Introduction
Whether you are a vlogger, instagrammer or professional photographer, you will need some apps to spice up your photos or videos before uploading them online. While smartphones apps do not pack the full capabilities of their computer counterparts, their convenience is perfect for a quick touch up on the go. Not all photo and video apps are created equally so after testing out several of them while creating my phone reviews, I have selected a few of them while I personally love. Some of them are free, while others cost a little, but you will getting the most out of your money with them.
Snapseed (Free)
Developed by Google, Snapseed is one of the best photo editing app available on both iOS and Android and is completely free. Snapseed's interface is intuitive and easy to use, yet it packs a lot more features than other free photo editing apps. On top of the basics like cropping, tuning and filters, Snapseed's features includes double exposure, selective tuning, perspective, frames and many more. For quick editing and touching up, why pay when Snapseed is free?
Deshake (US$2.99)
Even with the impressive image stabilization built into iPhones, not all videos turn out to be as stable as we would like them to be. Sometimes all you need is a little bit of extra stabilization and Deshake will do that for you. Simply select the video you would like to stabilize, select the level of stabilization and export. The higher the level of stabilization, the more cropped the video will be so I typically increase it up to 50%. Do note that this app has its limitations and will not be able to stabilize super shaky footage. Deshake can be purchased in a bundle (Denoise, Deshake and Typomatic) for only US$3.99.
App Store (Bundle): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app-bundle/video-production-clean-and-crisp-videos/id1126328145?mt=8
Enlight (US$3.99)
If you find the features on Snapseed limited and decide to pay for something better, consider getting enlight. On top of the features you can get from Snapseed, Enlight also has some really cool tricks up its sleeve. You can create really cool masks, add images over your image, reshape images and many more. Not only is Enlight powerful, its user interface is really easy to learn and there is even a tutorial that teaches you how to create really fancy pictures. For only US$3.99, Enlight is worth every penny if you want to take your instagram photos to a new level.
iMovie (Free)
One of the greatest video editing apps on iOS is of course Apple's iMovie, which comes free on any iOS device. Its timeline style of video editing means you can work with multiple videos and photos in a single project. All the basic features are included in iMovies, including insert audio, cut, split and transition. More advanced features are also present, including filters, texts, picture-in-picture (only for videos) and playback speed. There is also a trailer mode, where the video outline template is already created for you and all you have to do is fill up the template with your videos and photos. Overall, iMovie for iOS is feature packed and really easy to use, beating even some of the paid apps on the App Store. The iMovie iOS app should work seamlessly with the Mac version.
Video Crop (Free)
While editing some of the videos for my reviews, there are often times when I want to crop the videos but most mobile video editing apps do not come with this feature. If you face the same dilema as me, you should try Video Crop. There are a few apps on the app store that can crop videos but I chose this app due to its simplicity. Unlike other apps, all Video Crop does is crop your videos. Afterall, why have it trim and add texts when there are apps like iMovie that already do it so well. There are ads in this app but they are not too intrusive. You can pay to remove ads, but SG$4.48 is too much in my opinion.
Conclusion
The photo and video editing apps on your phone may not be as powerful as its PC counterparts but most of the basic stuff can be done on your phone and you may not even need to spend a single penny on these apps, depending on your requirements. Are there other photo/video editing apps that you frequently use? What would you like to see Butterfly Mobile recommend next?