Thursday 22 October 2015

Amazing Photo Editing Apps


Hi everyone, one of my favourite types of posts to read are about peoples favourite photo editing apps or the popular 'How I Edit My Instagram Photos'!  I love looking at people's different photo styles and it always helps me find new apps to use.  I can happily sit there for hours editing photos using all the different effects, stickers and filter etc before I upload to Instagram, although is anyone who doesn't use VSCOCam!  So after quite a long while of downloading a huge amount of apps (feel sorry for my poor phone memory), and trying out every possible option on each of them, I feel I have now narrowed it down to all the ones that I love to use and what I think are the best editing apps around.

I love using these types of apps, I look for a good lot of features and I want ones that are going to do a bit of everything.  These ones that I've chosen to talk about are ones that I use all the time, I love the features and effects you can get with them and I'm still constantly finding new things that they all do.  Obviously if they are free then all the better but I have paid out for some too and I've bought several of the extra 'in-app' purchases.  If you fancy checking out my Instagram feed to have a look at the type of photos I upload, you can do that here :-)

Just as a side note, I have all of these from Google Play for Android but I have also added if they're available on iTunes too!


I've used a couple of sample photos to show you some of the effects I love to use, one is of my gorgeous poodles (you may have seen them once or twice before), they're looking rather fluffy here as this was taken just before going to the 'Poodle Parlour' and the other is just a pretty patch of pink flowers I found on Google.



To start with my first port of call is always Afterlight (59p on Play, free on iTunes)


I really like this one mainly for cropping and doing the general brightness/contrast/saturation etc.  I don't feel I've really seen the full potential of this app yet but I'm working my way through all the various actions, so I'm excited to see what else this app can do.


Next I always go straight to Pixlr (free on Play and iTunes) which is probably my most favourite app of all and is truly amazing for being a free app!  I love this one as it's so easy to use and is a generally good all-rounder.  I have just found out they also do a pc version on this app, as well as a really great photo editing software to use online, which is also free and is very similar to the old-style Photoshop, very handy!


You can adjust all the usual brightness/contrast etc, but also it gives you a whole host of other lovely things like filters, stickers, overlays, frames, edges and some really cool grunge inked edge borders.



You can type your own text, change the fonts to loads of different styles, change the colour of the text, there's just so much you can do.




My favourite effects that I use the most are the white ripped edge frames and the glitter overlay, I love that you can fade the overlays as well as change the orientation of them.  It's just so versatile.


A Beautiful Mess (£1.60 on Play, 79p on iTunes) is one of my newest apps but already it's become one of my favourites (love the icon too).  It's actually designed by two lovely bloggers that go by the name 'A Beautiful Mess' and you can read about how they came up with the app here.


I use it mainly for the stickers and word art, I just love the font!  Again you can alter the colour, size and orientation of all of them too.  But I also love the filters on it too, there's only 5 at the moment, yea I know not many but I do really like them as I think they cover all the general looks.  I'm not really one for filters but I do like these a lot.


Again this app has several other features but I'm yet to figure these out but so far I'm loving it. The only down side is that even though you can download a lot of extra stickers and frames etc, each pack costs 61p, but I would say most of them are worth having so it's difficult not to spend out!


Photo Studio PRO (basic is free/PRO is £3.20 on Play, £1.49 on iTunes).


This was one that I got ages ago but it just didn't do anything for me, I found it hard to use and suss out all the various actions and I almost got rid.  But then one day I looked through it again and decided to go back to Google Play and purchase the whole package.


I'm so glad I did because it made a huge difference, with the free package you could only use certain features but not only that, if you used a non-free action and tried to save your finished image, it would then tell you it wasn't free and try and make you pay, so annoying!


Having the full package means you have access to a whole lot more options and features than with the free version (of course).  There's a ridiculous amount of filters, frames, stickers and all the usual bits as well as a really great section where you can write your own text, change the font, colour, size etc but you can also add a background behind the text and you can even do patterned text!!


By the looks of it I think the iTunes version might be a little different and so I don't know what features you would get with that one, sorry!


Insta Bokeh (free on Play, also free on iTunes but different version)


This is such a cute app to use, it gives you 4 options 'Text' to write your own words and then 3 different options of the type of bokeh filters you can use, 'Romantic Sky', 'Tender Night' and ''Dream World' which is the one I always go straight for because I just love the pretty sparkly effects.


Each of the 3 filter options has loads of different filters to choose, you can fade them out and alter the brightness/contrast etc.  It's really easy to use and you can even apply your chosen filters straight away as you take a photo which I've quite enjoyed having a play around with!


Sticker Overlay (free only on Play) is a really nice app I found a while ago.


It has lots of features but the best thing about it has to be the word art quotes, stickers and frames which are so nice and again you can change the size, colour and rotate and reposition them until your hearts content.


It's also easy to delete them too, which is something I find annoying with some apps, you try to get rid of the last thing you did and then oh the whole thing has disappeared and you have to start all over again!


Pic Stitch (free on Play and iTunes) is another one I use quite a lot, there's a crazy amount of different layouts to collage anything from 2 images, to about 15 images.


Again it's really easy to use and over time you get more and more free layouts given to you for free to add to your collection.  I actually prefer using this app now to PicMonkey, I honestly think you get a lot more choice of layouts for free.

Those are the main apps I use but sometimes I like to use other ones just for specific effects.

Studio Design 1.6.10 (free on Play and iTunes) this app is great for added quotes and phrases to images, it's a little tricky to use at first but once you've downloaded all the overlays you like (and there are absolutely loads), oh and they're all free, you can do some cool things.  One tip I would say is make sure you save your finished picture in your gallery rather than sharing it straight from the app or it will add a logo along the bottom.  I found if I save it first then share, it doesn't do that.


Perfect365 (free on Play and iTunes) this is really perfect for those selfie pictures, it instantly smoothes the skin and makes you look flawless in seconds, you can also alter the make up you have on or add it completely, which actually looks amazingly realistic.  You can even choose different eyeshadow shades, false lashes, lipstick shades etc and various other effects, I was really amazed how natural it looked!


Selfie Camera-Facial Beauty (previously known as CunPics) (free on Play and similar app available free on iTunes).


This has similar features as Perfect365 but the effects are a lot more pre-set, where as with Perfect365 you can alter everything separately, on CunPics it's just like using filters.  It does give some really nice effects though and the various frames are so pretty.

Pic Lab (free on Play and iTunes) this is quite a nice easy editing app. You can do all the basics, but it also has a load of hidden features you can add as well.  This app does leave a little logo on your pics though.


I've also just found a really nice app called Image Blender Fusion Free (free on Play and on iTunes) it lets you merge 2 images together, like if you wanted to add a quote over an image or have your dog sat in a flower or something.  I'm quite enjoying this one so far and I think it'll be quite useful.  The only thing I would say is don't bother with buying the extra features they do seem a waste of money.

I'm still in search of a really nice simple bokeh effect overlay, like the popular one from the iTunes PicFx, which so far I've not found for Android :-( as all the bokeh effect filters I have, have a lot more to them, a lot 'busier' and less simple, so no doubt I'll be working my way through another bunch of apps soon!

If you use any that you love and think I should try out, please let me know, I love playing around with new ones :-)
Until Next Time Stay Happy

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