’s free to download it requires an Adobe Creative Cloud account, which start at $9.99 a month and goes up from there.
Instagram
This app doesn’t need much of an introduction, but it’s still worth noting that Instagram is the most popular photo-sharing app out there. It is the Facebook of photography, which I’m sure is why FaceBook bought the company a few years ago. Instagram is the app that has singlehandedly boosted the massive popularity of mobile photography.
I won’t spend much time on this one since I’m sure you are already familiar, but if photo sharing is your number one priority you won’t find a better community out there. The app also includes some handy filters to add to your photos and is great for discovery as you can follow many photographers from the vast community. Instagram is free to download from the App Store.
Google Photos
I’m aware not many of us Apple fans are fond of Google services, but I try and give credit where it’s due. Google Photos, released last year, is a solid photo storage and organization option. The service is similar to Apple’s Photos app but includes some neat extras.
The main thing setting Google Photos apart is the incredible search features they included. Of course this comes from all the massive data Google has collected over the years, but once your photos are uploaded to the service you can search for just about anything and see photos related to that search, and I mean anything. Search for ‘beach’ and you will be presented with photos with a beach in them. Narrow that down to ‘beach photos from 2013’ and Google Photos will eerily show you exactly that.
If nothing else, Google Photos is a good place to at least upload a backup copy of your photos, especially since the service is both free and offers and unlimited amount of space. Please note the free service does not store extremely high quality images, so if you are a professional who relies on super high quality images, you may want to pay a monthly fee if you want to use Google Photos to store your images. However, the storage quality is still high and should be just fine for most people. The app is free on the App Store.
Conclusion
If you want to shoot like a pro, you have to use tools like a pro. We have provided you with the tools necessary to be the best iPhone photographer you can be, now it's up to you to hone your skills.
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