Best iPhone camera, photo and video editing apps (2014 edition)

The iPhone has evolved to be a fantastic camera, but you can get even more out of it and develop your own photographic style with a few apps handy. This list of apps is updated with iOS 6, and the latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in mind.

Camera replacement: ProCamera 8 ($3.99)

 ProCamera 8 (a free update from ProCamera 7, the developer is obviously linking up app version numbers with iOS releases) is a surprisingly simple camera app at the surface, that also hides many advanced features in a way that is unobtrusive yet easy to access. Before we jump into them, though, it’s worth pointing out how stable and crash-free this app is, something very important given that even the most popular iPhone camera apps often crash.

In terms of shooting options, ProCamera 8 has gotten the absolute fullest pack of manual controls available with an extremely intuitive and easy to use interface. We are blown away by the level of fine control and the ease of use of this app (and we don't get impressed easily): you can set ISO, shutter speed (and lock them!), white balance (down to the Kelvin, with a guide that shows you which settings is appropriate for which conditions), exposure compensation, you also have independent focus and exposure controls as an alternative control and that gives you a much deeper hold over the looks of your photograph (you can naturally lock focus and exposure). 

The histogram is a thing of beauty and usefulness: you get a live histogram that shows you when you start blowing up highlights or going too deep in the blacks. Other neat options include a tiltmeter, anti-shake option, and a self-timer, as well as the option to select the right aspect ratio. If you're aiming for maximum-quality, ProCamera 7 delivers with support for the lossless TIFF format, and if you dive deeper in the settings of the app you'll find a treasure trove of adjustments such as fine control of the level of stabilization, JPEG compression levels, and many more.

Unlike other camera replacement apps, ProCamera 8 can also be used to record video and it has the neat built-in option to scan QR codes. The video mode is not all that advanced, though (it does not allow you to select a 60fps option yet, for instance, but we hope the app developer will soon add this capability). Its outstanding photographic capabilities, however, make Pro Camera 8 our favorite camera replacement to the stock iPhone app.

Runner-up: Camera+ ($1.99)

 Camera+ has now also been updated for iOS 8 and it is a close runner-up to ProCamera 8. It's a simpler app that supports some of the same features: you now get manual ISO, shutter speed, white balance, and exposure compensation, or you can go with a separated exposure and focus controls. 

Camera+ brings a tilt meter (horizon level), rapid shots, and a few other options. It comes with the benefit of allowing you to separately lock exposure, focus, or white balance, plus it also has rich image editing options, but we found it crashing more than once when we tried saving images at the highest quality setting, and it cannot record video. All of this makes it a good camera replacement alternative for still images, but it lacks the intuitiveness of controls to be a true favorite.

Retro: Hipstamatic ($1.99)

The charm of Hipstamatic lies in the fact that unlike other apps, you apply the lens, filter and flash before taking the photo and cannot alter it afterwards. This is a welcome flash-back to analog-shooting days, requiring you to actually think about the shot you want to achieve before you push the shutter button. The key to Hipstamatic is enjoying experimenting with its various filters and lenses, but its rich variety of filters will reward you with some amazing results that might save you the time of later editing your photos. You also have a great enthusiast community over at Hipstamatic, and that’s always helpful for wanna-be photographers.

Filters and effects: VSCO Cam (Free, with in-app purchases)

VSCO Cam is an by the Visual Supply Company, a firm known for developing some of the best film-emulation filters for Adobe Lightroom, and it’s no surprise that this expertise has resulted in a collection of some amazing filters that you can get in VSCO Cam. The beauty of VSCO’s filters (or presets rather) is in the subtle measure of the artistic effects that will help you get a sense of the right amount of touch-ups needed for a photo, and also help you avoid overediting your images. The full preset pack costs $5.99, and while you have some free presets, the app starts to truly shine when you unlock the potential of all the presets. VSCO Cam also allows you to edit the strength of each filter, as well as edit all aspects of an image non-destructively. Apart from its filters and effects, VSCO Cam also comes with a ‘journal’ with ideas for shooting, and the apps gets the job done as a camera replacement with separated exposure and focus controls, as well as tilt level.

Runner-up: Faded ($0.99, with in-app purchases)

We’ve had a very rough time selecting our favorite filters and effect app this time around because of Faded. This new app is such a tough competitor to VSCO Cam, offering an amazing level of control and a smooth suave interface filled with neat options, but we tend to prefer VSCO Cam’s filter just a bit better. Just like VSCO, Faded shines truly after an in-app purchase that enables all its filters, but the app steps it up further with the option to create actions - steps of image adjustments that you can apply via a single action to a bunch of photographs, to achieve the same look on multiple pictures.

Best all-around photo editor: Snapseed (Free)

Snapseed stands out with its extremely intuitive and touch-friendly interface, allowing you to tweak every aspect of an image with a precision and ease that no other mobile image editor can offer. It’s easier to point out the things it cannot do, rather than what it can: there’s no way to zoom in on an image when you do your edits (which can be inconvenient on the small screen of the iPhone), it cannot selective blur parts of an image, and it has not been updated to match the new flat looks that Apple introduced with iOS 7. Regardless of those minute shortcomings, it remains the most feature-rich editor out there and it’s completely free, unspoiled by any kind of in-app purchases or other bloat.

Runner-up: Photo Editor by Aviary (Free, with in-app purchases)

Aviary’s Photo Editor has gathered a wide following for a good reason - it strikes the right balance between feature richness and simplicity in use. It is also regularly updated, with sleek visual style, and large image previews that allow you to have a good look of your edits as you do them. It has some unique capabilities too - you can remove blemishes from faces for better portraits, whiten teeth, add fun memes to your shots as well as stickers. On the downside, it’s an app that throws in-app purchases right in your face at the beginning, and it takes some getting used to the menus.

Best video recording app: FiLMiC Pro ($4.99)

FiLMiC Pro can truly unleash the video recording potential of the iPhone camera. It packs essential for videographers options: locking the exposure, focus, and white balance, and a fully customizable zoom levels. The real highlight, however, is how it allows users to up the bitrate to a whopping 50Mbps for a mesmerizing 1080p video capture. You can also see a live histogram, audio levels, stabilize your videos, and select cinematic, wide aspect ratios.

 

Runner-up: Kinomatic ($3.99, on sale now for $1.99)

Kinomatic combines the most advanced manual video recording features along with a powerful built-in editor, all in a surprisingly simple, streamlined user interface. We’re smitten with the speed of edits and the ease with which you can re-arrange trim and mix clips into a finished video project. The powerful manual controls include separate buttons for focus, exposure, and white balance lock, plus you get to see audio levels live. All in all, Kinomatic is a new-comer to video editing apps, but it has become an instant favorite for iPhone videographers.

Best all-in-one video capture and editing app: Videon ($4.99) 

Videon has received the iOS 8 refresh treatment, and it is our favorite all-around video app. We turn to it when we don't necessarily shoot for the highest quality (possible with the high bit-rates of FiLMiC Pro or MoviePro) - Videon shoots videos at the pre-set iPhone bit-rates, but its interface is more user-friendly.

Runner-up: Videocraft ($1.99) 

This one is for the pros (as much as a pro would work on an iPhone that is): it gives full manual control over your video composition process with all the basics (trim, crop, pan, scale, slow the motion, reverse video, add and edit text) and more with separate tracks, overlays for images and - even better - no need to shell out tens of dollars on in-app purchases.

Over

Matter

Waterlogue

Skrwt

Slow Shutter Cam

Camera Noir

Union

Facetune

Glaze

Fragment

Notable single-purpose photography apps

Text & artwork for images: Over ($1.99)True hipsters require beautiful custom fonts, hand-drawn elements, and inspiring text to images, and if you’re one of them, Over is the app that delivers best to your needs.
Alien worlds: Matter ($1.99)The creative minds from Pixite have created a few of our favorite iPhone apps, and their latest creation, Matter, brings 3D structures simple and complex, reflective and translucent, that add a queer, alien element to your images and even video.

Waterpainting: Waterlogue ($2.99)The heart-warming art of waterpainting has been reserved for painters for decades, but the clever algorithms of recent apps make it possible to turn your photographs easily in waterpaintings. Waterlogue is one of our favorites in this regard, with a distinct humane touch with 12 pre-sets that you can fine tune and adjust.

Straighten all lines: SKRWT ($1.99)The camera of the iPhone has a wide-angle lens that looks great for capturing all sorts of images (and is particularly great for landscapes), but often times it would slightly distort lines and otherwise straight buildings would appear to be leaning in like the tower of Pisa in Italy. SKRWT is an app that will straighten such irregularities without ruining your image, a task that is otherwise quite hard to achieve in even more advanced photo editors.

Blurred lines: Slow Shutter Cam ($0.99)All of us have seen those images of trailing lights at night, conveying a sense of motion in the darkness. This type of photographs require you to manually slow down the shutter speed of your camera so that passing light objects like cars appear ‘flowing’ rather than ‘frozen’ in the frame. Slow Shutter Cam is quite unique in giving you such fine control that other apps lack.

Black & White: Camera Noir ($1.99)The dramatism and style of black and white photographs can be a topic of a lengthy photographic discussion, but one thing most people would agree is that to take stylish B&W images, you need to think in black and white. Camera Noir comes with the single purpose to make you think about the world in those two colors, and adds a few fine adjustments allowing you to select the level of contrast.
Double exposure art: Union ($1.99)Super-imposing images and achieving the trendy double exposure effect of images is something that requires a creative thought and some technique, and while Union cannot solve the creativity part, it does bring all you need to create stunning double exposure art.
Portraits: Facetune ($1.99)If you’re shooting portraits as a hobby, you probably know that it often takes hours of Photoshop edits until you get a blemish-free face that looks fashionable and just good. Facetune aims to automate and bring down the editing effort to a bare minimum, and while it won’t create professional portraits, it’s doing a marvelous job at improving the faces of people in your iPhone photographs.

Paint art: Glaze (Free, with in-app purchases)Glaze creates an effect that makes photographs looks as if they were oil-painted.
Shapes and shades: Fragment ($1.99)Sometimes casual shots of landscapes or people just get boring with time, and you want to add a little mystery to them. Fragments is one way to do this - the app adds stunning prismatic elements, as if you were looking at a scene from a kaleidoscope, or through the eyes of a strange alien craeture.

Textures galore: Mextures ($1.99)A non-destructive way to add film grain, textures, light leaks and beautiful gradients to images in seconds, Mextures will help you experiment with adding style to your photographs.

Colorful waterpaintings: Popsicolor ($2.99)Popsicolor is a fun little app dedicated to adding color in a pop-art-inspired way to your pictures, simplifying them and cheering you up with the results.
Strange lines: Lory Stripes ($1.99)Lory Stripes adds colorful stripes going in all directions that will add a special vibe and character to shots.
Slo-mo: Slow Fast Slow ($1.99)An app by the makers of Glif, the most popular iPhone stand/tripod mount, Slow Fast Slow allows you to get a slow-motion effect at twice slower speeds (1/8x) than the stock camera app, plus you can select how the video fades in and out of that effect. 

The opposite is also possible - you can speed up your video for time lapses.

Mextures	Popsicolor

Lory Stripes	Slow Fast Slow