Top Camera and Photo Editing Apps for Your iPhone

If you’ve recently acquired a new iPhone, there are numerous ways to leverage the fantastic cameras now available at your fingertips. I’ve curated a selection of top camera and photo editing applications to elevate your photography game on your iPhone. Even veteran iPhone users may find these apps worth exploring.

Halide

Halide stands out as one of the most esteemed apps for dedicated mobile photographers, and it’s also a personal favorite of mine. It offers a comprehensive suite of advanced controls typically found in professional cameras, such as shutter speed, ISO, and white balance adjustments.

Beyond its manual settings, Halide incorporates innovative features powered by artificial intelligence and other technologies to improve your photos. For example, users of the iPhone XR and iPhone SE (2nd gen) can take portrait shots of animals and objects despite not having dual rear camera lenses.

The app enables users to capture impressive RAW images, view histograms and metadata, finely tune focus with focus peaking, export depth maps, set Siri shortcuts, and more. I particularly appreciate the Process Zero function, which bypasses the iPhone’s standard image processing, allowing for more authentic photos.

You can try Halide for free on the App Store; it offers an annual subscription priced at $19.99 or a one-time license fee of $59.99 following a 7-day trial period.

Pro Camera by Moment

Pro Camera by Moment is an excellent choice for users seeking total control over their iPhone photography. It provides complete manual controls, with options for exposure and ISO adjustments, RAW support, manual focus, slow shutter speeds, and 4K time-lapse functionality.

Interestingly, Pro Camera extends its manual controls to video capture, allowing users to easily switch between varying resolutions, frame rates, and color profiles — including LOG format for iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max users. Additionally, there is support for multiple bitrates and anamorphic lenses.

The Pro Camera app by Moment is available for purchase on the App Store for $8.99, with additional features accessible through in-app purchases.

Photon

Photon provides the essential controls needed for crafting stunning professional photographs. Created by the developers behind the popular Camera+, Photon includes various options for manually adjusting and managing the iPhone camera prior to capturing images. Users can adjust focus, exposure (including shutter speed and ISO), and white balance precisely.

The app offers advanced features such as Focus Peaking, which highlights the areas where the lens is in focus. Photon supports diverse photo formats like HEIF, JPEG, ProRAW, and RAW. Additionally, iPhone 14 Pro users can effortlessly select between 12-megapixel and 48-megapixel resolutions when utilizing the primary wide lens.

Photon is available on the App Store and requires an iPhone running iOS 16 or later. While the app can be downloaded for free, access to manual controls necessitates a monthly subscription of $3.99 or an annual subscription for $19.99.

Darkroom

Once you’ve captured stunning images with your iPhone, you’ll want professional-grade editing tools — without needing a computer. Darkroom is one of my preferred photo editors, as it’s accessible not just on iPhone, but also on iPad and Mac.

One remarkable aspect of Darkroom is its intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it accessible even to novice photographers. The app seamlessly integrates with the iCloud Photo Library, allowing you to skip the hassle of selecting and importing photos for editing.

With Darkroom, you can modify brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, color temperature, and more for the photos you’ve already taken. It also enables video editing, supports Live Photos, and includes a curve editor, watermark options, advanced RAW photo support, and even integration with the Halide app.

The majority of Darkroom’s features are available for free on the App Store, with a $6.99 monthly subscription unlocking all functionalities.

Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is a renowned photo editor utilized by countless professionals across the globe. Although it’s best known for its desktop application, Adobe also provides a mobile version of Lightroom for iOS.

Editing your photos in Lightroom for iOS is incredibly straightforward, even for RAW images. The app provides tools to tweak lighting, colors, effects, details, and more. You can apply lens corrections, distort images, or utilize the auto mode to optimize settings for your photos. It also comes equipped with various color profiles and presets.

If you’re a subscriber to Adobe Creative Cloud, syncing between mobile and desktop versions is seamless — allowing you to start editing on your iPhone and complete it on your Mac or iPad.

The mobile version of Lightroom can be downloaded for free on the App Store, but a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud maximizes your experience.

DoubleTake

Since photography isn’t solely about still images, this compilation wouldn’t be complete without an app designed for video. DoubleTake, created by the developers behind FiLMiC Pro, introduces a novel way to record videos using your iPhone.

Sometimes, recording video from a single camera just won’t suffice, which is why DoubleTake presents an efficient solution. If you’ve ever found the need to film from two different perspectives for enhanced production quality, the app allows you to select two of the iPhone’s cameras to capture simultaneously.

You can opt for ultra-wide, wide, telephoto, or selfie lenses to generate a multi-camera video. The app also accommodates frame rate adjustments between 24, 25, and 30 fps. There’s no complex setup — simply launch the app, choose your cameras, and start recording.

DoubleTake can be downloaded for free on the App Store.

Photomator

Photomator is an image editing application from the developers of the acclaimed illustration software Pixelmator, which Apple has recently acquired. Despite this, Photomator remains accessible on the App Store, delivering robust editing tools for photos.

With Photomator, you can manipulate colors, apply gradients, adjust lighting conditions, remove unwanted objects with AI, and even enhance image resolution utilizing machine learning. The app is also compatible with over 750 RAW image formats, including Apple ProRAW and various Fujifilm RAW formats.

Photomator is available on the App Store for free — users can choose between a subscription model or purchase a one-time license, typically priced at $119.99. The app supports iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Wrap Up

With the applications listed here, you have all the tools necessary to start capturing and editing images like an expert using your iPhone. While some applications such as Halide come with a price tag, there are plenty of fantastic free alternatives available in the App Store to enhance your photography.

Is there an app that you use for improving your photos that I haven’t included in my list? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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