Essential Photography Apps

The apps you need for planning, editing, and uploading photos on Instagram

Photography and social media go hand in hand. There are hundreds of apps on the market that aim to make a photographer's job easier, whether you are a professional or an amateur. To help you select the essential apps for your smartphone, we have whittled down the list and chosen a few favorites by three experts: Mina Barrio (@minabarrio), Héctor Merienda (@hectormerienda), and creative couple Anna Devís and Daniel Rueda (@annandaniel).

Yep! They are all available for both iOS and Android.

Planning the shot: the perfect time and place

The work of a photographer begins long before getting behind the camera. Planning is often needed to achieve the perfect shot, and technology has facilitated this process a fair deal.

Photopills
One of Héctor Merienda's favorites, this app allows you to know the exact position of the sun, the moon, and the stars so that you can literally align them to take the picture you have in mind. Besides helping you plan the shoot, Photopills enables creating a location database and calculates the exposure times when using filters, with bad lighting, or at night. It's an ideal tool for lovers of timelapse.

Photo editing: the magic of filters

Our cell phones have become small pocket studios thanks to some great editing apps that allow us to adjust all our photos' parameters. Every photographer should be familiar with the list below.

Retouch
Even the best-planned shots may include a small element clashing with the composition and spoiling the image. A tool like Retouch means you can quickly and skillfully eliminate unwanted stuff from your digital photographs.

VSCO
One of the most popular image editing apps online. What makes VSCO stand out most is not merely the camera and the photo-sharing features it includes, but the extensive gallery of filters and editing options. These can help adjust parameters, such as the filter tool's settings and the contrast, saturation, and grain levels.

A color story
Mina Barrio is a confessed fan of this editing app, the key reason being the colors. It also includes hundreds of effects, filters, and tools to adjust many of your photos' parameters and add personality. One of this app’s best features is that it allows you to edit various pictures simultaneously, thus saving time when dealing with a large volume of work.

Adobe Lightroom
An extension of the desktop app already favored by many photographers. In contrast with other tools designed for smartphones, Adobe Lightroom allows you to work with RAW files, edit curved photos, play with white balance, contrast, exposure, and modify the perspective.

Snapseed
This is another photo editing app you should have installed on your smartphone, as recommended by Héctor Merienda and creative duo Anna Devís and Daniel Rueda. Available both on Google Play and the App Store, Snapseed allows for meticulous photo editing. Its main feature is the possibility to selectively cover up points of the image. It also includes a tool similar to the Photoshop clone stamp to correct small flaws.

Sharing on social media: show your talent to the world

Photography has become more popular thanks to platforms such as Instagram, and the best way to get your work known is by showing it off on social media. Although you can still do all the work manually, the following apps can help planning when posting your photos.

UNUM
Anna Devís and Daniel Rueda recommend this visual planning tool that allows them to preview the appearance of their Instagram feed even before posting their photos. You can also schedule publications, show post statistics, and create 3x3 tile grids with a single image.

Later
Héctor Merienda relies on the app Later for organizing his Instagram feed. It is a powerful tool for managing your feed using the calendar, and, just as for UNUM, it shows you a preview of your grid before posting your photos so you can create a balanced composition.

English version by @acesarato.

You may be interested in:

- Introduction to Digital Photography, a course by Jesús G. Pastor.
- Photography and Composition for Instagram, a course by Héctor Merienda.
- Professional Photography for Instagram, a course by Mina Barrio.
- Creative Photography for Social Media, a course by Anna Devís and Daniel Rueda.