App-solutely Stunning: Wide variety of photo editing apps give mobile users creative freedom

By: Sierra Steen

Whether you’re looking for the perfect filter or a way to up your cellular photography game, these favorite editing apps deliver strongly. A picture with the right amount of tweaking and perhaps a filter can look professional, even if it was taken merely on an iPhone. With so many different social media sites encouraging creative photo sharing, it’s no wonder more and more apps are developed in order to provide audiences with the optimal photo editing experience. Here are a few apps that help make anyone’s photos stand out.

VSCO

VSCO is one of the most popular photo editing apps for good reason. It comes with a variety of filters of which you have control over how powerful they appear. You can also edit things like exposure, contrast and even upload and share to the VSCO gallery and community in order to get noticed and inspired. 

PHHHOTO

Phhhoto is one of the hottest apps right now. Instead of a still picture or video, the app takes five pictures and makes them into a gif (a moving picture essentially). There are special filters that come out on a random basis, but they’re only available for a day. People use the #wow tag in order to get noticed, and phhhotos worthy of being featured are put on the WOW page.  Also, the staff running the app is very sneaky, hiding a few tricks that only a few people know of. I’ll spill one of their secrets — the capture frequency and frame rate sliders (view below picture). Open the camera and make a peace sign with your fingers, and then rotate them around clockwise. If done correctly (it may take a few attempts), this little menu should pop up. By setting the top slider low and the bottom one high, your picture is taken rapidly, which is great if you want a still picture.  By doing the opposite, the time in between pictures taken is strung out, allowing you time to do illusions. Take a little time to experiement with these newfound options, and find ways to make your own unique phhhoto.

1967

Since it is a newer app, 1967 is a little difficult to navigate. It requires some figuring out, but the filters on this app are beautifully retro, giving your photo that classic vibe you’ve been looking for. As it gains more ground, more filters and more accessibility should be a thing to expect, but for now, the options given are a great start. I truly enjoy the uniqueness of the filters, shying away from typical black and white or low-contrast filters and instead opting for more hue-based and faded looking ones. 

PICSART

If you’re looking more for technical things such as collages, stickers, doodling tools or whatever it may be, PicsArt is a good place to go. It allows you to create collages with multiple presets and frames, draw on your pictures, put stickers on and, of course, the basic options such as text, cropping, flipping/rotating and much more. While the other apps are good for filters and enhancement, this app is great for messing around and adding a special touch to any picture.