Chasing Davies: My Favorite Mobile Photo Editing Apps

January 17, 2013

My Favorite Mobile Photo Editing Apps


 You might follow me on Instagram or see the photos I take with my phone on my
Facebook page or through Twitter from time to time. And lately, I've been
experimenting (and having way too much fun) with photography apps available for
download. I've received a few questions lately on what apps I'm using, so decided
to round them up for you and provide you a rundown of my favorites and why!

Probably my favorite overall photo editing and do-almost-everything app:  
Afterglow (one time fee of $0.99)
  

The Afterglow app has filters (tons more than Instagram; my favorite is Frest and Glacier)
and editing tools, that for both, have a sliding scale to allow you to apply the amount
you want (vs. on or off).  But maybe what I get asked about the most, the frames...this is
where the cool frames live. Within this app you can put a triangle, circle, oval (etc.) over
your photo to really make it different.

This app has also replaced my need for Whitagram (which is free). You can add your full
size image into a white background that fits a square - filling in the sides or top/bottom
with white, showing your entire image without having to crop!

My favorite app for adding text to a photo
Over (one time fee of $0.99) or for a free app, try Phonto
 
The Over app is just a cool app in general. From the way your photos are loaded to
select from to the spinning wheel of editing options (adding text and minimal photo edits
including tint and cropping), this app is different, in a fun way.  The fonts are really
unique, beautiful and/or fun. I find them better than my Photoshop fonts!

For making a photo collage or a photo using several different images, my go-to app: 
InstaCollage (free)

The InstaCollage app has your basic frames for combining two to six photos in basic ways
(like the one above on the left) as well as unique frames (like the above photo on the right)
and one photo framing options.  Besides just having cool frames, you can also customize
those frames - changing the space between photos, shadowing, rounding corners, etc.

Furthermore, this app contains filters, text and stickers that can be applied to the overall
photo, as well as many colorful and patterned frames to add to the outside boarder. I
mainly use for the collage aspect, but will probably play around more with the other
options soon! And again, it's free!

To add a quick softness to my photos, I use:  
VSCO app (one time fee of $0.99)
 
VSCO was the first mobile photo editing app, outside of Instagram, that I 
downloaded. I love the way it softly lightens my photos, but instead of picking a
filter, you pick a color wheel to highlight and bring out certain hues in the photo.
I am usually drawn to #5.  You can also crop and use specific editing tools
within this app. I haven't used this app as much since downloading Afterglow
(app review first) mainly because I can do more all within the one app, but do
occasionally comeback to this app for the soft light overlaying look.

The downside of this app is you have to import photos from your camera's
photo roll and export the edited ones out, which is a lot quicker than it sounds,
but just an extra step in the process.

Please share in the comments of this post what YOUR favorite mobile photo 
editing apps are and why!  I'd love to learn about new ones or maybe new 
ways to use ones I might already have/know about!

{first photo adapted from here// all other photos my own} 
Photobucket