The Best Mobile Photo Editing Apps for 2023

Another winner from Adobe is Photoshop Express, a simplified version of the company’s flagship Photoshop application. Like Lightroom Mobile, Photoshop Express is a freemium deal, but its paid plan is less expensive than Lightroom’s at $2.99 per month or $34.99 per year. Photoshop Express is typically used for collages, blemish removal, text overlays, masks, and compositing rather than photo correction and enhancement. You do get all those tools in the app, however, and Photoshop Express supports raw camera files. The most recent update added skin smoothing, content-aware healing, face-aware liquify, and a caricature filter to join the app’s plentiful selection of effect filters.

Platforms: Android, iOS, web

This impressively powerful and tool-rich iPhone app is nevertheless easy to use. (Android users: There is an Afterlight app on Google Play, but it hasn’t been updated since 2014, so we don’t recommend it.) You can get a good number of basic editing features in Afterlight’s free version—exposure, contrast, cropping, saturation, and so on—but many of its best tools are only available in the paid version. It costs a reasonable $2.99 per month, $17.99 per year, or $35.99 for eternity. The paid perks include tone curve editing, gradients, material and text overlays, sharpness, and advanced filters for hue, saturation, and lightness (HSL). Recently the company has been periodically adding film and VHS-look filters.

Platforms: Android (not recommended), iOS

The Apple Photos app comes preinstalled on iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers, with the desktop version being slightly more advanced. The mobile version of Apple Photos lets you make especially cool edits with photos shot on iPhones and iPads, such as Long Exposure and balance effects for Live Photos.

If you have a newer iPhone Pro, you can shoot in Apple’s ProRaw, a format that combines the advantages of raw camera formats with Apple’s computational photography wizardry. This gives you more editing possibilities, like lifting shadows and changing white balance. The apps’s interface is slick, as you expect from any Apple product, and you get all the standard exposure and color adjustments you could want. Apple Photos also excels at organizing and finding particular photos, using on-device AI to let you find specific objects and people. Sharing has recently been enhanced with Shared Albums and iCloud links.

Platforms: iOS

Google Photos is a service that’s mostly advertised as letting you store your photos in the cloud, but the mobile app also offers a good helping of both traditional and innovative photo editing tools. Those who sign up for the company’s Google One subscription get more features than free users, including several particularly effective filters such as Dynamic, HDR, Luminous, Radiant, and Airy. Coming in an update to Google One subscribers are Magic Edit, which uses generative AI to extend scenes or move objects and fill the background, and Magic Erase, which removes unwanted objects.

Free users still get a full set of editing tools for adjusting the exposure, contrast, and cropping, as well as adding text and drawing overlays, and a recent update added nifty new collage templates. If that’s not enough, one menu lets you send an image to another photo app like PicsArt, if you have it installed. Google Photos is one of the best apps for organizing and finding pictures based on places, people, and objects, and the Memories feature reminds you of the good times, as determined by AI. Note that the Google Photos mobile apps don’t support editing raw camera files, though they can open them for viewing.

Platforms: Android, iOS, web

Piscsart has long positioned itself as the do-everything photo app. It has a seemingly endless assortment of editing and enhancement tools. On top of that, it also includes a social element with photo sharing. New for the software is an AI text-to-photo image generator and integration with Discord. Members can participate in challenges and follow hashtags and creators. You can instantly remove backgrounds from portraits and replace them with textures and whatever you like. The best editing features require a paid account, which costs $8.99 per month or about $56 if you pay per year.

Platforms: Android, iOS, web

Pixlr has been in the photo app game for many years, having started in 2008. It’s also well known as a free web-based photo editor. Strong points include Canva-style templates, colorful overlays, and a good selection of collage layouts. You get all the standard photo adjustment tools as well. Removing the ads and accessing the full set of effects and templates requires a pricey subscription at $7.99 per month or $58.80 per year.

Platforms: Android, iOS, web

Like Lightroom and PicsArt, Polarr provides a community for photo editors as well as tools for editing and embellishing photos. It’s available on all the major desktop and mobile platforms, as well as via the web. In addition to the standard brightness, contrast, shadows, and so on, it offers a wealth of gradients, overlays, and retouching and transformation tools. The app also serves as a community for creating and sharing custom filters, which you can share via QR codes. You get tone curve editing, as well as LUT and raw camera file support. The cropping tool is strong, but there’s no auto-leveling. A paid subscription for $3.99 per month or $24 per year gets you the full editing toolset, new content and styles weekly, and the company’s video-filter app called 24FPS.

Platforms: Android, iOS, web

Polish is a freemium app with impressive photo editing chops. It has Photoshop-like tools such as masking, as well as a Prisma-type ability to transform your photo with AI-powered art style transfers. You can do plenty for free, but the most dazzling effects and tools cost a reasonable $7.99 per year for continuous feature updates, or there’s a $15.99 one-time purchase option. The Pro version removes the plentiful ads and gives you the current crop of features.

Platforms: Android, iOS

One of the original innovators among mobile photo editing apps, Snapseed became part of Google’s portfolio in 2012. It still offers some sturdy photo-improving tools, though it hasn’t seen many new features since 2020. Snapseed uses a unique interface in which you swipe your finger left or right to make an adjustment, or up and down to choose which adjustment you’re making. It lets you edit raw camera files (but only in DNG format) as well as JPGs. Editing tools include Healing Brush, Structure (sharpness), HDR, and Perspective. One big plus is that the app is completely free with no upsells.

Platforms: Android, iOS

VSCO is a longtime maker of filters for professional photographers. Its app offers the filtering you would expect for a mobile app as well as all the standard correction and editing functions. Like some other apps in this list, it offers a community for photographers. The app experienced a moment of notoriety several years back with what was known as the VSCO girl(Opens in a new window) movement. The hottest new feature, VSCO Spaces, targets just that community, letting approved participants contribute, share, and discuss posts. Also new is DM capability between creators.

The interface is modern and clear, but editing seems to take a backseat to the social aspect. That said, it does support raw camera files and offers advanced tools such as Split Tone and HSL editing. Video editing capabilities have also started making their way into the app. A good number of tools are behind a paywall, however. Membership costs $7.99 per month or $29.99 per year, and a new Pro level for $59.99 per year adds early access to the web version and customizable pro filters.

Platforms: Android, iOS