7 great photo editors for your iPad

Posted by Campbell Bird on November 4th, 2015

There was a time when there was no other way than to edit photos on a computer, even after the arrival of the first few waves of tablets and phones.

Recent hardware and software innovations have made it so that editing photos - particularly on an iPad - is not only doable, but easy and effective.

Check out this list of seven great photo editors for your iPad.


Adobe Lightroom for iPad

iPad App - Designed for iPad
Released: 2014-04-08 :: Category: Game

FREE!

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is the most fully-featured editor I've seen on a tablet.

That being said, it's only "free" for 30 days, and otherwise costs $9.99/month for an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, which, granted, gives you access to a lot more of Adobe's Creative Suite beyond Lightroom.

Pixelmator

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2014-10-24 :: Category: Game

$9.99

As a more analog editor, Pixelmator can adjust everything on local areas of a photo by touching.

While not quite as fully featured or automated as something like Lightroom, it costs a lot less and is definitely effective.

Snapseed

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2011-06-07 :: Category: Game

FREE!

This is Google's mobile editor that focuses on editing one photo at a time.

The app also has agreat interface for phones, so this might be a good choice for people that want familiar editing interfaces across their devices.

Facetune

iPhone App - Designed for iPhone, compatible with iPad
Released: 2013-03-07 :: Category: Game

$3.99

Facetune isn't a fully fledged photo editor as much as an app specially designed for touching up photos of faces.

It's disappointing that it's not a universal app but its face tuning tools feel like magic, making Facetune a must for those that like to take portraits or selfies.

Photogene ⁴

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-04-01 :: Category: Game

$2.99

Photogene⁴ seems like a middle ground between Lightroom and Pixelmator.

It's definitely a less capable (but handily cheaper) editor, but it offers a lot of presets and other adjustment tools that can help the uninitiated edit photos easily, even though the app's interface isn't the best.

Camera+ Legacy

iPhone & Apple Watch App - Designed for iPhone and Apple Watch, compatible with iPad
Released: 2010-06-07 :: Category: Game

$4.99

Camera+ is a camera alternative for iOS that also has a suite of somewhat simplified editing tools that work great on phones and tablets.

For someone that just wants an ultra-streamlined capture-then-edit workflow on the go, Camera+ is a great pick.

Afterlight

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2012-11-05 :: Category: Game

$0.99

Afterlight feels like what Instagram might make if they released a standalone photo editor.

This is to say that the app is very filter focused, though it also has a lot of more standard photo editing tools to boot, making it a good choice for someone who cut their teeth editing in Instagram and is now looking for a little more.

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