Are you interested in taking those photos you took on vacation or of your kids and editing them to make them look professional?
Are you frustrated with the hefty price tag or complicated buttons included with top photo editing software?
A good camera on your smartphone doesn’t guarantee great shots all the time. You need one of the best photo editing apps for Android.
That’s why we hand-picked the best photo editing apps from the Google Play Store and discussed their features. Now you won’t have to break a sweat to find that perfect photo editing app to crop your screenshots or change the shade of your photos.
Note: We used Samsung Galaxy Note 3 to test these apps. These photo editing apps work well in any Android smartphone. Just make sure that your smartphone fulfills the minimum software requirements.
1. Snapseed: [Free]
Should be the stock photo editing app for android
Snapseed, a nifty photo editing tool, created by Nik Software Inc., has been available for Apple IOS, MAC OS and Windows OS users since 2011. Google bought the company afterwards and brought all its goodness to Android in 2012. The app is available for free and offers a host of intuitive features.
The user interface is fluid and easy to use. You can choose a photo from the gallery or snap a picture instantly and then edit it using Snapseed. The sliding boxes underneath the picture show different tools for editing. The Automatic Tab gives you the option to correct contrast and color. After selecting one of them you can slide your finger to increase or decrease the values. All the tools have this unique Sliding mechanism that enables easy and fast photo editing. Using the Selective Adjust box option, you can change the brightness, color and saturation level of different points of a particular photo. You can use the Zoom function to precisely select the area of the photo you want to edit.
The Tune Image option can be used to change the brightness, ambiance, contrast, saturation, shadows and warmth levels. You can add various effects like-black & white, vintage, drama, HDR scape, tilt shift and retrolux. Each effect offers different levels of basic filters. Snapseed also has 23 different frames that can be added to your photos. The Crop feature can be used to crop photos in different aspect ratios. Also, Snapseed can edit and save your photos in full resolution.
Snapseed doesn’t offer stickers, drawing tool and color splash effect.
Features:
Auto Correct- Easily adjust your photos with a single tap
Slide finger over the photo to Tune Image
Use Selective Adjust to enhance specific objects or areas in your photos
Use filters-drama, vintage, grunge, and tilt-shift
Add frames-23 frames to choose from
Share your creations via Google+, email and other social networking sites
Notable Feature: Slide your finger to adjust, correct and enhance photos
Downloads: 5,000,000 – 10,000,000
Android Version: 4.0 and up
Size: 24M
Price: Free
2. Photo Editor: [Free and Paid - $3.00]
Better usability than Snapseed
2.a Free Version
Photo Editor is a very useful photo editing app for Android. It has all the basic features as well as some advanced features. The app is probably even better than Snapseed but has in app advertisements. You can import a photo from gallery or snap a picture instantly. It also has a file browser to select the picture you want to edit.
The user interface is very minimalistic yet has all the features. You can adjust the hue and saturation levels of to get the proper color tone. The Color Curve feature is probably the most in-depth tool to adjust the color of the photo. You can also manually adjust the RGB levels.
Photo Editor also has different effects like- color splash, color replace, sharpen, sketch, oil paint, sepia, black & white, flip, reflection and more.
Correction tools are available for adjusting temperature, white balance, backlight and perspective. You can remove red eye as well.
You can doodle on the photo using the Drawing tool.
Rotation/Straighten, Crop and Resizing tools are also present.
The app is available for free but ad-supported.
2.b Paid Version ($3.00)
The ad-free paid version is available also. You can purchase the app through the in app purchase option in the Settings menu. It costs $3.00. It offers no extra features and only removes advertisements. You can buy it if you want to support the developer.
Features:
Use photos from your gallery and camera
Adjust color, add effects, rotate, crop, resize, frame, clone, and draw on your photos
Curves interface that allows fine-tuning of colors
Drawing mode, adding text or images
Easy rotation, crop or re-size of photos
Easily edit with the touch and pinch-to-zoom interface
Save images in JPEG and PNG
View, edit, or delete EXIF data
Share photos via e-mail, Picasa, Facebook and Twitter.
Notable Feature: Ad-free option is available (Settings -> Purchase Items)
Downloads: 10,000,000 – 50,000,000
Android Version: 2.2 and up
Size: 2.0M
Price: Free/Paid ($3)
3. Color Touch Effects: [Free ad-supported]
Color Splash effect specialist
Color Touch Effects is a one of the great ad-supported free photo editing apps created by the renowned developers Swiss Codemonkeys (remember Appbrain?). It has some basic photo editing features but lacks many tools. The main feature of this app is to add a Color Splash effect on your photos with the Paint tool and it does it efficiently. You can also add various effects to your photos like mono, sepia, old mono, old, infrared, auto contrast, contrast & brightness, hue and saturation, color rotate, lomo, negative, solarize, thermal and x-ray.
Captions can be added too. You can change the style, color and size of the fonts while adding captions.
You can also connect to Facebook to import your photos from Facebook.
The app lacks many basic correcting and adjusting features but it made it to the list because it’s free, easy to use and has some unique tools.
Features:
Import photos easily from your photo gallery, camera or from Facebook
Easy to paint, move, zoom with fingers
Splash a different colors
Add various effects to your photos like mono, sepia, old mono, old, infrared, auto contrast, and contrast & brightness
Configure brush and opacity
Add captions to your photo
Change the font style, color and size of the caption
Post to Facebook, share via email, or send via MMS
Notable Feature: Has some unique features but not perfect
Downloads: 10,000,000 – 50,000,000
Android Version: 2.3 and up
Size: 1.6M
Price: Free (ad-supported)
4. Cymera: [Free]
Create a beautiful collage
Cymera is a free photo editing app. Adding photos and images from camera or gallery is easy. You can create collages with different designs and backgrounds. You can also rotate, crop and straighten the photos without any hassle.
The Auto feature has different modes like portrait, landscape, food and text.
The Correct feature can be used to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation and sharpness. Cymera has lots of effects to enhance your photos. You can add filters (basic and art), light effects (color, shape and theme), borders (simple, pattern and themes) and blur effects.
The Beauty option enables different unique features. You can add big eyes, smile, slim, liquify, hair and mosaic effects through this option to express your creativity.
Using the Decorate tab you can include stickers and text. You can also draw on the picture using the Brush tool.
Additional effects, stickers, brush items, collage items, decoration items can be downloaded for free from the Settings menu.
After editing, you can share the edited photos via social networking sites.
Features:
Out of Focus, Anti-Shake, Timer, Self-Portrait, Touch Shots and other shooting modes
Hand-picked Filters and Borders
Different effects-Big Eyes, Smile, Slim Face, Clear Spots, Liquify, Brighten and more options
Storytelling Collage
Fun Decorations- Over 800 decoration options that include: stickers, comic masks, frames and more
Share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Mixi and Weibo
language support for: English, Spanish, German, Japanese, Korean and Chinese (Traditional and simplified)
Notable Feature: Everything is available for free
Downloads: 10,000,000 – 50,000,000
Android Version: 2.2 and up
Size: 19M
Price: Free
5. Photo Studio: [Free and Paid - $3.99]
For both amateur and professional photographers
5.a Photo Studio: [Free]
Photo Studio is a very useful photo editing app for Android. You can use the free version, but many packs, tools and features are locked and you can’t use them until you buy the Pro version.
The free version offers limited filters, effects, frames and stickers. You can add text to your photos too. The color splash effect is also unlocked in the free version.
The correction features are available in the free version. These feature help you adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness, saturation, hue, color and blur.
You can crop, re-size and rotate the photos. The lens boost feature can be used to enable circular, perpendicular or horizontal blurring. The red eye removal can be used manually and works well.
Features:
Ad-free. No ad banners
150+ unique filters, 100+ amazing special effects
About 50 free stickers and about 500 stickers in Stickers Pack by different categories (Packs are available for Pro users)
Magic Tools contain: Auto-Levels, Sharpening, Area-Auto-Levels, Blurring and Red-Eyes correction
Collage editor with different backgrounds
Color Splash FX with filters
Lens Boost – apply lens effect to your photos
Add digital frames to your photos
Add text labels to your photos with fonts, styles and colors customization
Basic photo operations and corrections
Basic transform operations: re-size, rotate and crop
Photo Studio PRO includes all unlocked packs, tools and features
Notable Feature: You have to be a Pro user to use all the features
Downloads: 10,000,000 – 50,000,000
Android Version: 2.2 and up
Size: 12M
Price: Free
5.b Photo Studio: [Paid-$3.99]
The Pro version of the Photo Studio costs $3.99. Photo Studio PRO includes all unlocked packs, tools and additional features. You can also download extra effect packs in the Pro version. The sketch feature is available in the Pro version.
Downloads: 100,000 – 500,000
Android Version: 2.2 and up
Size: 12M
Price: Paid ($3.99)
6. PicsPlay: [Free and Paid - $3.99]
The Incredible Photo Editor
6.a PicsPlay: [Free]
PicsPlay is one of the best photo editing apps from developer JellyBus. The app is made for convenient and fast photo editing. The free version doesn’t offer much. You can’t load photos in high-resolution, and few effects are available in the free version.
However, all the basic tools are available for free. You can crop and rotate the photo. You can adjust exposure, color, white balance, sharpness and RGB. Adding texts, textures, stamps and borders are also possible in the free version.
Scenes, blur effects, vintage effect, color splash effect and beauty effects are available for free too.
The free version of the app is ad-supported yet it doesn’t give all the features for free.
Features:
Undo, redo, reset
Compare with an original photo anytime
Crop, straighten & rotate
200 Professional filters in 10 themes (some are unlocked for Pro users only)
Live Tilt-Shift (Pro Version Only)
Tilt shift, Time Matrix (Pro only)
Adjust exposure, color, white balance, sharpness and RGB
Add texts, textures, stamps and borders
Photo Sharing to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Kakaotalk and Line
Save in high-resolution (Only for Pro users)
Notable Feature: One of the most feature rich photo editing app
Downloads: 1,000,000 – 5,000,000
Android Version: 2.2 and up
Size: 25M
Price: Free
6.b PicsPlay: [Paid-$3.99]
The Pro version is available at $3.99, and it unlocks all the features and removes advertisements. You can save photos in high-resolution too. You receive several features such as tilt, shift and histogram.
Downloads: 50,000 – 100,000
Android Version: 2.2 and up
Size: 24M
Price: Paid ($3.99)
7. Pixlr Express – photo editing: [Free]
From the makers of Pixlr-o-matic
The Pixlr Express is an intuitive photo editing app. It doesn’t have any in-app advertisements and offers you all the features for free.
The app provides tons of photo editing tools. The Adjustment option can be used to change brightness, sharpness, color, focus and vibrancy. You can also crop and rotate the pictures. Red eye removal works as expected.
The Effects tab gives you many effects to add to your images. Overlays are available too but you have to download most of them first. Many downloadable borders are available as well. These are available as free downloads.
The Type option can be used to add different texts to your photo. Many good-looking stickers are available in the Stickers tab.
The Collage option can be used to make beautiful collages.
Features:
Easily crop and rotate images
Re-size images when saving and sharing
‘Auto Fix’ photos for a one-click fix
Remove red-eye and whiten teeth with simple tools
Use Overlays to adjust the mood
Use Lighting effects to add drama, sparkle, or a grunge look
Add photo borders
Add photo effects like focal blur and denoise
Explore color tools to adjust contrast, brighten, focus on one color with a color splash.
Notable Feature:
Downloads: 10,000,000 – 50,000,000
Android Version: 2.2 and up
Size: 6.9M
Price: Free
8. Photo Effects Pro (Enjoy Photo): [Free ad-supported]
Add a meme to your Photo
Photo Effects Pro is one of the top photo editing apps with one major flaw: intrusive advertisements. It offers almost all the features for free but you will have to deal with the disturbing in-app advertisements. The app doesn’t offer a Pro version, so there’s no way to remove the advertisements.
Photo Effects Pro offers basic adjustment tools such as Crop, Rotate and Flip. You can also change the level of Brightness, Contrast and Saturation of your photos. Different filters and fun effects are also available.
You can add pictures, texts, memes, stickers and beautiful looking frames to your photos.
Drawing tool is also available and offers different brush sizes and colors.
Features:
More than 40 cool filters and fun effects
Include creative fonts
Use your fingers to edit and add fun stickers
Drawing tool
Good looking frames and photo collage
Tools such as crop, contrast, rotate, saturation, flip and brightness
Share images on all social networks
Notable Feature: Fully optimized for the larger displays on tablets
Downloads: 10,000,000 – 50,000,000
Android Version: 2.2 and up
Size: 6.9M
Price: Free
9. Fotor – Photo Editor: [Free ad-supported]
All-in-One camera
Fotor Photo Editor is one of the top free photo editing apps. Every time you open the picture editing app, you see a new image of something nice (like nature, trees and flowers). You can either load an image from the gallery to edit or you can use the camera to capture and edit. The app doesn’t use the stock camera interface. It’s an all-in-one camera that has all the basic features.
After loading the image (either from the camera or the gallery), you can start editing the picture. The Enhance option has three different categories: low, medium and high. It increases the brightness to enhance the darker parts of the photo. Different Scene modes such as Backlit, Darken, Cloudy, Shade, Sunset, Night, Flash, Fluorescent and Portrait are also available to give that magic touch to your pictures. The Adjust option gives you full control over different aspects such as Brightness, Contrast, Color, Sharpness, Temperature and Tint. Fotor also has different effects including Analog, Lomo, Art, Vintage and B/W.
Fotor is one of the few ad-supported picture editing apps.
You can also Crop, Rotate or Flip the photos you are editing. Tilt shift is a nice addition too.
Features:
Over 40 creative filters and fun effects
Lots of awesome fonts
Edit with your fingers and include cool stickers
Drawing tool
Good looking frames and photo collage
Tools offered include cropping, saturation, rotate, flip, contrast and brightness
Social media sharing
Notable Feature: Save the edited photos at their highest resolution
Downloads: 500,000 – 1,000,000
Android Version: 2.2 and up
Size: 18M
Price: Free (ad-supported)
10. Photo Editor Pro: [Free ad-supported and Paid pack]
Powerful editor with many amazing effects
10.a Photo Editor Pro: [Free]
Photo Editor Pro is a one of the best photo editing apps for Android. It’s not from the developers who made the photo editing app Aviary, but the user interface looks quite similar to Aviary and you can purchase and use Aviary effects and frame packages in this app. You can even see the Powered by Aviary logo on the bottom of the screen when using the app.
The free version offers all the basic features and effects for free. The Enhance option enables Illuminate and Color Fix functions. Effects such as Clyde, Avenue, Has, Arizona, Lucky and Dean are quite nice looking. You can also download and use Stickers and Frames. You can adjust Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness and Warmth levels. Splash effect works well and you can Draw or add Texts to your photos.
Basic features like-Red Eye removal, Crop and Orientation are present as well. You can manually set the focus too.
10.b Photo Editor Pro: [in app purchase-$0.99/package]
You can buy additional frames and sticker packages via in-app purchases. Each pack costs $0.99.
Features:
One-tap auto enhance
Gorgeous photo effects and frames
Crop, rotate, and straighten your photo
Adjust brightness, contrast, color temperature, and saturation
Color Splash and Focus (Tilt Shift)
Draw and add text
Notable Feature: Similar to Aviary
Downloads: 500,000 – 1,000,000
Android Version: 2.3 and up
Size: 7.2M
Price: Free (ad-supported)/Paid sticker and frames cost $0.99/package
Conclusion:
A nicely edited selfie can make you even more popular on social networking sites. It doesn’t matter if you are a professional photographer or not. Anybody can create a great photo using these photo editing apps for Android. You can even try to match up your photos with some great wallpapers or make your own wallpapers.
Today, we discussed different photo editing apps. It’s time to select the best ones for you. Take a look at some of our key points:
If you want a good yet paid photo editing app, use Photo Studio or PicsPlay.
If you want to use free photo editing apps for Android that don’t have any in app advertisements use- Snapseed, Cymera or Pixlr Express.
If you are not bothered that much by advertisements you can use-Photo Editor, Photo Effects Pro (Enjoy Photo) or Fotor.