Smartphones have become more powerful than the computers that put us on the Moon. Smartphones can do anything from social media, chat, & photo editing even to editing your photos. Nowadays it’s hard to go anywhere without a mobile phone at hand. This includes vacations, travel, and of course business trips. So why not bring your current company with you?
Did you know that it’s possible to edit photos on your mobile device? I didn’t, and probably many others don’t either. In the past, editing photos required having proper equipment; a computer, and photo editing software. One thing is for sure: we are living in a digital age. And, with smartphones, tablets, and online editing platforms, it has never been easier to edit your photos on the go.
We like to take photos wherever we go, whether that’s at a party or on a weekend trip. But sometimes the photo doesn’t turn out how we want it to, and we think that editing it would make it look better. We don’t always want to use the editing tools in popular apps like Instagram or Facebook, so what’s the best alternative?
With so many free photo editors out there, it can be overwhelming to find one that suits your needs. I have done a lot of research and tried many free image editing apps on my Mac and Android phones. Nowadays, people take a lot of pictures, not just for the sake of taking pictures, but also for editing them. There are many popular image editors worldwide, and I’m sure you have heard about some of them.
But there’s always room for more, isn’t it? That’s why I decided to create a list with some free and easy-to-use mobile photo editors. Most of these products are available in both Apple App and Google Play stores.
Everyone loves pictures but not everyone is good at taking pictures. For that reason, we need to make sure our pictures look good by editing them before posting them on the internet or doing something with them. The options are limitless when it comes to editing photos.
This article is based on my personal experience with different tools and will help you choose the right editor for you. In this post, you’ll get to see the top 10 mobile photo editor apps that you use to edit your amazing shots for free.
Best Mobile Image Editor For SmartPhones
A lot of people don’t realize that their smartphone already comes with a built-in photo editor, or they just don’t know how to use it. And while some of these apps might not be as advanced as others, they can still get the job done and help you edit your photos.
If you are looking for a free photo editor for both Android and iPhone, then the list below will make the search easy for you. If you’re looking for a free photo editor, there are a few options. I will cover some of them here, including the best options in Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store.
1. VSCO
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/VSCO-1024x574.jpg)
VSCO, previously known as VSCO Cam, is a photography mobile app for iOS and Android devices (also available as a website), developed by the Visual Supply Company. The app allows users to capture photos in the app and edit them, using preset filters and editing tools.
It was released in 2011 by Joel Flory and Greg Lutze. Since then it has been downloaded over 50 million times with over 800 thousand paying subscribers.
VSCO is unique in that it provides both editing tools and a social platform for photographers to interact on. Users can find other accounts on the network, follow their work, and interact with them through photo comments and likes.
The new feature of VSCO X allows subscribers to access all “Film X” presets, which emulate the look of analog film from various brands such as Kodak and Fujifilm.
The app’s editing tools include exposure compensation, cropping, white balance adjustments, contrast, saturation, tint, sharpening, highlight/shadow adjustments, skin tone adjustment (an alternative to selective color correction), vignette adjustments (amount of vignette effect), grain amount adjustment (simulates analog film grain), fade amount adjustment (simulates expired film) and six preset filters with adjustable strength.
Cam started life as a paid-for app but now has a free element, too. This is one of the best free photo editing apps, and comes with the bonus of a community of creatives should you choose to share your images with them.
VSCO offers some serious editing tools for mobile photographers, and its suite of advanced presets allows you to apply professional-looking effects with ease. Hence if you are looking for some of the best free photo editors for your mobile then VSCO is one you should look for.
2. Canva
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Canva-1-1.jpg)
Canva is one of the best and easy-to-use photo editing apps available for free. With this app, you can create a professional-looking design for your blog, website, or social media accounts.
Even if you have zero design experience, Canva is easy to use and will allow you to create beautiful content.
Canva comes with a variety of pre-made layouts which are customizable as per your requirement. The best thing about Canva is that it comes with a built-in grid tool that allows you to align your objects easily.
This app allows you to choose from various elements like frames, shapes, icons, and stickers to enhance your images.
The library of this app is updated regularly so that you will find thousands of fonts and images to choose from. It also allows you to upload your images directly from your gallery so that you can use them in your design as well.
Canvas has millions of users already who are creating amazing designs every day with this app and sharing it on social media channels.
I am currently using Canva for creating all my blog post featured images and thumbnails for YouTube videos as well.
Over the years, Canva has improved its platform tremendously and remains a powerful tool for creating great photos and images. With Canva you’ll be able to upload your photos and graphics or access a huge library of high-quality photos and graphics, over a million icons and shapes, hundreds of fonts and templates, hundreds of thousands of stock images, illustrations, and much more.
With Canva, you can add text to your photos or create text layouts with ease. Choose from hundreds of fonts. You can even add borders to your photos.
In addition, you can also create unique images for your social media posts or edit product shots for your online store. You can even make banners and posters or design cards for special occasions like birthdays, weddings, holidays, and more!
3. Photo Director
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Photo-Director-1024x535.jpg)
Photo Director may be the only photo editor you’ll ever need. It’s perfect for quick, easy, and powerful editing on the go. You can even shoot, edit and share on one device with our awesome camera app!
A streamlined photo editing tool that lets you retouch and add effects to your photos in a matter of seconds. With Photo Director, it’s easy to create amazing designs that capture life’s most memorable moments and tell your stories in style!
Photo Director comes with a complete set of professional-grade editing tools that let you edit the photos on your mobile device just the way you would do on a desktop.
The intuitive interface and streamlined design make it super quick and easy to apply enhancements, try out different looks, share your work directly to social media, or save it to your camera roll.
With Photo Director, you can edit and enhance your photos using a range of powerful tools, presets and filters on your phone or tablet. It offers a great range of editing tools without compromising on ease of use.
You can crop, rotate and adjust the perspective of photos, as well as correct lens distortion caused by ultrawide angle lenses. For example, you can straighten the horizon in landscape photos and make buildings look more vertical.
There’s also a selection of preset enhancement options that can be applied to photos with just a tap. These include black-and-white conversions, vignettes, and more. You can also apply preset filters to add an artistic look to your images.
Photo Director has some excellent tools for adjusting the color in your photos too. You can easily adjust the hue, saturation, and luminance of individual colors in your images. There are also presets for adjusting skin tone and eye color, which are perfect for portrait photography.
You can’t automatically erase objects from photos like you can in Adobe Photoshop Fix or Enlight Photofox (below), but you’re able to make manual selections using a lasso tool. This means you can selectively remove objects from photos and replace them with content from other images using the clone stamp tool or content-aware.
4. Adobe Photoshop Express
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Adobe-Photoshop-Express.jpg)
Adobe Photoshop Express is an image editing and collage making mobile application from Adobe Inc. It is available on Android, iOS, and Windows phones and tablets.
The app is a companion app to Adobe Photoshop and enables users to upload photos to the Creative Cloud, add content to their photos, adjust photos in various ways, make photo collages, share their work on social networks or through email, and generally edit photos on the go.
The app features basic edits like color correction, brightness/contrast adjustments, exposure adjustments, tone curves, sharpening/blur effects, and crop/resize along with more advanced edits like adding vignettes and removing red eye. Users can also stack effects onto each other to create unique-looking images.
The app has both free (Adobe Photoshop Express) and premium (Adobe Photoshop Express Premium) versions available. The premium version removes annoying ads and watermarks from images, adds over 20 more filters & effects than the free version, and it also gives users access to over 20 advanced editing tools.
Adobe Photoshop Express is one of the most complete photo editors you can find for Android. Better yet, it’s free.
You will be able to make changes to your images from your smartphone in a very easy and intuitive way. From the main menu, you will have access to all kinds of controls, like crops and orientation, or advanced editing tools such as contrast and exposure correction, color temperature, shadows and highlights, noise reduction, or clarity.
In addition to this, Adobe Photoshop Express also has a wide range of filters that you can apply with just one click. It also includes several options to add frames or borders.
Adobe Photoshop Express is a very useful tool for enhancing your photos dramatically with just a few swipes and taps on your screen.
5. Snapseed
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Snapseed.jpg)
With its huge range of features and new additions, Snapseed is the most complete photo editor for mobile devices. Snapseed was acquired by Google in 2012 and later added to the company’s photo editing apps collection that already included Photoshop Express, Picasa Web Albums, and Picnik.
The app has a clean interface with a single row of tools at the bottom. Simply tap a tool to bring up options for it, swipe from left to right to undo changes, or swipe from right to left to redo them.
The ‘Selective Adjust’ tool lets you tap on any part of the image and control a range of parameters like brightness or contrast for just that part of the image. This is useful for bringing out details in shadows or highlights.
Snapseed comes with a range of filters that you can apply to your photos. Once applied, you can adjust the filter’s strength using a simple slider. What makes this app stand out is its ability to combine filters with different strengths – something that no other photo editor currently offers.
Snapseed is a complete and professional photo editor developed by Google. It has everything you need to enhance your photos in one simple and easy-to-use interface.
Snapseed is one of the best free photo editor apps that let you edit your photos like a pro on your Android or iOS device.
You can select from dozens of photo enhancement filters, including healing, frames, vignettes, and more. You can also use the brush tool to selectively apply enhancements or use the selective adjust tool to fine-tune specific parts of your photo. You can stack as many effects as you’d like, then save them or share them with friends via social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
6. Instasize Photo Editor
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Instasize-Photo-Editor.jpg)
Instasize Photo Editor is a photo editing app that allows you to add beautiful frames, filters, and text to your photos. It’s a great way to make your pictures more artistic and share them with your friends.
The app has a main menu where you can choose the option you want to use. You can either crop a photo to fit it into a frame or start working on it right away.
Once you select an image from your gallery, you can apply any of the filters or effects that come with the app. You can also add borders and text – from hashtags to inspirational quotes – to your photos. The best part is that all of the options are organized in different folders for easy access.
With Instasize Photo Editor, you can personalize your photos and share them with your friends on social media.
Instasize is one of the most popular photo editing apps in the App Store, where it’s consistently ranked in the top 100. It comes with several useful filters and cropping tools; you can also use it to add text and stickers to your photos, making it a full-featured Instagram alternative.
Instasize doesn’t do anything spectacular, but it does all the basics right. The interface is clean, simple to navigate, and above all else, fast. The filters are nice and subtle, so the result looks like an image that was taken by a talented photographer rather than a tool.
You can download Instasize for free from the App Store for iPhone users, or the Google play store, for Android users. There is a subscription service available that unlocks additional features, but it’s not required to use any of the basic editing tools.
7. PicsArt
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/PicsArt-1024x638.jpg)
PicsArt is one of the best free photo editors for your smartphone. It is the only photo app you’ll need to make your photos look better, organize your photo collection, add text and stickers to photos, create collages and drawings, and more!
From the makers of Prisma, PicsArt Photo Editor has over 300 million installs, making it one of the most popular mobile photo editors for Android.
PicsArt is a community of more than 80 million people who share their awesome creations. The app has a ton of features that make it easy to edit photos like a pro.
You can also apply masking tools to superimpose one image on another. You can use masking tools to create multiple images in one work or use those tools to remove any unwanted objects from your picture.
It’s pretty cool! PicsArt Photo Editor also includes in-app camera functionality so you can snap pictures right within the app.
What is more intriguing about PicsArt is that it has a social network for sharing photos within the app. You can adjust your photos in the editor with filters and control the strength of the effects with a sliding button. There are tons of sharing options for saving your images to the camera roll or uploading them to various social networks.
The only downside is that sometimes PicsArt’s interface can be a bit overwhelming because it has so many features. However, everything is clearly labeled and easy to find so it doesn’t take long to get used to it.
8. Aviary Photo Editor
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Aviary-Photo-Editor.jpg)
Aviary Photo Editor is among the best free photo editor. Like many other free apps, it is supported by ads. However, the app lets you do all the basics like cropping, straightening, brightness, and contrast adjustments, saturation control, and a lot more.
Plus, there are a lot of filters to choose from. If you want to try out other effects that are not available for free, you can always buy them from within the app.
But what I love about this app is its drawing tool which lets you draw with your finger on any part of your picture and then erase easily without affecting any other part of the image. Not only that but there are also a lot of stickers available to decorate your pictures with.
When you first launched Aviary’s photo editor, it will automatically load the last photo from your camera roll. You can also choose to import images from Dropbox or Facebook if you want to. After that, a toolbar will appear at the bottom of the screen with all of the edit options right there.
If you want to edit a different part of the image, just tap on that area and Aviary will magnify it so you can easily make changes.
The rotation and cropping options are pretty standard but they do get the job done. Unfortunately, Aviary doesn’t offer any pre-set sizes for its crop tool so you’ll have to come up with your measurements every time you use it.
You also get many tools for applying effects like enhancing, focus, vignette, and frames. The enhance tool is really useful for making sure that your images look as good as possible without any editing at all.
The focus tool allows you to add depth to your photos by blurring certain parts of an image while keeping other parts sharp. Several effects can be applied through the effects tab in the toolbar such as Black & White (which includes ten black & white presets), and vintage (which includes ten presets) as well.
9. Enlight Quickshot
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Enlight-Quickshot-1024x604.jpg)
Enlight Quickshot is a free photo editing app that allows you to easily remove unwanted elements from your photos and add text and stickers. Similar to all photo editing apps, you can adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, highlights, and shadows.
It has a feature called ‘Smart Contrast’ which modifies the contrast in certain areas of the image to make it look better. You can also add text or stickers to your photos, but the selection is quite limited so this might not be enough if you’re looking for something more extensive.
When you’ve finished editing your photo, you can export it at its original resolution or a lower one if you prefer. Enlight Quickshot is an excellent app for quickly improving your photos without having to spend hours doing so.
The Quickshot camera app from Enlight, the developer behind the excellent Enlight Photofox editor, is a powerful tool that can help you take high-quality photos on your iPhone.
Quickshot also gives you access to RAW capture, Portrait Mode controls, and a range of other great features. All those tools are hidden inside a simple interface that makes it easy for anyone to get great results on the fly.
You’ll also find some more unique features like AI-powered object removal that lets you erase objects from the background and replace them with realistic textures. That’s in addition to advanced editing tools like custom curves and selective HSL color adjustment.
Quickshot is free to download and use, though there are some optional in-app purchases available if you want to unlock additional features and filters.
10. Airbrush
![](https://incomery.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Airbrush.jpg)
A free photo editing app for Android, Airbrush offers a great way to quickly retouch your photos before sharing them.
This app provides endless options to improve your photos, starting with the basics like cropping, rotating, and straightening. Make the most of your photos with filters and effects to make them look exactly the way you want.
Airbrush also has a great range of features that enable you to subtly retouch your face and skin in your photos. You can use the blemish remover tool to change or remove pimples or spots on your skin, as well as use the teeth whitener to brighten up your smile.
If you’ve got dark circles under your eyes or red eyes from taking a photo in low light, these can also be removed in seconds – just like a professional photographer would do. And if you want to enhance the natural beauty of your face in a photo, you can smooth out imperfections and wrinkles on your skin without looking fake or plastic at all.
When you’re finished editing your photo, share it directly from Airbrush or save it back to your device’s camera roll in full resolution.
You can also use this app to improve your selfies by editing them in real-time before taking a photo or making a video. The airbrush app also has an auto-fix option that balances the light in your photos with one touch.
The Airbrush app is free to download in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store and has no in-app purchases or ads.
So what makes it such a powerful photo editor? Well, it’s free, plus it’s available both online and offline. This means you can use it to process your images on the go and even when your internet is slow or non-existent. It also has an impressive array of tools and effects to edit with, making it a viable alternative to desktop programs like Photoshop. Finally, you can upload images from your computer or the web into the program.
There’s no shortage of powerful photo editing apps on the Android and iOS platforms, but finding the right app can be a daunting task. We’ve identified ten great editing apps that will greatly improve your photographs no matter what kind of mobile device you have. In particular, you may want to check out VSCO Cam and Aviary if you can’t afford or don’t want to purchase an expensive photo editing app, while Snapseed and PicsArt are also solid choices.
These photo editors cover everything from image cropping and rotation, to basic color adjustments, to full-fledged filter layouts. There are also some cool and advanced blending options that you can use to mix and match designs.
In the end, all of us have our preferences. We might even have a few of those photo editors installed on our devices, just for the sake of variety.
Whichever photo editor you choose, there’s a very high chance that you will find the perfect balance of features, performance, and ease of use that you seek. Stuck on what device to run your app on? We have you covered – all of these apps work on both Android and iOS devices!
I’ve found these ten photo editors to be the best free (and easily accessible) photo editors for mobile devices. While some may not be ideal for professional purposes, they get the job done, and they do it with minimal effort and disruption to workflow. Hopefully, you’ll find them as useful as I have.