Favorite Mobile Photo Editing Apps + Tips

Hi friends! Welcome back to the blog. Today I am going to share something a little different. I am going to talk about my favorite mobile photo editing apps. PLUS I am going to walk you through a semi-tutorial and explain what tools I use in each app. The above photo shows a before and after edit!

Up until recently (like this week lol), I have edited ALL of my photos using mobile photo editing apps. How crazy is that?! But since I have started booking a few clients professionally, I decided it was time to upgrade to desktop editing. Once I become more familiar with desktop editing, I would love to share a tutorial if that is something you would be interested in!

I learned SO much about photography over the last year. It truly has become such a passion of mine. I love editing photos in a warm, vintage style and can’t wait to share how I do it! Be sure to give me a follow on Instagram if you aren’t already, because that’s where I share the most photos! You can also check out my professional photography page here.

Lets dive in!

In the above photo, I have starred the three apps I use most often. Those being Lightroom, Snapseed and Afterlight.

Lightroom

Lightroom is probably my favorite mobile photo editing app. I am sure most of you have heard of “presets”. If not, they are basically just saved edits from creators or photographers that you can purchase. You can also create your own preset. I plan to do this in the near future, but for now I use presets created by one of my favorite bloggers/photographers: Chelsea Damon. Lightroom allows you to copy and paste these presets to your photos.

I purchased the entire pack from Chelsea Damon, but my most used preset is the Rose. I love the pink, warm tones from this preset.

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Once I apply the preset to a photo, I make some adjustments. I normally alter the exposure/brightness, temperature and tint. I like to have a cohesive look to my photos, so I try to stay with similar edits. But each photo is going to need some tweaks depending on the time of day, location and camera settings of each photo.

Snapseed

After I use Lightroom, I upload the photo to another favorite mobile photo editing app called Snapseed. My favorite features on this app are the “brush” and “healing” tools.

With the brush tool, you can highlight certain parts of the photo and change the exposure, temperature or saturation of that specific section. For example, with this photo, I wanted to brighten up my neck area along with the iris’ of our eyes. If it the photo were too over-exposed, then I could darken those areas.

The healing tool is cool because if there is something unwanted in a photo you can brush over that section and erase it. For example, if there is a random person in the background of one of my photos, I like to use this tool to cut them out.

Sometimes this tool is tricky because it can make the area look a little distorted, but with practice you can make it look like nothing was ever there!

Afterlight

Afterlight is my third most used mobile photo editing app. If I really want one of my photos to have a vintage look, this is where I edit.

My favorite tools in this app are the “dust” and the “light” tool. The dust tool puts a filter over the photo that basically looks like dust covered the lens. It makes the photo look timeless and unique. There are several different types of dust filters to choose from, and you adjust the intensity.

The light tool will also give your photo a very unique look. It is a filter that makes it seem like your lens is cracked and different lights seeped into the photo. You can choose the color of the light filter (I usually go for the pink/coral one to match my preset). And you can also choose the intensity of the light filter.

IPhone editor

The last app I sometimes use is the Iphone editor. Usually, I just adjust the brightness or the temperature a bit. Sometimes I will use the “auto” button and adjust the photo from there as well.

I hope this was helpful! What are some of your favorite mobile photo editing apps? And let me know in the comments what else you’d like to know about photography! I want to start sharing more about my photos!

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