Best Photo Editing Apps for iOS and Android

We all want our photos to be liked. That's why we spend that extra time tweaking them before sharing them with the world (or just with friends and family). Today's photo editor apps make it easier than ever to enhance, crop, remove blemishes, add effects and filters, and more. Our top pick overall for photo-editing apps is PicsArt (free for Android, iOS) for its comprehensive photo-editing tools, great filters and good sharing options. The interface is easy to navigate, and context-sensitive tips make it the app to download for editing your photos on the go.

Other photo apps are great for specific use cases, whether you're really keen on social sharing and discovery or you crave powerful adjustment tools. We tested six apps for Android and iOS to help you decide what's worth downloading.

How We Tested

We downloaded each of the apps onto both a Samsung Galaxy S6 Android smartphone and an iPhone 5S. We tested all aspects of each app on both phones, paying close attention to the following:

The interface: How well organized and accessible is it, and how easy or difficult it is to use and master?

Photo taking and import: Does the camera module offer any added value? What picture sources does the import option support? How easy is it to open your photos in the app?

Photo editing: How comprehensive, powerful and versatile are the photo tools and the filters? Is it fun to use them? Do they provide good, sensible user controls that enhance creative potential? How difficult are they to master? Does the app offer good and easy-to-access help, or features for video editor?

Sharing: How many social networks are supported? Can you share several pictures to various social networks concurrently? How easy is it to share your pictures?

We gave photo editing a weight that was greater than or equal to all the other aspects combined when calculating our ratings, because the whole purpose of these apps is to edit your pictures.

 

Thanks to a rich array of excellent image-editing tools and filters, PicsArt (free) delivers Photoshop-like creativity and versatility. We particularly love the more whimsical options, including stickers and artistic text. You can import photos from Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Picasa, Google or Dropbox, and you can use those pictures to create collages, among other things. But it's the logical and responsive interface that gives this app the edge over the competition.

For the selfie-stick-owning photog, the $3.99 Facetune app can help you perfect your visage. This app specializes in portrait retouching, which includes teeth whitening, wrinkle removal and quick makeup additions, as well as red-eye removal and face reshaping. But this prolike tool isn't meant for adding filters to landscapes.

If your social feed is filled with pictures of your lunch, sunsets, puppies and friends at play, Instagram is where it's at. A social network in its own right, this app keeps its focus on quick, uncomplicated editing and sharing of photos and videos. Plus, you can like, comment and re-share your friends' pics to your heart's content.

You can now use Adobe’s powerful Photoshop Lightroom app on iOS or Android devices for free. It offers a solid set of tools for tweaking your images before sharing them socially (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr). You can revert edits at any time or copy edits across multiple pictures. The app also has its own in-app camera.

Other Photo Editing Apps Reviewed

A robust menu of Adjustment tools and a large collection of filters, borders and stickers make Pixlr Mobile a great option for users who enjoy photo editing and manipulation. It can quickly move from image capture to editing and sharing. But newbies to photo editing may be put off by the lack of contextual assistance.

Not to be confused with its more powerful, desktop photo-editing program, Adobe's Photoshop Express Mobile is a simple photo app that delivers on image quality and ease of use. Uniquely, it supports RAW file formats, in addition to the standard JPEG and PNG. And it integrates with Adobe's Creative Cloud.

The VSCO Camera may lack the fun special effects that some other apps offer, but it has traditional photography corrections and adjustments down cold. It also offers a robust enthusiast community for hard-core shooters.