5 Favorite iPhone Photography Apps

I realize the tremendous benefits of shooting with a DSLR (for those unfamiliar, the type of camera that allows you to switch lenses.) I’ve been taking pictures on a professional level since the film days. But lugging my big ‘ol Canon 50D around isn’t always convenient or possible so being able to still catch really decent images with my iPhone 6+ makes me…well…happy.

And of course, once I have decent images, I like to make them even better…typically with apps that allow me to manually brighten or add contrast or saturation. I like to make the colors pop or maybe soften the scene by adding filters. I want to have

images I’m proud to share on Instagram, Facebook or Flickr.  So what are my favorite apps for creating funtastic images to share with friends and family? Let’s take a look…

1. Likeable

What do I like about Likeable? Easy…it’s simple. Likeable is a collage app that allows you to put multiple images together to form one image. As a default it chooses one of the photos from the collage to use as the background, but in the most subtle way. You can choose how bright the background is to help your images pop. So many of the collage apps offer sooo many templates, it can just be overwhelming so I just like the fact that this app offers enough but not too many. I can make a collage quickly and it looks great. Adding text is simple too.

2. InstaVid

InstaVid is another collage app but it allows you to add VIDEO! So you can put pictures together with video to really put a story together into one image. What’s not to like about that?

http://youtu.be/71VPlBLVWsg

3. Stitch

I know, another collage app. But what can I say? I like putting a story together by using multiple images. Stitch can certainly help do that! Especially when you have the ability to ‘stitch’ up to 9 images together in a column. So imagine if you wanted to show how you made something, step-by-step, this is perfect way to do that! If you use Pinterest, you may see images like this in your feed. Super cool!

(To make the above stitched image even better, I’d add text sharing the ingredients and short instructions.)

4. Over

What’s cool about Over? Certainly, the graphics are way fun! This is a great app for creating those motivating images with quotes you see all over the web! If you have a favorite quote or saying, use it to create a unique piece of art. And if you can’t think of what to say but just want to create something fun, Over has many built-in graphics to add over top your own images.

5. Photogene2

And last, but certainly not least, is my all-time favorite app for editing images on my iPhone. Photogene2 allows me to manually edit my photos. I often use this app before I edit my images in any other app. It doesn’t just use filters, though it has them, but it has features that allow you to edit the brightness, color saturation, white balance, shadow/highlights, sharpen and includes a histogram. Digital images almost always need a little sharpening to make them clean and crisp.

My suggestion is make your image look amazing using the manual controls first, then play around with the filters included. My favorite filter: Dream…which is under the Enhance section. You can even adjust the amount of filter you want to apply. And another huge bonus for this app…it allows you to edit the image and then save it in it’s original size so it doesn’t shrink the file down to a web-only version. You could actually print the images that you create from this app. That’s pretty sweet!

BONUS APP! PUPS

I just started using this app a month or so ago but it has saved me a tremendous amount of time with uploading images to my blog. That’s what this app is for…to help you re-size your images (huge time saver) and easily upload them to your blog. I use WordPress for my blogging platform and this app works great with it.

I’m sorry if you’re an Android user and this list isn’t totally helpful to you. It’s just that I have an iPhone so that’s what I know.  🙂  But if you have a favorite Android photo app, PLEASE share with us below! If you have any questions about the iPhone apps listed here, let me know. If you have a favorite photography app I didn’t mention, let me know what it is! I try out new apps a lot…because you never know!  🙂