Be In Control Of Your Photo Apps

So...who takes photos upon photos on their nifty cell phone?! {Raises hand} I do & I'm pretty positive many bloggers do as well. Owning a "smartphone" is in my opinion a necessity for a blogger and many of us including myself are left questioning which apps are best for image editing and just taking photographs. In this post I will introduce some of my favorites as well as other popular apps in the digital world today. 

Like Heidi (below post) exclaims, at some point any blogger will probably need to take a photo. Many of you may not have access to a DSLR or even a point n' shoot camera and strictly rely on a camera phone and hopefully this will help out. 

Apps in general are sometimes hit or miss and that can definitely be applied to the photography apps on the market. I've downloaded and uninstalled many, loved some and almost threw my phone out the door because of others. So how do you choose the right app(s)? Luckily many are free so you can easily download and test out each app. Hopefully this post will spare you the trail and error process like my photo friends & I have already gone through!
*Warning: Please do not think that the number system I'm using is a rating system!

-Be Your Own Editor-

1. VSCO CAM | IPHONE | $.99
An easy to use app made for the photographer that loves realistic, film images. The app is a simplistic design based off of their VSCO Film Packs for photographers, and most professional photographers I know use this app to process their images. It is for quick and easy editing & sharing.

10 filters, ability to adjust brightness and contrast plus add grain
1 con - not able to crop

2. AFTERGLOW | IPHONE | $.99
Ashley's favorite app! :) Afterglow offers many textures, filters, adjustment tools that many bloggers must have. It allows the user to be more creative and a great perk is that they run guest filters; which means more filters will be added often (many apps do not accept user designed ideas).

30+ filters, ability to use adjustment tools and add effects
No cons

3. SNAPSEED | IPHONE & DROID | FREE
Since I do not have an iPhone, this is my "start point" to every photograph I take. It supports high resolution files and even RAW images on an iPad. Snapsneed does just about everything from adjusting an image's brightness to adding and tweeking certain filters.

Selective adjusting, straighten and crop images, filters which you can adjust strength and/or effects
1 con - not many frame options

4. PIXLR EXPRESS | IPHONE & DROID | FREE
My favorite app for my Samsung Galaxy s3. Why? Because the wide variety of effects and you can adjust with many options similar to Pixlr's free online editor. For a free app it really is incredible because it offers hundreds of options!

About 600 different options that are easy to use, includes an autofix tool that actually works, I use this all the time, check out the Pixlr-O-Matic
1 con - be careful if you hit the "back" button on your phone, it will exit the image you are currently working on without any warning!

5. VIGNETTE | DROID | $2.60
This app has been on the Android Market for awhile and it has proven to be one of the top photo apps. When opened you go into their camera interface which offers many on the go adjustments before you even take your first photo. After the photo is taken you can compose it with different effects based on films, popular effects and/or basic options.

Save your favorite effects (create presets basically), own camera interface, nice frames/borders, simple to drastic effects, double exposures
1 con - cost (but there is a free demo)

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That is all for now...There are many more apps out there so my advice is to (if free) test them all before purchasing any pro versions. The above 5 are what I have used or my friends use that come highly recommended.

Do you currently use any of these photo apps? Do you use a different one? Tell us your favorite cell phone photo app!