The 2 Best Photo Editing Apps for Android and iOS of 2024


Smartphone cameras have come a long way, but you probably still notice images that could benefit from a little editing help, whether that’s recovering a photo of your friends in a dark bar or subtly tweaking a stunning landscape. After testing 10 mobile photo editing apps over several weeks, we’re sure that Adobe Lightroom (Android, iPhone, iPad) is the best option for photographers of all skill levels. Lightroom is easily the most powerful editor we tested—it features a wide variety of adjustments that produced the best-looking photos in our tests. And thanks to its raw-file editing and cross-device syncing capabilities (with a paid subscription), it’s an app that you can grow with as you develop as a photographer.

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Our pick

In both its free and paid modes, Lightroom stands out for its huge range of adjustments, high-quality output, and excellent library-style file organization.

The free mode on Adobe Lightroom (Android, iPhone, iPad) is more than generous enough for most people, with serious editing tools such as curve adjustments, noise reduction, and optical corrections. Upgrading to a full Adobe subscription is expensive (starting at $10 per month), but the subscription includes more advanced tools such as masking and healing, perspective correction, raw-file editing, and access to the desktop version of Lightroom so that you can pick up editing your smartphone photos on your computer. Total beginners may face a bit of a learning curve with Lightroom’s technical terminology, and it won’t satisfy people looking for flashy overlays and special effects, but it’s unbeatable for professional-looking results.

Budget pick

Although Snapseed lacks some precision editing tools, it includes typically premium features such as raw-file editing and selective editing for free.

If you’re satisfied with basic editing features and less precise edits, Snapseed (Android, iOS) is a great app that’s more intuitive than Lightroom. It’s totally free, with no premium paid tier and no ads. It’s owned by Google, but it doesn’t require that you upload your photos to edit them. Many of the same core edits that you can find in Lightroom are here, along with an array of more creative tools designed to help you quickly punch up images before posting them on social media. Snapseed doesn’t offer the depth of editing tools that some of its competitors do, and it’s not as good at fixing poor exposures, but it’s easy to learn and a bargain for the price.



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