The best AI camera app can transform how you create content with your smartphone. There’s no denying the quality of smartphone cameras. But they are still lacking in manual controls and creative features. Thankfully, artificial intelligence has come to our rescue.
What Is the Best AI Camera App?
Adobe Photoshop Express is the best AI camera app overall. It pairs AI background replacement and Generative Expand with an easy touch-based editor, runs on iOS and Android, and stays free to use without a Creative Cloud subscription.
We found the best AI camera apps available right now. We have everything from AI editing apps to creative cinematic video content apps. There’s a great selection of applications available, and you can harness the power of AI to transform your social media presence.
The Top AI Camera Apps
The AI in your mobile phone can be used in different ways and for different results. Dive into the list and find the best artificial intelligence camera apps to take your content to a new dimension.
Your phone’s own camera app already does night mode, HDR, and portrait blur on its own, so a separate app has to be better at something specific. Halide and Filmic Pro are better at manual control, handing you the shutter, ISO, and gamma settings the stock camera hides. Spectre and Prisma each do one effect nobody else does as well, long exposures and painted looks. Photoshop Express, Focos, and NeuralCam win on what happens after the shutter, in the editing engine. Check the platform before you get attached to a pick, though. Only Photoshop Express, Filmic Pro, and Prisma run on Android, and the other four are iPhone and iPad only.
Now we look at each AI camera app in more detail.
The Photoshop Express app is designed to adjust and alter your photos after you take them. One-touch presets lift color and detail, and the auto-masking tools separate your subject from the background so you can edit one without touching the other.
You can swap a background for a generated scene, reshape an object, or heal out a distraction at the touch of an icon. Adobe ships new tools to the app most months, so you’ll never get bored using it. You’ll be able to add new looks to your content, helping to keep your profile fresh and engaging.
Creatives will love the manual controls for clarity, color, effects, and lighting. But this Adobe app helps you bypass time-consuming edits, using AI to streamline photo editing on your smartphone.
The editing tools don’t stop at filters and touch-up tools. You get a full set of artistic features for creating anything from animated stickers to digital collages, plus a simple video editor for trimming, resizing, and recoloring clips. It’s not quite the full Adobe Photoshop program, but it’s not far off. And you can carry it around with you in your pocket.
Generative Expand stretches a photo’s borders to whatever aspect ratio you need, and Adobe’s August 2026 update put an AI Background swap and an AI outfit swap next to it. All three are iPhone only for now, so Android users get the rest of the app without them.
Adobe Photoshop Express is free to download and use for basic edits, no Creative Cloud subscription required. A Premium plan ($4.99 a month or $34.99 a year) unlocks the AI tools and the more precise editing controls.
Focos is an AI camera app that gives you control over the depth mapping built into your iPhone or iPad. It gives you excellent manual controls, allowing you to adjust aperture, shape, and depth of field.
But as well as manual control, you’re aided by an AI engine that streamlines artistic photography and editing. It can calculate the perfect depth of field for any photo automatically. This gives you a stunning portrait bokeh usually only possible with mirrorless cameras and high-quality lenses.
The photos are stored with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) information, giving you incredible editing powers when using the app.
Artificial intelligence also allows you to refocus portraits after they’ve been taken. All you need to do is tap a few buttons, so you can transform portraits in seconds.
Space mapping technology lets you add extra lighting within a 3D space, with additional controls for brightness and color. You can view portraits in a 3D view, giving you incredible detail viewing.
The AI tools are pretty staggering, especially when you consider this is a smartphone app, not a full software suite for a computer.
Focos gives you a free trial, then charges a weekly or monthly subscription. If you use it regularly, a one-time lifetime unlock ($12.99) works out cheaper than paying for the subscription indefinitely.
3. Halide Mark III Pro Camera
| Operating Systems |
Operating Systems
iOS (iPhone, iPad)
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| Key Features |
Key Features
Pro-grade manual camera controls, RAW file support from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Leica and Hasselblad, built-in Photo Lab editor with film Looks
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| Best For |
Best For
Advanced photography
|
Halide Mark III is for photographers who want a professional-grade set of manual controls on their iPhone cameras. Apart from shutter speed, ISO, and white balance, these include manual focus controls like focus loupe and focus peaking.
Mark III runs against the grain of every other app here. Its Process Zero mode switches Apple’s computational photography off altogether, so a RAW file keeps the contrast and grain of the sensor instead of the phone’s noise reduction. Its Looks are baked into the capture rather than layered on afterwards, and they were built with Hollywood colorist Cullen Kelly. Mark III also imports RAW files shot on Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Leica, and Hasselblad cameras, and adds a built-in Photo Lab editor.
Powerful reviewing technology means you can use the app to view and edit other file types like DNG, JPEG, and HEIC. You can use the app to edit photos taken on your DSLR or mirrorless camera, helping you work on the go.
The swipe gesture control leaves the full-screen camera clear of obstruction, and the framing guides run from a plain grid up to the golden ratio. Halide has no Apple Watch app, so if you shoot off a tripod and want a wrist remote, Filmic Pro is the app on this list that still has one.
You can get Halide Mark III as a one-time $69.99 purchase with no subscription, or on a subscription: $19.99 a year (with a seven-day free trial) or $9.99 a month.
Spectre is a free artificial intelligence camera app designed to take long-exposure photos, with a single $4.99 one-time in-app purchase and no subscription. Spectre can remove people from your images by setting a medium or long shot duration.
At night you can use it for light painting or creating light trails from traffic. The Spectre camera saves live photos letting you choose the best frame or save your shot as a video clip.
The built-in image stabilization allows you to shoot sharp shots handheld. So you do not need a tripod to smooth out water and clouds like you would with a DSLR.
Every capture feature, including the full 30-second long exposure, is free. The $4.99 Spectre Pro upgrade doesn’t unlock any new capture ability. It just adds a custom app icon as a thank-you for supporting development.
Creating quality videos has become essential to being a successful content creator. And with Filmic Pro, you can take your video content to the next level. You have more control over focus, aspect ratio, exposure, and frame rate. So it’s easy to create media that draws more attention online.
You can shoot with a vertical or horizontal orientation. You have a selection of frame rates from 24 to 60 fps that sync with the audio. And there are high-speed frame rates for slow-motion video capture.
There are histogram and waveform features to help you nail the exposure. You even have a range of gamma curve options you can apply to your footage. Frame guide overlays also help with composition. These are useful tools if you’re new to making video content with a smartphone.
The app is also compatible with smartphone gimbals from top brands like DJI. Combined with the stabilization system, this helps you get super-smooth, shake-free footage.
Filmic Pro is free to download, and its owner Bending Spoons now sells access as a subscription. Weekly plans start at $1.99 and a year is $39.99, each with a free trial. There is no one-time purchase for the app itself any more, so it becomes a running cost the moment your trial ends.
Prisma falls more under the umbrella of a one-touch AI editing app than a camera app. But it is best for transforming your photos into works of art. The app uses AI technology to give a photo a whole new look.
You have hundreds of art styles and filters to choose from. You can turn a photo portrait into an ink illustration, an oil painting, or a comic book design. It’s a great way to bring color and style to social media accounts.
Prisma Labs also produces Lensa. The Prisma app doesn’t have the editing tools of Lensa. But Prisma makes it easy to create something eye-catching and original.
There’s a three-day trial available. After that, there are weekly, monthly, and yearly subscription plans, starting at $1.99 a week. Prisma’s iPhone build has sat on version 4.8.0 since October 2023, though, while the Android build is still updated most months. The styles work as well as they ever did, but iPhone users should not expect new ones.
The iOS app NeuralCam, now called NeuralCam Aperture, builds its whole camera around AI portrait and night processing. Auto Portrait Mode adds depth to any shot at any distance, without the lens and subject limits Apple’s own portrait mode imposes, and you can dial the blur strength up or down afterwards.
It lets you automatically color grade, replace backgrounds, and remove people. And you can also launch the camera from your lock screen for fast access. A newer AI PhotoCoach feature, built on ChatGPT, reviews your shots and suggests how to improve them.
Its night mode merges up to 12 frames and can upscale the result to 48 MP, which is what makes it usable on night skies. It saves HEIC, JPEG, or TIFF rather than RAW, so it is the wrong pick if you want a negative to grade later. There is a dedicated tripod mode for the longer exposures Milky Way shots need.
The core camera is free to download, but NeuralCam Pro now runs on a subscription at $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year. PhotoCoach is a separate add-on at $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Adobe Photoshop Express free?
Yes. Photoshop Express is free to download and use for basic edits, with no Creative Cloud subscription required. A Premium plan ($4.99 a month or $34.99 a year) unlocks the AI tools, including Generative Expand.
Is Halide still called Halide Mark II?
No. Lux Optics released Halide Mark III in 2026, adding a built-in Photo Lab editor, film-inspired Looks, and RAW support for Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Leica, and Hasselblad cameras.
Does Spectre cost money?
Spectre is free, including its full 30-second long exposures. A one-time $4.99 Spectre Pro purchase only unlocks a custom app icon. It doesn’t add any capture features.
Conclusion: Best AI Camera Apps
Artificial intelligence within mobile camera apps is evolving rapidly. These apps now have amazing features. They’re designed to re-light images, refocus your shots, or teach you how to frame a great composition.
Camera apps like Halide take superb quality RAW images and give a professional level of control. And the Focos app takes space mapping to the extreme. It lets you add light sources in and around your photographed environment.
But Photoshop Express takes the crown as our best AI camera app. It has easy-to-use, artistic, and creative tools and cross-platform compatibility! If you’re an iPhone user, check out iPhone Photography School’s course to learn how to get the most out of your camera!
