We’re all familiar with taking a photo on our phone, adding a filter and uploading it to social media. It’s fast, convenient and can be fun.
But what if you need to use images for your business? Will those same photos work there?
Not all that long ago, you would need to hire a professional photographer and/or photo editor to create business-quality imagery.
That’s no longer the case.
The quality of phone cameras is more than up to the task and phone editing apps are so sophisticated, they can deliver pro-quality images on demand.
Want to remove the background from an image? No problem. Want to remove objects from photos to showcase a product? That’s no problem either with the right app.
Apps have democratized content creation and now enable anyone, with any level of skill to create publishable images.
Photo Editing Apps
If you run an online store, sell on eBay or Etsy, or need product images for your website, photo apps can help.
Rather than having to hire someone or pay for Photoshop, you can download a photo editing app, remove the background or whatever it is you want to do, and publish the image.
It’s faster, cheaper, and more convenient than ever before.
How We Evaluate Photo Editing Apps
We could talk about generative AI, stable diffusion, or Memory Efficient Attention, but that’s the kind of topic that excites us and developers. It’s not necessarily something that would excite you.
As a busy business owner, you’re likely more interested in speed, ease of use, and the end result. That’s how we evaluated these photo editing apps.
We also mention cost too as that’s also important!
How easy are they to use? How complicated is it to remove objects from photos or perform background removal? How good are the results?
Your business is judged on results, so it’s only fair we judge the tools you use the same way.
Top 5 Mobile Photo Editing Apps
So that’s the how and why, now let’s get to the what. What do we think are the top 5 mobile editing apps you can use right now?
PhotoRoom – Free – Android and iOS
PhotoRoom is designed for small businesses and store owners. It can remove backgrounds, remove objects from photos, create a transparent background and even has an AI background generator.
The app is very simple to use. Load the image, select the effect you want and let the power of AI deliver the result.
In our tests, all images were publishable on a website and none had artifacts or required touching up. That’s good enough for us!
Picsart AI Photo Editor – Free – Android and iOS
Picsart AI Photo Editor has a similar goal to PhotoRoom, to provide image editing tools driven by AI. There’s less for free with Picart and there are paywalls for some features, but what it does, it does well.
The app is simple to use but takes longer to process images than PhotoRoom. The results are equally good though.
In our tests, images came out well but took a little time. The addition of (paid) AI copy, image sharpening and effects make this an app worth checking out.
Adobe Lightroom Mobile – $4.99/mo – Android and iOS
Adobe Lightroom Mobile continues the brand’s drive to deliver the ultimate image editing software. Yes, it’s expensive and can be complex, but it’s also powerful and works seamlessly with the desktop version.
It may be overkill for a store owner wanting to remove a background from images or generate an AI background. But it can do so much, it’s hard not to recommend it.
In our testing, Adobe Lightroom Mobile created excellent images but isn’t as intuitive to use as some of these others. Buy if you value power over ease of use.
Snapseed – Free – Android and iOS
Snapseed goes in the opposite direction to Adobe. It is incredibly easy to use even though you still have a ton of powerful editing tools. It’s almost on par with PhotoRoom for how quickly you can remove backgrounds from images or create a transparent background.
The app uses a simple menu function to select tools and works quickly. You can tune images, crop and add effects from that same menu.
In our testing, we found the results to be good, but not amazing. They would work perfectly well for online stores and small business use though.
Pixlr – Free – Android and iOS
Pixlr is for occasional use where you need to touch up an image before putting it on your website and to remove objects from photos. It isn’t as fast or as powerful as PhotoRoom but does many of the same things.
The basic app is free and comes with effects, filters, background removal, AI background generator and collage tools.
When we tested, the images came out credibly well. We would suggest it would work more for socials than brochures, but it could create decent store images too with a little work.
Top Mobile Photo Editing Apps
Ansel Adams is quoted as saying, ‘You don’t take a photograph, you make it’. While he probably didn’t have photo editing apps in mind when he said that, it’s as true for them as it is for any other aspect of photography.
Apps are a great leveler. They enable anyone with any level of skill to create publishable images with minimum training and effort.
For that, we applaud them!
Which of these top 5 mobile photo editing apps do you use? Do you have any others to suggest?
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