The 5 best image editing apps for iPhone photographers

Hopefully, you’ve already read our iPhone photography tutorial and now feel more confident using your iPhone to take photographs. If you haven’t read it yet, please find time to do so. It’s not super long and if you only pick up one new tip that improves your iPhone photography, reading it will definitely have been worth your while.

Now for today’s post, in which we are going to explore some of the best iPhone apps out there for editing and touching up your captured images directly on your device.

From apps that allow you to make one-click fixes to comprehensive image editing studios, we’ve done some of the legwork to save you the time and hassle.

Here are (in our opinion) the 5 best image editing apps for iPhone photographers:

1. Snapseed – Best overall

Snapseed is an all-purpose photo editing app that has tons of features. Moreover, it’s completely free! Don’t let the non-existent price tag put you off, Snapseed is anything but sub-standard.

Snapseed features:

  • Vast range of editing tools
  • Exposure, colour and sharpening adjustments
  • Crop, rotate, straighten and perspective correction
  • Tons of filters
  • Supports RAW editing
  • Double exposure, frames and text
  • FREE to download

2. VSCO – Best for filters

VSCO (pronounced visco) boasts a wide range of filters, many of which lean toward the vintage/film-esque look. VSCO also features an integrated photo-sharing platform, which allows you to share your images directly from the app.

VSCO features:

  • One-tap filters that mimic the classic look of film
  • Adjustable filter strength
  • Tools for cropping, straightening, exposure, colour and sharpness
  • Supports RAW editing
  • Shared images directly from the app

3. Adobe Lightroom CC – Best for beginners and pros alike

Adobe Lightroom CC is a fully-fledged photo editing app that features a simple user interface and an abundance of one-tap filter presets, as well as advanced editing capabilities such as curves and colour mix tools.

Adobe Lightroom CC features:

  • Powerful suite of editing tools
  • Yet a simple user interface
  • One-tap presets
  • Cross-device syncing
  • See preset effects in real-time
  • Advanced editing features, including curves and colour mix tools
  • Built-in camera that captures RAW format images

4. Darkroom – Best for simplicity

Darkroom is really simple to use. In fact, that’s one of its biggest selling points. But don’t think that its simplicity detracts from its features. With highly advanced filters and the ability to create your own, plus tons of other functionality, Darkroom is definitely an app to keep in your toolbox.

Darkroom features:

  • Simplicity to the core
  • Straightforward UI
  • Neatly arranged tools and filters
  • Advanced filters
  • Create-your-own filters
  • Live photo editing

5. Photo Editor By Aviary – Best for one-touch enhancements

Photo Editor by Aviary is perfect if you want the app to do most of the editing and enhancing for you. That’s because it has loads of built-in effects and one-touch enhancements, all of which can be taken advantage of to make your photo editing significantly less time-consuming.

Photo Editor by Aviary features:

  • Over 1500 free frames, effects, overlays and stickers
  • Tons of one-tap enhancements
  • Focus and warmth tools
  • Colour balance management
  • Illuminate and colour fix options
  • Fast blur feature
  • Meme creation capabilities

Obviously, our list above is not exhaustive and there are loads of other iPhone image editing apps out there. We’ve outlined the ones above to give you some food for thought and highlight that they are not all made equal.

Are there any other prominent photo editing apps you use that we’ve missed? We’d love to hear about how you take photos captured on your iPhone to the next level with apps.