Discover the best free photo editing apps to enhance your images: With the rise of smartphone photography today, the right photo editing app can turn your shots into professional-quality masterpieces. Using the apps outlined here, you can edit your photos directly on your phone or tablet, reducing the need for desktop software.
These apps come packed with a variety of features that allow you to add text, adjust colors, remove red-eye, delete backgrounds, add stickers, apply effects, and much more.
Best of all, these apps are free to download and compatible with both iPhone and Android devices. While some include premium options for advanced features, the free tools alone are powerful enough to meet most editing needs.
Discover the best free photo editing apps to enhance your images
Snapseed
What we like
Loaded with professional-grade tools.
User-friendly interface.
Completely ad-free for a seamless experience.
What we don’t like
Can be challenging for beginners.
Does not support capturing photos directly in the app.
Google's Snapseed is a powerful tool for those looking to experience a wide range of editing features. Its user-friendly interface ensures easy navigation despite its professional tools, with over 25 editing options like HDR scape, glamour glow, and retrolux.
The Snapseed app allows for detailed control using intuitive swipe gestures, making it easy to customize adjustments.
You can instantly compare changes by toggling between the original and edited versions. Photos can be saved in custom folders or shared directly from the app.
Adobe Photoshop Express
What we like
Beginner-friendly yet powerful.
Comes with advanced saving options.
Offers filters, overlays, and cropping presets.
What we don’t like
Requires login to access features.
No community integration for sharing edits.
The Adobe app is an excellent choice for anyone. We tend to use it before other apps on this list, especially when we need overlays or a quick way to isolate a subject or background. It has many interesting and useful tools; zooming is allowed at any time, and you can easily compare your edited image with the original.
The image you want to edit can be a new photo taken from within the app or one that exists on your device or Creative Cloud account. Editing is very straightforward through the menus at the bottom. It includes a lot of stylish filters, and you can even blend them.
If you want to crop the image to fit a specific device, this app has many useful presets, such as a preset for the device you are using, and templates for Facebook ads and cover photos, as well as others for LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube, etc. There are also options for rotation and transformation.
Corrections you can make include clarity, sharpening, contrast removal, and more. Shadows and highlights can be adjusted using the Split Tone feature. It includes options for switching opacity and shading, and you can also use the blemish remover, red-eye remover, and text tool, as well as add stickers and frames.
PhotoRoom
What we like
Excellent capabilities for removing backgrounds.
Allows for object removal using a simple brush.
What we don’t like
Watermarks on saved images in the free version.
Lacks traditional editing tools like cropping and color adjustments.
For anyone looking to remove backgrounds, PhotoRoom is a standout tool. While it lacks comprehensive editing features, its specialization in background removal is unmatched. Additional options allow you to add text, import graphics, and create layered designs.
This app is perfect for creating professional headshots or marketing content, and its ease of use makes it worth trying out.
Pixlr
What we like
User-friendly interface with a wide range of tools.
Supports collages and unique overlays.
What we don’t like
Ads during saving.
Limited font choices and uncomfortable zoom controls.
Pixlr is easy to use and offers two million combinations of free effects, overlays, and filters. All menu options are located at the bottom of the app for easy access.
Tools include cropping, rotating, double exposure, common adjustments, auto-fix, blur, smoothing, trimming, spraying, processing, and red-eye removal.
For precise control, brushes for lightening, darkening, blurring, cutting, and coloring are included. There are also stylish effects, countless overlays, and beautification options like pencil and watercolor. Pixlr also supports frames and text.
A very useful feature is the preview. Press and hold the image to see how it looks before and after your edits. However, there is one undesirable feature: this app includes a button to remove the background of the image, but it actually just links to the app store as it is a completely different app.
When you finish editing, you have the option to save it in a custom size or choose from small, medium, or maximum sizes.
piZap
What we like
Great for collages, memes, and cover photos.
Includes stock images from Pixabay and Unsplash.
What we don’t like
Limited undo options.
Expensive subscription for advanced features.
Compared to other photo editing apps, piZap lacks most of the traditional tools you would expect to see. However, we included this app because it is a good collage maker and includes unique tools for creating emojis, social media cover photos, stickers, and app icons.
We found the cover photo maker to be the most useful tool. It's very easy to create a perfectly sized image for Facebook, YouTube, and other sites. piZap also includes a traditional photo editor, but it is very basic; you can add text, overlay other images, include borders, and draw freely.
Another feature you might like is this app's ability to import images from Pixabay and Unsplash. These are free image sites, so they provide great inspiration if you don’t have a fantastic image of your own to set up for your social media profile.
The professional version can be tried for a week to remove ads and watermarks, unlock premium templates and more tools, access the background remover, and an AI text-to-image converter, along with additional elements.
BeFunky
What we like
Great for final touches on personal photos.
Photo editor and collage maker.
User-friendly and intuitive interface.
No banners or ads.
What we don’t like
Hard to align text precisely.
Easy to accidentally undo edits.
BeFunky is an extremely user-friendly app as the buttons are clear and understandable, and all editing tools are categorized in sections that make them easy to find.
You can do a lot with this app; there are tools for removing red-eye, fixing blemishes, whitening teeth, ironing out wrinkles, changing eye color, applying lipstick, and other makeup tools.
There’s also a text tool with layer support and many font styles, along with a variety of frames and menus that include options to add elements like hearts, stickers, shapes, emojis, and more.
Unlike all other photo editing apps, this app does not offer the option to use paid tools with a watermark; you need to get Plus to use any of the paid features.
You can save images to your account if you log in. Otherwise, your options are social media or your device.
Conclusion
Whether you're an aspiring photographer or someone who simply loves to edit their shots, these free photo editing apps are invaluable tools. No matter which app you choose, each one offers a unique way to make your photos more appealing, ensuring that your memories are as vibrant and unforgettable as the moments they represent. So give these programs a try and enjoy your time.
