Insert Photo Into Photo App

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

There are three types of photo editors on Android. There are some that try to rival desktop photo editors in power like Adobe Lightroom CC. The second type is a lighter editor like Snapseed that does the basics and tries to do the work for you. Finally, we have the social media filter photo editors that don't do much but add some fun effects. There are enough of all three of those options to make one's head spin so we made a list of the best photo editors for Android. Please note, none of these have the power that something like Gimp, Lightroom, or Photoshop has. For more serious photo editing, you'll still need a computer.

Adobe has released a plethora of editing tools over the last couple of years. Included are some of the best photo editor apps available. Some of the options include Adobe Photoshop Express, Adobe Photoshop Mix, and Adobe Lightroom. Each one has a variety of features to help you do things. You'll be able to do simple stuff like removing red eye to editing RAW files taken by your smartphone or DSLR camera. Adobe Lightroom especially gets updated rather frequently with new features. The only potential caveat is that some of them require an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription in order to use all of the features. Those who already use Adobe CC should definitely just get these since they're included with a CC subscription anyway.

AirBrush

Price: Free / $3.99 per month / $19.99 per year

AirBrush is an excellent option for editing photos of people. It features a lot of people-focused features such as pimple removal, skin smoothing, red eye removal, and a teeth and eye brightener function. There is also a bokeh mode to turn any photo into one with a blurry background. In addition, the app comes with a separate camera function that lets you edit the photo before you take it. Thus, you can get your selfie framed up in the camera and then apply edits before taking the final product. There is a subscription for some of the more advanced features, but you do get a 7-day free trial to try it before you spend anything.

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Fotor Photo Editor

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Fotor is a long time member of this list and there are many blogs and lists that list Fotor as a must have option. We agree. It's has a lot more actual editing tools than most and includes the ability to enhance photos with a one-tap tool for your convenience. Some of the other tools include crop, rotate, brightness, contrast, saturation, exposure, vignetting, shadow, highlights, temperature, tint, RGB, and, if those aren't working, there are over 100 filters for you to choose from. It's definitely worth a shot. The only downside is that the app makes you log in to use it and it's one of the more expensive photo editor apps.

InShot Photo Editor Pro

Price: Free / $7.99 per year

InShot Photo Editor Pro is a fairly decent editor. This is a new style editor with tons of things like filters, stickers, and other such effects. The app houses all of these effects in a store-style layout and you can pick and choose the ones you want to download. Of course, some of them are only available on the pro subscription so prepare for that. In any case, it does actually edit some photos. You can do things like retouch photos, cut things out of the image, and it covers the other basics like cropping and such. We think the $7.99 per year subscription is relatively reasonable as long as you use the app consistently. Plus, the developer has a bunch of other photo and video editor apps in the Play Store.

LightX Photo Editor

Price: Free / $2.99 per month / $14.99 per year / $40.00 once

LightX is one of the upcoming photo editor apps. It had rousing success on iOS. There are quite a few decent features as well. It has a background changer tool, color splash effects, and a range of slider tools like color balance, levels, and curve. You can even merge photos together. There are also blur features, photo collages, shape manipulation, and stickers. It's still in beta. That means there are bugs. However, it should eventually be among the top five or so photo editors out there.

Motionleap (formerly Enlight Pixaloop) is a neat photography app with some pretty cool tricks. It turns static photos into GIF style images with some simple swipes and taps. The effect works best with things like water or clouds, but there are plenty of other examples of use as well. Some other features include adding elements that weren't there before and overlays that can add to the ambiance of a photo. This won't get the red eye out or crop your photo. However, the ability to add some extra effects is kind of neat. The only real downside is Enlight is super expensive with a $3.99 per month subscription or a single $59.99 price tag. However, we do appreciate that we can buy the app in full if we want to.

PhotoDirector Photo Editor

Price: Free / $2.99 per month / $17.99

PhotoDirector is a newer entrant (comparatively speaking) into the photo editing space on Android and this one is pretty good. Like Fotor, this one focuses a lot more on manual enhancements rather than filters and you have access to HSL sliders, RGB color channels, white balance, and more to properly edit your photos. There are also sliders for tone, brightness, darkness, exposure, and contrast for more in-depth editing. It's more powerful than most and should be good for those who want something other than filters.

Photo Effects Pro

Price: Free

Photo Effects Pro is definitely an editor for those who like to play with filters, effects, stickers, and things like that. It boasts more than 40 filters and effects as well as the ability to add text, stickers, and frames as well. The editing features are actually pretty basic. However, the developers recently redid the application and with it came the removal of a few beloved filters and features. Hopefully the developers add those back in soon.

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Photo Lab Picture Editor

Price: Free / $9.99

Photo Lab isn't among the most popular photo editor apps. The app manages to do quite well, though. It boasts over 640 filters, frames, and effects for you to play with which makes it among the largest collections available to consumers. With this one, you can create montages, lightly edit photos, stitch together effects to create some unique photos to share with friends. There is a free version with advertising and watermarks. You can try the free one first before purchasing the pro version.

Photo Mate R3

Price: Free trial / $7.49

Photo Mate R3 is the spiritual successor to Photo Mate R2 which was one of the best photo editors on the list. It's still rather new so do expect it to evolve and get better over time. For now, you'll have access to a fairly strong suite of editing tools, including all of the basics. It also has native support for RAW files which is great for photographers. The app also comes with a Lens Collection so you can fix lens issues including vignetting, distortion, and chromatic aberration. This is about as pro as it gets on Android. The only downside is that other photo editors are getting similar features.

PicsArt has been around for a very long time and has accumulated over 250 million downloads to date. Thankfully, the developers have done a decent job updating the app to keep it modern. You'll find a lot of the usual stuff including the light editing tools as well as filters, text, stickers, and collages. It boasts over 100 editing tools as well as a community of creative people to share stuff with. You can also use this app to generate animated gifs and even draw stuff on your photos. It's a strong option with a lot of features. There are also plenty of other photo tools by PicsArt.

Pixlr

Price: Free / $1.99

Pixlr by AutoDesk, also known as Pixlr Express, is a powerful photo editor and one that our readers have recommended to us time and time again. It has one of the best one-touch enhance tools that we've seen and it also includes a ton of other features and tools that you can use. There are also filters, although it cleverly disguises them as "overlays" and also includes cosmetic editing tools like blemish removers and teeth whiteners. It one of the better photo editor apps with a little something for everybody.

Snapseed is definitely among the best photo editor apps. Google bought this a few years ago. The app has grown into quite a powerful photo editor in this space. It has support for RAW photos which will please photographers greatly. You can also tune the image using a variety of sliders and one-touch enhance tools. There are also some filters as well if you're into that. It's deceptively light and simple for how powerful it is. The app is also one of the rare free photo editor apps with no ads or in-app purchases. This is the one we'd recommend first, followed by the Adobe apps and then everything else. However, this app also hasn't had an update since 2018 so we're not sure if this is in active development anymore.

TouchRetouch

Price: $1.99

TouchRetouch is one of the more unique photo editor apps. It doesn't do the usual stuff like smooth your skin or remove redeye. Instead, it removes other stuff from the photo. You can do things like remove unsightly power lines from your shot, small objects that you don't want there, and in some cases, you can even remove people. The app either works insanely well or not at all. We don't recommend that you expect miracles, but it does do a fairly decent job most of the time. It runs for a single $1.99 purchase, so be sure to test it before the refund phase runs out. You can also use it for free with Google Play Pass if you have it.

Vimage

Price: Free / $1.99 per month / $11.99 per year / $24.99 once

Vimage is a newer photo editor app with some decent features. It's very similar to the LG V40's cinemagraph feature. You can take photos with no moving elements and add moving elements to them. You can do basic editing like brightness, blur, crop, rotate, saturation, and other stuff. Then, you can add any one of a number of pre-made animations to the photo to give it life. During our testing, I added steam to a food item and falling flower pedals to a selfie (don't judge). This creates some unique animated photos that you simply don't see every day. The app has a couple of subscription options or a single purchase price if you don't mind the cost.