If you just got a new iPhone, there’s a lot you can do to get the most out of the great camera in your pocket. We’ve picked out some of the best camera and photo editing apps to help you enhance your shots from your iPhone. Even if you’ve been using an iPhone for years, these apps are worth checking out.
halide
Halide is probably the most popular app for serious mobile photography and one of my favorite iPhone apps. It has all the advanced controls you’d expect from a professional camera, including shutter speed, ISO, and white balance adjustments.
However, Halide is more than a camera app with manual controls. The app has some unique features that use artificial intelligence and other technologies to enhance your photos. For example, iPhone XR and iPhone SE (2nd generation) users can take portrait photos of animals and objects without the need for two rear camera lenses.
You can also capture high-quality RAW photos, see histogram and metadata information, adjust focus precisely with focus peaking, export image depth maps, and set Siri shortcuts.
You can try Halide for free on the App Store. This app requires an annual subscription for $11.99 or a perpetual license for $59.99 after a 7-day trial period.
Pro camera moment by moment
Pro Camera by Moment is another great app for users who want full control over how they take photos on their iPhone. Full manual control is available, including exposure and ISO adjustments, RAW support, manual focus, slow shutter, and even his 4K time-lapse.
Interestingly, Pro Camera offers the same manual controls when shooting videos with your iPhone, not just photos. Users can easily switch between different resolutions, frame rates, and color profiles, including his LOG for iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Multiple bitrates and anamorphic lenses are also supported.
Pro Camera by Moment is available on the App Store for $8.99. Some additional features can be unlocked through in-app purchases.
photon
Photon gives you all the controls you need to create powerful professional photos. Developed by the creators of the popular His Camera+, Photon has multiple options to manually adjust and control his iPhone’s camera before taking a photo. Users can precisely adjust focus, exposure (via shutter speed and ISO settings), and white balance.
To perfect your photos, Photon offers advanced tools like focus peaking, which highlights exactly where your lens is in focus. The app also supports various photo formats such as HEIF, JPEG, ProRAW, and RAW. If you have an iPhone 14 Pro, this app makes it easy to choose between 12-megapixel and 48-megapixel photos when using the main wide-angle lens.
Photon is currently available in the App Store and requires an iPhone running iOS 16 or later. It’s free to download, but manual controls are only available with a $3.99 monthly subscription or $19.99 annual subscription.
dark room
After you take great photos with your iPhone, you’ll need professional tools to edit them, but you don’t need a computer to do that. Darkroom is one of my favorite photo editors because it is available not only for iPhone but also for iPad and Mac.
One of the best things about Darkroom is that the app is very intuitive and easy to use, even if you’re not a professional photographer. The app is integrated with iCloud Photo Library, so you don’t have to waste time selecting or importing the photos you want to edit.
Darkroom lets you adjust the brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, color temperature, and other details of the photos you’ve already taken. You can also edit videos and Live Photos with this app. Additionally, there’s a curve editor, watermark options, advanced support for RAW photos, and even integration with the Halide app.
The best part is that you can use most of Darkroom’s features for free, available from the App Store. There is a $4.99 monthly subscription to unlock all app features.
Fokos
Focus is a must-have app for anyone who loves taking portrait photos with their iPhone. Apple has been slow to allow users to change the background blur level in portrait photos, but the Focos app has offered this option since its 2017 release.
But Focos doesn’t just adjust the blur in portrait photos, it also generates different apertures with multiple bokeh spot effects and has presets that simulate the feel of a professional lens in your photos. There are also options to add 3D lighting and change the depth map of your photo to adjust background blur.
What’s even more impressive is that Focos can use AI to create artificial depth maps for any photo, even if it wasn’t taken in portrait mode on an iPhone. It’s amazing what you can do with your photos using this app.
Focus is available for free from the App Store, but after the free trial period ends, you must pay a subscription to use the app.
light room
Adobe Lightroom is a famous photo editor used by many professionals around the world. Although known for its desktop version, Adobe also offers a mobile version of Lightroom for iOS.
It’s super easy to edit your photos in Lightroom for iOS, even if they’re shot in RAW. The app includes options to adjust lighting, colors, effects, details, and more. You can also distort photos, apply lens corrections, and use automatic mode to set the best settings for that image. It also features a variety of color profiles and settings presets.
If you subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, you can sync everything between the mobile and desktop versions of the app, so you can start editing photos on your iPhone and finish on your Mac or iPad.
The mobile version of Lightroom is available for free on the App Store, but you can get the most out of the app by becoming an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber.
double take
Cameras aren’t just about photos, so this list wouldn’t be complete without an app that lets you manipulate videos. DoubleTake is an app created by the same company as his FiLMiC Pro that allows a new way to record videos on your iPhone.
In some cases, capturing video from one camera is not enough. That’s why DoubleTake provided a simple and smart solution. If you need to record videos from two different angles to create more authentic content, this app allows you to select your iPhone’s two cameras and capture them all at the same time.
To start multicam videos, you can choose from ultra-wide, wide-angle, telephoto, and selfie lenses. The app also allows you to switch between 24, 25, and 30 frames per second. There are no complicated settings. Just open the app, select the camera you want, and start recording.
DoubleTake is available for free from the App Store.
summary
With these apps listed here, you’ll have everything you need to start shooting and editing like a pro on your iPhone. While there are some paid apps like Halide, you can find some great free photo-editing alternatives on the App Store.
Are there any other apps you use to take better photos that I didn’t mention on my list? Let me know in the comments below.
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