I love taking pictures, but the really fun part is editing them. How did we ever survive when we had to take a photo and wait a week to get it developed and see how it came out? Since the advent of cellphone cameras, we spend more time cropping, coloring, adding text and blurring the edges of our images than we do taking the pictures.
Photo editing software like Photoshop can cost a pretty penny, but luckily, countless apps are available for free or as little as $1.99. These apps are so much fun, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.
I currently have 13 photo editing apps on my phone, but here are my Top 5. They’re listed in no particular order here. As you will see, each has such unique offerings that I can’t pick just one favorite.
- Smilebox: This app is especially fun for scrapbookers. You can add borders, embellishments and text. You can also make animated smile boxes with floating snowflakes or fluttering butterflies. You’ll also have the opportunity to add fun filters. The picture can be saved to your camera as well as texted, emailed and shared on various social media sites. IOS; free.
- Video 2 Photo:
Have you ever been somewhere and missed great photos because you had to keep switching between video and photo modes? Well, that problem is solved. Just set your phone to video and film away. Then open up this app, which automatically accesses any videos in your camera roll. Next, scroll frame by frame and save the perfect picture(s). This is great for getting the perfect shot in sports or of very active kids. This app is ideal to get those perfect mid-air jumps, baseball swings, soccer kicks, and even baby’s first steps. IOS; $1.99.
- Color Splash: I think black and white pictures with just one colored item are so cool. This app lets you
create those. After you open the app and retrieve a photo, the picture is automatically seen in greyscale. Then, you can “paint” the color back onto one section. The app allows you to zoom in, making it easier to color smaller items and you can also easily return mistakes to black and white. IOS, Android, 99 cents.
- Snapseed: This app is great for making you look like a better photographer than you really are. A while back, I made some yummy homemade butterscotch syrup. Of course, I wanted to share a picture of it with all of my Fac
ebook friends. Unfortunately, the lighting in my kitchen is less than ideal and my beautiful liquid gold deliciousness looked a bit more like some grayish chocolate milk. I turned to Snapseed, tweaked the brightness and the warmth, added a bit of blur around the edges and, viola! One thing I really like about this app is that there’s a button you can tap in the top corner that will show you the original so you can continually see how much better your picture looks. IOS, Android; free.
Diptic: I used Diptic to create the collage of my before and after images of the butterscotch. Granted, the collage is a bit on the boring side, but I wanted you to focus on Snapseed’s other features, not my cool collaging skills, so I created another, slightly more creative one to show you how Diptic can work. You can actually make all sorts of collages with Diptic. You can make borders wider or narrower, colored or textured, with rounded inner or outer corners and more. Of course, you can add text and throw in some cool filters, too. IOS, Android; 99 cents.
Give these apps a try, and if you know of any other cool ones, let me know in the comments.
