Best of the Best: Photo Editing Apps

It is a bit unusual for a creative to say anything but photoshop is the best for photo editing, but as we all know smartphones are taking over the world in terms of amateur photography. Not only do most smartphones come with high resolution cameras, but they also allow us to share the images we capture in one quick swipe.

While this is all appreciable, when it comes to posting visually appealing and unique content on social media, sometimes we need more. That’s where photo editing apps come in.

We went ahead and picked our top three favorites to share with you, all of which are available on both iOS and Android. As we share these apps with you, we’ll take you to a couple of our favorite photogenic places right here next to our Chicago headquarters. These apps can transform your pictures from good to great, from dull to vivid. If you’re interested in learning about the photo editing apps that have stolen our hearts (and iPhone storage), keep on reading!

Not only do most smartphones come with high resolution cameras, but they also allow us to share the images we capture in one quick swipe.

Afterlight

At our first stop in Chicago, we’ll take you to The Cloud Gate, often referred to as The Bean. For this photo, we’ll be using the editing app Afterlight. While this might be the only app on our list that requires payment, it is well worth the 99 cents.

Afterlight is simple to navigate, making it perfect for beginners. Not only does it come with the usual photo editing tools (clarity, sharpness, shadows, highlights, etc.), but it’s also armed with 75 unique filters. Afterlight similarly provides in-app purchases that give you access to instant photo-style frames and filters. As you can see on the image above, we were able to take a drab shot of The Bean and transform it into a vivid black and white photo with clean edges and elegant depth. These were the steps we took…

Photo processed with Coal filter:

• clarify +25
• brightness +4
• contrast +2
• exposure +3
• highlights +70

VSCO

Next, we’ll head to one of the many beautiful sculptures located in The Loop. The Loop is filled with pieces by Miro, Picasso, Chagall and more. We decided to capture a photo of Monument with Standing Beast, a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet. For this photograph, we used the app VSCO. VSCO is a must-have for us when it comes to creating the perfect picture. Not only is this app free, but it comes with beautifully artistic presets, a wide range of editing tools, an online community and the ability to look at how your photos lay next to each other on your feed before posting on Instagram.

This is a great tool if you want to create strong brand consistency throughout your feed. While VSCO is free, this app also offers in-app purchases for additional filter bundles. Be sure to always keep an eye out though, for VSCO often gives out filters for free. In this photo, we were able to enhance the beauty of the sculpture by making it really contrast against the background through brightening and sharpening, exaggerating the strong lines. This is how it all came together…

Photo processed with HB1 preset:

• exposure +1
• contrast +1
• clarity +1
• sharpen +1
• saturation -1
• highlights +2
• tint -1

Snapseed

Last but not least, we’ll take you to Willis Tower (formerly Sears Towers, for you stubborn Chicago with Snapseed, Google’s very own photo editing app. While Willis Tower offers an amazing view, sometimes a few swipes on your phone can really help strengthen the photo. Snapseed is the perfect app for those looking to enhance the quality of their photographs without changing too much of the images themselves. Sure, Snapseed comes with filters but it’s winning qualities are definitely found in it’s large toolbox.

This app offers the editing tools as the other two listed above but it goes above and beyond with it’s additional features, such as healing, selecting, brushing and more. If you want to up your photography skills but aren’t in the market to mess with filters and the tuning that comes with it, Snapseed is the app for you.

These were the steps we took:

• brightness +8
• ambiance +30
• contrast +6
• saturation -2
• highlights +4
• warmth -3

We hope you enjoyed reading about our favorite apps as we took you to a couple places here in the Windy City. If you feel like there’s an app that should have made the cut but didn’t, be sure to let us know. We’re always looking to try new things in this ever-changing digitally creative world.

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This article was orignially posted on TimeZoneOne.com, and written by Alexa Weilein, Digital Communications Intern at TimeZoneOne.