Taking pictures on handheld devices and blasting them to everyone you know, has become the norm of today’s social generation. Snaps of our pets, our dinner, and even ourselves (“selfies”) can be found stored in the library of most people’s iPads. With all the work that has been done on the technology end of things, to enhance the megapixels and quality of the camera, it’s no wonder the App world is keeping up by enabling user’s to have fun with and perfect, their digital masterpiece’s.
Anyone with even a casual interest in photography (or maybe just making silly image edits) is familiar with a program called Adobe Photoshop. Powerful and versatile, Photoshop has enjoyed a cozy station as the king of digital darkrooms for years. But it’s important to remember that Photoshop – which can admittedly get a little pricey – doesn’t have a monopoly on photography software, and there are plenty of other great options available for iPad users. To spare you the laborious task of surfing the web, we’ve compiled our list of the ten best free photo editing and sharing apps for iPad.
Arguably one of the best-known photography tools after Photoshop, Instagram boasts a monthly average of 150 million users (as of December, 2013). The Instagram app is free to use, with no adds or purchases required. Choose from a variety of fun filters to give your photography a diverse range of looks.
PicCollage
As the name suggests, PicCollage is designed to help you make collages out of your photographs. Whether you want to make mom a gift out of baby photos, or just experiment with collage-making for fun, PicCollage is your free and easy resource for iPad.
Pixlr-o-Matic
Like Instagram, the Pixlr-o-Matic app is designed to allow users to easily try out a long list of filters and effects on their photos. Take pictures right from the app, or import from a photo roll on your iPad. LA Weekly says, “Pixlr-o-matic isn’t the only app that lets you do this, but it’s the best.”
PopBooth Photo Booth
Presto, instant photo booth! PopBooth Photo Booth is a free app which imitates the look and feel of a real-life photo booth, which makes it perfect for social gatherings and those nights out with friends. The app itself is free, but if you want to shell out a paltry three bucks, you can have hard copies of your images mailed anywhere in the world.
PhotoPad By ZAGG
PhotoPad by ZAGG doesn’t specialize in any particular set of filters or styles. Instead, it’s a versatile tool that covers all the basics of photo editing. If you need to crop, resize, or rotate your images, PhotoPad is the app for you. Other capabilities include color adjustment, drawing, and red-eye editing.
Fotolr Photo Studio
Like PhotoPad, Fotolr is a generalized, multi-purpose photo editing app that specializes in portrait touch-ups. Give yourself a digital makeover (not that you need it) with features including teeth whitening, acne removal, or even a full-blown face lift. Also includes basic features like image rotate, add text, crop, and adjustments.
Labelbox
If you like to make labels for your photographs, Labelbox is the free app for you. Labelbox allows users to add fun flourishes to your images with a variety of ribbon and text styles. Labelbox is free to download, but offers an expanded array features for those who want to make an in-app purchase.
BeFunky Photo Editor
Be funky with BeFunky Photo Editor. BeFunky gives users the power to load their images with effects (e.g. duotone, old photo, grunge), add text, play with hue, exposure, and saturation, and instantly share completed projects. As an added perk, this app is refreshingly ad-free.
PhotoWizard Free
PhotoWizard Free offers a smorgasbord of photo editing tools. Users can experiment with a long list of filters and effects, or make more straightforward tweaks like rotate, straighten, crop, and flip. PhotoWizard Free also allows image masking for even more editing flexibility.
Snapseed
Scott Kelby, President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, calls Snapseed “…hands down the best photo app for the iPad to date.” Snapseed earns its praise by offering features like selective adjustments, a diverse selection of filters (e.g. Retrolux, Vintage, Tilt-Shift), and frame additions. If you’re feeling pressed for time (or maybe just a little lazy), edit an image with a single touch by using the Auto Correct feature.
After crystallizing the images, saturating the color, and enhancing the sharpness we will want to make sure we store our pictures in an efficient manner. Some say it helps them by making folders, or albums, organizing the pictures by event. Other’s like to do so by picture type. That way, when someone asks to see a picture of your latest crush you have it up and ready to show off! Keeping your edited pictures organized is the best way to show off your skills (they don’t have to know it was all that easy!)
And there you have it – ten powerful, flexible photo editing apps for your iPad. Best of all, they’re all free! That should keep you busy editing for awhile
Snapseed : Very good editing tool! Haven't seen anything like it before, so far so good on my iPad. The only thing I didn't like is – the app does not follow the auto-rotate screen settings I set on my iPad. It rotates the app screen to landscape mode even if I turned the auto-rotate screen off.