15 Best Free Photo Editing Apps for iOS and Android

Today, there is a high demand for top-notch photo editing apps for iPhones and Android devices. If you love taking photos, having good editing tools can make your pictures look even better.

It doesn't matter if you're a pro or just use your phone to snap pics. In this guide, we will look at the top free photo editing apps for iOS and Android. These apps have many features to improve and change your photos.

• Top 3 Free Photo Editing Apps Snapshot
• How To Choose the Best Free Photo Editing App
• How We Test the Best Photo Editing Apps on Our List
• What Can You Do With a Good Photo Editing App
• 15 Best Free Photo Editing Apps
• Download PhotoDirector - The Best Photo Editing App for Free
• How To Edit Photos With PhotoDirector?
• FAQs of Best Photo Editing Apps

Top 3 Free Photo Editing Apps Snapshot

How To Choose the Best Free Photo Editing App

Choosing the best free photo editing app to edit your photos might not be easy with so many options. First, you need to decide what you need the app for. Taking selfies? Editing your foodie pictures or enhancing your scenic shots? Depending on your needs, there are several photo editing apps worth noting for general editing or for more professional needs. As far as features go, most photo editing apps reviewed in our list have both basic editing capabilities and the latest popular features. Most apps in our list have a free version with several features to try and a premium version with extra features that can be unlocked by paying a monthly or annual subscription fee.

In short, our list covers the best free photo editing apps for every photo editor out there and we added key feature summaries for each review to make it easier for you to filter them out according to your needs.

How We Test the Best Photo Editing Apps on Our List

First, we consider which photo editing apps are most used for specific categories, and then we have a look at the overall ratings and reviews by the community of users. When testing each app, we look for strengths and weaknesses based on factors such as:

• Compatibility with different mobile devices
• Clear and easy-to-use interface
• Quality and variety of features
• Frequency of updates
• Integrated stock content

We would also consider each app’s intended audience when rating it – after all, it’s hard to compare a professional photo editing app like Photoshop to a face editing app like FaceTune.

What Can You Do With a Good Photo Editing App

Good photo editing apps are extremely handy when you’re taking lots of pictures, you have an added desire to either stand out or have more creative control, and you’d like quick and easy solutions and a variety of options to get there.

Most successful social media influencers depend on photo editing of some kind to help differentiate them from other influencers. Using stickers, animation, image overlays, or free photo filters helps them curate their feed, gain followers, and express their individuality. If you’re trying to boost your social media presence, having the best photo editing app is essential.

If you’re putting together photo collages or an album for a specific purpose (for example, a wedding, graduation party, memorial service, or other event), a good photo editing app can do a lot of the work for you and its features can allow your pictures to leave a far more impactful impression.

15 Best Free Photo Editing Apps

1. PhotoDirector – Best Free Photoshop App
2. Vivid AI – Best AI Image Generator App
3. Promeo – Best Photo Editing App For Business
4. YouCam Perfect – Best Free Photo Editor
5. Pixlr – Best Photo Editor For Filters
6. PicsArt – Best Video & Photo Editor App
7. Snapseed – Best Photo Editor App for Casual Users
8. Adobe Photoshop Camera – Best Photo Editor For Taking Pictures
9. Werble – Best Photo Editor For Adding Overlays
10. Canva – Best Photo Editor With Templates
11. FaceTune – Best Selfie App
12. Prisma – Best App to Turn Anything Into a Painting
13. PicCollage – Best Photo Editing App for Collages
14. BeFunky – Best Photo Editing App for Simple AI-Powered Photo Editing
15. Afterlight – Best Photo Editing App for Serious Photographers

1. PhotoDirector - Best Free Photo Editor App

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 10/10

Key Features:

• Tools to cartoon yourself and create caricatures
• AI technology to remove people and object from photo
• Photo retouch, eye bags removal, teeth whitening and other beauty retouch tools
• Unblur photo and denoise images to enhance photos
• AI background removal tool
• Edit photos easily with preset collage, filters and stickers
• Lighting and color tools
• Sky replacement and light ray tools
• Animation tools and animated overlays
• Built-in stock library

PhotoDirector combines complete creative control, a user-friendly interface and a royalty-free stock library provided by Shutterstock and iStock. Whether you've spent years learning the ins and outs of advanced editing techniques or just begun your creative journey, PhotoDirector's professional-quality tools can transform a quick snap into a stunning image.

Along with all the basic editing tools, you can experiment with color grading, making personalized collages, object removal tools, or AI-powered background replacement for adding flawless sunsets to your images.

This also includes its tools to create your own AI Avatars. PhotoDirector uses AI image detection and transformation effects to create caricatures and magic avatars currently trending on social media. This is all done with just a couple taps of your finger.

Another notable AI tool is the background changer feature that allows swapping backgrounds with just one single click! Thanks to this feature you can easily transport yourself to another place or create immaculate product photos with a clean background. What’s more, PhotoDirector offers a range of different background templates so you don’t have to browse your own camera roll for hours in order to find the most suitable background for your image.

Shot the perfect photo but just something is off with your face? It might just be a small pimple or the lighting makes your face look bigger. No worries - PhotoDirector has got your back here! Use different retouching tools that can remove blemishes, whiten your teeth, and slim your face in an instant! The edits are subtle yet really bring out the best of your photos.

No matter if you're editing one photo or hundreds, you can quickly upload, adjust, and create on the go with your phone or seamlessly transition to your laptop or tablet for edits at home.

More Photo Editing Tips with PhotoDirector:

• How To Remove People from Pictures
• How To Remove Backgrounds from Pictures
• How To Turn Your Face into an Anime Face
• PhotoDirector - Remove Watermarks from Photos for Free
• How To Enhance Photos with the Best Photo Enhancer

2. Vivid AI - Best AI Image Generator App

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 9/10

Key Features:

• Text to Images
• Virtually Try on Clothes
• Change Photo Background
• Replace Photo Sky
• Turn Photos to a Different Style

Vivid AI is the ultimate AI art generator, renowned for its exceptional features. Its Text to Images feature converts text into captivating visuals, fostering creativity. This random outfit generator  provides a virtual try-on experience for clothing, simplifying shopping choices. Users can effortlessly change photo backgrounds or replace skies, enhancing their pictures. The app's versatility shines in its capacity to transform photos into various artistic styles. Vivid AI is an invaluable tool for artistic expression and visual storytelling, offering unmatched capabilities in a single package.

3. Promeo - Best Photo Editing App For Business

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 9/10

Key Features:

• Remove Photo Background
• Add White Background to a Photo
• Blur Photo Background
• Templates For All occasions

Promeo's standout feature lies in its remarkable ability to remove photo backgrounds with exceptional clarity. Say goodbye to the distracting clutter of your original image and hello to a clean, professional look. Whether you need a transparent background, a solid white backdrop, or even a beautifully blurred background to make your product pop, Promeo offers a wide range of background options that cater to your specific needs. There are all templates for all industries to create posters, design flyers or generate Instagram posts within a blink!

4. YouCam Perfect: Best Free Photo Editor

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 10/10

Key Features:

• AI Object Removal
• Background changer and sky replacement
• Face retouch and body editing tools
• Animated effects & stickers
• Hundreds of preset filters
• Aesthetic collages and templates
• 1-tap background removal

YouCam Perfect is one of the best free photo editors equipped with AI-powered photo editing and beautifying tools. It allows you to edit photos on either iPhone or Android with a wide variety of effects, animations, collages, and more! 

It also supports advanced tools like AI Object Removal that helps you effortlessly remove unwanted objects, change your background in seconds, or get dreamy skies in 1 tap with Sky Replacement. If you want to retouch your face or edit your body shape, YouCam Perfect has various face editing tools and Body Tuner features.

All your editing needs can be fulfilled in one app! Download YouCam Perfect for free today to give it a try!

5. Pixlr - Best Photo Editor For Filters

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 8/10

Key Features:

• Basic editing tools, filters, and photo effects
• Collage templates for easy creation
• Auto Fix to adjust color of photo
• Color Splash effect to bring out color

Pixlr specializes in providing just enough variety for users. You won't ever feel overwhelmed by the available options. Still, you can use intuitive brushes as well as preset effects, overlays, and style filters to transform your photos into black-and-white, film, or sepia tones.

While Pixlr is free to download, the free version of the app has ads and limits your access to editing tools.

Casual users may enjoy the simplicity of the Pixlr app, but anyone who wants access to comprehensive editing tools and advanced effects may find Pixlr lacking in more than one area. Pixlr's Premium subscription, however, does offer access to more editing tools.

6. PicsArt - Best Video & Photo Editor App

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 8/10

Key Features:

• Good lineup of editing tools for casual photographers
• Wide variety of stickers, filters, and personalized collage
• AI tools including AI image generator, AI replace and AI Avatar

PicsArt combines community with a user-friendly editing app for a fun, creative experience without a lot of hassle. While the free app features ads that pop up while editing, even those who are brand new to photo editing can access all the basic tools while enjoying stickers, collage templates, and text functions.

You can also use PicsArt with your camera, applying filters, effects, and overlays to photos before you take them. Quickly crop, resize, flip/rotate, and enhance photos using the PicsArts "Effect" menu, or use the Dispersion tool to create dramatic images with the click of a finger.

If your interest in photography extends to sharing daily moments with your family, then PicsArt's functional tools can help you make minor tweaks and adjustments to your snaps. You can also enjoy trendy filters, colorful text, cloning options, and an eraser tool to remove objects from your photos.

Unlike some other free editing apps, PicsArt even offers a "Motion" effect, allowing you to animate your images.

However, the major disadvantage to the PicsArt lies in its pricey premium subscription and lack of truly advanced editing tools such as sky replacement, light rays, and other features.

7. Snapseed - Best Photo Editor App for Casual Users

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 8/10

Key Features:

• Over 30 professional-quality editing tools
• Presets and filters for one-tap editing

If you're searching for a fun, simplistic photo editing app for casual use, Snapseed may not be the best app for you. Featuring a line-up of professional-quality editing tools, options to adjust color and exposure, and selective editing tools to perfect every image, Snapseed's powerful capabilities make it well suited for experienced content creators and photographers in search of a mobile editing interface.

While the editing platform is simple and streamlined, the array of editing tools – such as curves, imagine tuning, selective brushes, and detailed lighting and color scales – may feel overwhelming to beginners who only want to make a few small tweaks.

However, if you've got some experience in editing photos, you may enjoy the variety of options as well as the ability to layer edits and save "Looks" to apply to photos later. You can also use Snapseed's portrait mode to smooth skin, brighten eyes, and create a pro-quality image. You can even use more advanced editing techniques like Bokeh with Snapseed's lens blur tool.

Snapseed also comes with several filters you can customize using the app's 30-plus editing tools. Additionally, the app is totally free with no premium features.

That said, while Snapseed comes with more editing tools and filters than the other apps mentioned in this guide, the learning curve may be intimidating to novice users.

8. Adobe Photoshop Camera - Best Photo Editor For Taking Pictures

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 8/10

Key Features:

• Dozens of custom and regularly updated filters
• Auto-tone effects
• Face light feature for portraits

Photoshop Camera uses an AI function, called Adobe Sensei, to apply masks, special effects, and some photo corrections to photos before or after you capture the image. The app's filters – known as "lenses" – offer a wide variety of colors, lighting options, and special effects to transform your photo in a single click.

Some lenses also include animated elements, such as shooting stars or movable smart objects.

Adobe continues to add new lenses to the app, each with several variations that can result in highly stylized photos. That said, while the app allows amateur photographers to get creative with point-and-shoot photographs, the lack of essential editing tools or advanced functions like animation, sky replacement, and the Bokeh effect make it more suited to casual users than serious content creators.

9. Werble - Best Photo Editor For Adding Overlays

Compatibility: iOS

Overall Rating: 8/10

Key Features:

• Dozens of visual effects templates
• A solid lineup of movement presets for animation
• Supports layers for unique animation

Werble's fun visual effects and simplified layout make it a suitable choice for social media content. The animation effects won’t result in professional-quality results, but the app can add a unique touch to your images thanks to various effects packets and animated overlays.

10. Canva - Best Photo Editor With Templates

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 8/10

Key Features:

• Variety of templates for all occasions
• Text effects
• Photo filters
• Auto focus to blur background

Canva's primary appeal is its library of versatile, customizable templates. You can sort through Canva's existing templates, choose one that suits your design aesthetic and make personalized adjustments.

The app also provides graphics that you can use in your Instagram story creations. If you'd prefer not to create a story from one of the app's templates, you can access Canva's library of elements to craft a post of your own creation.

While Canva does offer a limited array of photo effects, if you want to produce any professional-level photography edits, you will need to look for a more advanced app. Canva's photo effects are limited to resizing, adjusting color, and overlaying filters onto your photo.

11. FaceTune - Best Selfie App

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 7/10

Key Features:

• Extensive editing features for skin touch-ups
• Face reshaping and makeup features
• Several Neon filters and light effects
• AI tool to try on clothes

The first time you open FaceTune, you are asked for your photo editing skill level to ensure you have the best app experience. As the app name already implies, FaceTune’s features are more focused on face editing and involve skin smoothening, face reshaping, or changing hair colors. You can also virtually put on makeup or change your skin color thanks to the Paint tool.

Besides face editing tools, the app also offers tools such as different patterns for clothing you can easily swap with the ones you are wearing in the image. The Backdrop tool lets you easily replace the existing background with one of FaceTune’s backdrop templates such as flowers, butterflies, or sparkles.

The photo editing app is very beginner-friendly as it provides a walk-through for every feature to guide the user through the process. Overall, FaceTune is a good photo editing app for those who love to touch up their selfies.

All features in FaceTune are free to use for the first 7 days; after that, you can upgrade to a subscription or perpetual license.

12. Prisma - Best App to Turn Anything Into a Painting

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 6/10

Key Features:

• 700+ billion painting styles
• Variety of frames
• One-click background swap
• Frequent filter updates

Turning your photo into a painting in Prisma is easy and just a matter of one click.

The painting styles are named after art techniques such as Dallas, Mosaic, or Gothic or after artists such as Thota Vaikuntan or Daryl Feril.

You can also clip the background to automatically apply the style to just the person in the image and leave the original background. After you have applied the desired painting style, you can choose from a variety of frames to put your edited image in the right light.

Furthermore, you can control the effect’s intensity and saturation on the person or do some more touch-ups to the background to match the new image.

One disadvantage of Prisma is that in order to access the photo editing app you have to subscribe to their service first and then manually cancel the 3-day free trial period.

Overall, this photo editing app is very straightforward and easy to use. However, the automatic subscription might not be everyone's favorite, especially when you tend to easily forget about canceling subscriptions.

13. PicCollage - Best Photo Editing App for Collages

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 6/10

Key Features:

• Tons of collage frames and designs
• Basic photo editing including filter, cutout, retouch
• Fonts and stickers to personalize collages

PicCollage is our favorite photo editing app that specializes in photo collages. With a very user friendly interface, this app allows you to select which aspect ratio you’d like, then it spits out dozens upon dozens of different grids to use for your photos.

The frames are not just the standard squares and rectangles, either. You can also choose slanted shapes, circles, stars, hearts, or even a honeycomb pattern. The app also gives you lots of freedom of choice when selecting the sizes of each picture in your collage.

There are also frequent template releases of seasonal themes and for life milestones. So whether the Fall season has just begun and you want to celebrate Labor Day, or you just had a baby and want a perfect themed collage, PicCollage is a great photo editing app with customizable frames in which to put your photos.

There is a 7-day free trial with a good selection of themed stickers with the free version, but you need a subscription to unlock all the features, including removing that pesky watermark.

14. BeFunky - Best Photo Editing App for Simple AI-Powered Photo Editing

Compatibility: iOS, Android

Overall Rating: 6/10

Key Features:

• A.I.-powered editing tools
• Artsy effects to turn photo into painting
• Background remover
• Portrait Enhancer to enhance photo in a single tap

BeFunky is a fun photo editing app that keeps photography lighthearted for enthusiasts while still leveraging powerful tools to achieve great results.

As soon as you open the app, you are prompted to select what you’d like to use the app for. We appreciate that BeFunky gets right to the point, asking what you would like to do with the app, rather than having you spend lots of extra time navigating the interface trying to find what you’re looking for.

You can choose from many options, including a background remover, A.I. Portrait Enhancer, Oil Painting or Digital Art creation, and Facebook and Twitter Templates to get the job done.

Something particularly valuable about BeFunky is its powerful A.I. features. The app allows you to leverage A.I. to enhance image appearance, remove backgrounds, and edit faces. However, it is lacking the effects and features that would make it an all-in-one comprehensive photo editing app.

15. Afterlight - Best Photo Editing App for Serious Photographers

Compatibility: iOS

Overall Rating: 5/10

Key Features:

• Preset photo filters
• 90+ textures and overlays
• 120+ hand-picked Fonts and 150+ original Designs

If you don’t like noisy and cluttered apps, you’ll really like Afterlight.

Afterlight is a no-nonsense photo editing app with a simple and understated user interface that features powerful basic editing tools. It’s extremely easy to do basic edits in a variety of ways - from crops to adjustments to brightness, contrast, vibrance, saturation, and more.

The app has many filters and effects including some particularly aesthetic light effects and a very intuitive double exposure effect feature. You can also add text and stickers easily.

After editing your picture, the app makes it very simple to either share directly to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Messaging apps or you can opt to save your image to your phone.

A feature we found particularly unique among photo editing apps is Afterlight’s simple undo-redo button to cycle through your edits. This makes experimenting with different adjustments and effects very easy, because you can always go back to previous versions of your edited image.

Although stock media options are conspicuously lacking, this photo editing app is a good choice for serious photographers who want a no-nonsense solution to photo editing, without any more advanced features.

Download PhotoDirector - The Best Photo Editing App for Free

A few years ago, you most likely snapped a selfie using your cell phone, applied an Instagram filter, and shared it with the world. Now, many are jumping between editing apps and even applying additional touch-ups or tweaks from desktop photo editing software before sharing an image online.

Luckily, you can capture your vision and achieve stunning results using one of the top five best photo editing apps for iPhone and Android. While each of our top seven picks has its advantages, only PhotoDirector combines ease of use and all the comprehensive editing tools you need in a single photo editing app.

Even beginners can create shareable photos in minutes using PhotoDirector. Apply filters, combine images into a collage using the highly customizable templates, or brighten your photos with light rays and animated sparkle. PhotoDirector's AI editing tools include complete sky replacement, allowing you to adjust or remove the sky in your original image and seamlessly integrate a lovely morning or evening display. With its photo animation tools, you can add motion to your photo in seconds.

Edit, animate, and customize your photos to inspire your followers, and impress your friends, and family.

Get started for free today by downloading PhotoDirector.

How To Edit Photos With PhotoDirector

Learn how to edit photos with all the trendy AI features such as AI removal, AI enhance, AI Avatars and more with taps on your phone.

1. Download the best free photo editing app – PhotoDirector
2. Choose the AI feature from the entry.
3. Import the Photo to Edit.
• To remove objects from the photo, click AI removal.
• To enhance the photo with a click, tap AI Enhance.
• To create Avatars from photos, click AI Avatar.
• To retouch photos for flawless skin, click Portrait Tools.
• To apply picture filters or add text to the photo, click Edit and freely explore all photo editing features.
4. After finishing editing the photo, click the icon at the upper right side. You can save the photo to the album or share with your friends.