We all know taking a photo on our phone, adding a filter and uploading it to social media. It’s fast, convenient and can be fun.
But what if you need to use images for your business? Will those same pictures work there?
Not so long ago, you had to hire a professional photographer and/or photo editor to create business-quality images.
That is no longer the case.
The quality of phone cameras is more than adequate and phone editing apps are so advanced that they can provide professional quality images on demand.
Want to remove the background from an image? No problem. Do you want to remove objects from photos to showcase a product? With the right app, that’s no problem either.
Apps have democratized content creation and now enable anyone, of any skill level, to create publishable images.
Photo editing apps
If you have an online store, sell on eBay or Etsy, or need product images for your website, photo apps can help.
Instead of hiring or paying someone for Photoshop, you can download a photo editing app, remove the background or whatever you want to do, and publish the image.
It’s faster, cheaper and more convenient than ever before.
How we evaluate photo editing apps
We could talk about Generative AI, Stable Dissemination or Memory Efficient Attention, but that’s the kind of topic that excites us and developers. It’s not necessarily something that would turn you on.
As a busy entrepreneur, you are probably more interested in speed, ease of use and the end result. That’s how we evaluated these photo editing apps.
We also mention the costs, because that is also important!
How easy are they to use? How complicated is it to remove objects from photos or remove backgrounds? How good are the results?
Your business is judged by results, so it’s only fair that we rate the tools you use the same way.
Top 5 mobile apps for photo editing
So that’s the how and why, now let’s get to the what. What do we think are the top 5 mobile editing apps you can use right now?
PhotoRoom – Free – Android and iOS
PhotoRoom is designed for small businesses and retailers. It can remove backgrounds, remove objects from photos, create a transparent background and even has an AI background generator.
The app is very simple to use. Load the image, select the desired effect and let the power of AI deliver the result.
In our testing, all images could be published to a website and none had artifacts or needed updating. That’s good enough for us!
Picsart AI Photo Editor – Free – Android and iOS
Picsart AI Photo Editor has a similar goal to PhotoRoom, to provide image editing tools powered by AI. There’s less free with Picart and there are paywalls for some features, but what it does, it does well.
The app is easy to use, but takes longer to process images than PhotoRoom. However, the results are just as good.
In our tests, the images came out fine, but it took a while. The addition of (paid) AI copy, image sharpening and effects make this an app worth checking out.
Adobe Lightroom Mobile – $4.99/mo – Android and iOS
Adobe Lightroom Mobile continues the brand’s drive to deliver the ultimate image editing software. Yes, it’s expensive and can be complicated, but it’s also powerful and works seamlessly with the desktop version.
It can be overkill for a shop owner who wants to remove a background from images or generate an AI background. But it can do so much, it’s hard not to recommend it.
In our testing, Adobe Lightroom Mobile produced excellent images, but isn’t as intuitive to use as some of these others. Buy if you value power over ease of use.
Snapseed – Free – Android and iOS
Snapseed goes in the opposite direction to Adobe. It’s incredibly easy to use, even though you still have a ton of powerful editing tools. It’s almost on par with PhotoRoom for how fast you can remove backgrounds from images or make a transparent background.
The app uses a simple menu function to select tools and works quickly. You can tune, crop and add effects from the same menu.
In our testing, we found the results to be good, but not great. However, they would work perfectly for online stores and small business use.
Pixlr – Free – Android and iOS
Pixlr is for occasional use where you need to touch up an image before posting it on your website and to remove objects from photos. It’s not as fast or powerful as PhotoRoom, but it does many of the same things.
The basic app is free and comes with effects, filters, background removal, AI background generator and collage tools.
When we tested, the images came out believably good. We’d suggest it would work more for socials than brochures, but it could also create decent store graphics with a little work.
Top mobile apps for photo editing
Ansel Adams is quoted as saying ‘You don’t take a picture, you take it’. While he probably didn’t have photo editing apps in mind when he said that, it applies to them as much as any other aspect of photography.
Apps are a great leveler. They enable anyone of any skill level to create publishable images with minimal training and effort.
We applaud them for that!
Which of these top 5 mobile photo editing apps do you use? Do you have any other suggestions?
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