Cinemagraphs are a striking way to tell a story on social media. If you are familiar with them, you will know they are neither a photograph nor a video, but something in the middle.
You might be wondering how those magical effects are made. The truth is that creating cinemagraphs is very simple, especially using cinemagraph apps.
We have gathered the 14 best apps that make pictures move for you to learn how to create them in seconds.
14 Best Cinemagraph Apps
A cinemagraph is a visual art form consisting of a still photo in which one part is animated. The selected area plays in a never-ending loop, forming a short video clip.
Also called ‘moving pictures’, cinemagraphs are used to grab the audience’s attention. They are usually found in advertising and social media.
If you are a photographer, cinemagraphs can make a great addition to your portfolio.
If you want to explore this trend and create images in this format, this post is for you. We will help you find the best cinemagraph app to create masterpieces easily!
1. Cinemagraph Pro for iOS
If you have an iPhone or an iPad, the best photo moving app we can recommend is Cinemagraph Pro for iOS.
This is a great tool for those who are starting in this trend. It provides tutorials on how to use the app and get the best out of it.
Cinemagraph Pro allows you to add filters to every frame of the video, enhancing the visual experience.
Aside, the app offers a large gallery of cinemagraph creatives. You can scroll on this gallery to get inspiration to create the best moving picture.
To use the app, you need to upload your video and select the part you would like to animate. The rest of the video will remain still.
2. StoryZ Photo Motion
StoryZ is the Android pick for anyone who wants a cinemagraph in a couple of minutes rather than a couple of hours. You load a still photo, draw arrows over the part you want to flow, and drop anchor points on everything that should stay frozen.
It is free to download, and the same app is on iPhone and iPad too, so you are not locked to one phone. Alongside the motion tools it does animated double exposure, where a video overlay plays inside a static frame.
The trade-off is that StoryZ has grown into a broader photo-animation suite, with AI text-to-video and sketch-to-image tools bolted on. Ignore those and the core motion editor is still one of the simplest on Android.
3. Cinemagraph Pro for Mac
If you would rather work on a big screen than a phone, Flixel's desktop edition of Cinemagraph Pro is the tool to reach for. It is the Mac counterpart to the iOS app in position one, and it is the same live-masking idea with far more room to be precise.
You import video shot on a tripod, then paint over the still frame to reveal motion exactly where you want it. Because you are painting rather than drawing a rough selection, the boundary between the moving and frozen parts is much cleaner than a phone app can manage.
It also handles the fiddly part of cinemagraphs properly: trimming to a seamless loop, picking the best still frame, and exporting at 4K on supported hardware. It is a paid, professional tool rather than a free toy, so it suits photographers who plan to publish this work.
4. Adobe Photoshop
Every app above hides the hard part behind a slider. Photoshop does not, and that is the reason to reach for it. It is also the only tool on this list that runs on Windows.
The method is the one we walk through in our guide to making a cinemagraph. Open the clip on the Video Timeline, choose the frame you want frozen, paint over the part that should keep moving, then hide the rest behind a layer mask. Nothing is guessed for you.
That control shows at the edges. A phone app that misjudges where the moving water stops will smear the rock beside it, and a hand-painted mask will not. You also set the loop points yourself, which is what keeps a cinemagraph from reading as a short video that simply ends.
It is more work than anything else here, and it is a subscription rather than a free download. Skip it if you want one moving photo for a story tomorrow. Choose it if you shoot on Windows, if you already pay for Photoshop, or if the cinemagraph is going in your portfolio.
5. Pic Motion
Pic Motion is a straightforward Android app for turning one static photo into a looping moving picture. You pick a photo, apply a dynamic effect to the area you want alive, and save the result.
Its strongest trick is water. The waterflow effect makes rivers, waterfalls and sea move naturally, which is the classic landscape cinemagraph and the hardest thing to fake by hand.
You can export as a looping video or a GIF, or set the result as a live wallpaper on your phone. It is a good starting point if you want the effect without learning masking.
6. Zoetropic
Zoetropic is one of the best cinemagraph apps available for download. It features exclusive overlays for images and videos. Aside, it comes with an audio library where you can pick a soundtrack for your moving picture.
The app works by setting the motion points on a still picture, which you blend to create the motion effect. Once you have done this, you can customize your motions with audio and visual effects.
This app is good for beginners who wish to practice with still images before starting to edit videos.
7. Motionleap by Lightricks
Motionleap is the most polished cross-platform option on this list. It runs on Android and iOS, it is free to download, and it comes from Lightricks, the studio behind Facetune and Videoleap.
You animate a still photo by drawing motion paths over the parts that should move, then dropping anchor points to pin everything that should not. You can animate one element or several, which is how you keep attention exactly where you want it.
On top of the motion tools it adds overlays and elements, so you can drop rain, fog, fireworks or moving skies into a frame that never had them. Speed is adjustable per element, which matters more than it sounds: a loop that moves too fast reads as a video, not a cinemagraph.
8. Lumyer
Lumyer is an app that enables you to apply high-quality animated effects to your images. This is a great app to have fun by creating cinemagraphs and sharing them with your friends.
As an example, you can add to your images fireworks, moving lips, or flowing hair.
Lumyer is a great app for creatives. You can experiment with special effects you will not find in other cinemagraph apps.
9. Vimage
Vimage is a different kind of app for creating cinemagraphs. It does not take the animation from the original video. Instead, you can choose from a gallery of hundreds of effects, filters, presets, and animations that best suit your photo.
The multi-award-winning tool offers high-quality effects to animate any still picture in seconds.
10. Werble
Werble is the iPhone app to try when you want motion added to a photo rather than pulled out of a video. You start with a still image, then blend animated loops and effects onto it until the frame comes alive.
There are over a thousand effects to layer, and you can stack several on one image. If you get stuck, the randomise button reshuffles the look until something clicks, which is a genuinely useful way to learn what the effects do.
It is free to download, and it is built for iPhone and iPad. Werble is the most playful app here, so it suits social posts more than a portfolio piece.
11. PixaMotion
PixaMotion is a free photo animator for iPhone and iPad that works the same way most of these apps do: motion arrows for the parts that should move, anchor points for the parts that should not.
Where it earns its place is output. You can save a cinemagraph as a looping video, as an animated GIF file, or as a live wallpaper, so one edit covers a social post and your lock screen.
It also bundles a set of filters and overlays for the still layer, which saves a round trip to a separate editor before you export.
12. Loopsie
Loopsie is a long-running cinemagraph app for iPhone and iPad. It is easy to use and comes with a stabilization algorithm. This feature helps you create amazing cinemagraphs without extra equipment.
The app has since grown into a wider AI effects and video editor, so the motion tools now sit alongside filters and generated effects. The original long-exposure and motion features are still there.
Loopsie also comes with 3D photo processing. This estimates the depth of every pixel to reconstruct a 3D environment from a single photo.
You can download Loopsie for free, though it comes with in-app purchases.
13. Plotaverse
Plotaverse is the app built around Plotagraph, the patented pixel-shifting technique that made photo-to-video animation popular with photographers in the first place. If you have seen a still landscape with clouds rolling across it, this is the method behind it.
The creative studio inside gives you real-time motion control, masking and anchor points, plus presets if you want a result fast. It goes further than most phone apps here, closer to desktop control on an iPhone or iPad.
There is a social side bolted on, where creators post their looping work, and it is a decent place to study how other photographers handle motion before you attempt your own. The download is free with paid tools inside.
14. Flow Photo Art
Flow Photo Art is an iPhone and iPad app aimed at the classic cinemagraph subject, where the sky or the sea moves and the rest of the frame holds still.
It hands you the whole toolset rather than a one-tap effect. There is a mask brush, an eraser for tidying the edge, anchor points to pin the static areas, and an animation tool for direction and speed. The preview renders as you drag, so you correct a wrong direction in seconds.
It also processes video, so you can pull a time-lapse look out of a clip instead of a single frame. That makes it more useful than the effect-library apps once you know the result you want.
The download is free with a subscription for the full toolset. It is also the smallest app here by audience, with a few hundred App Store ratings against Lumyer's tens of thousands, so pick it for the drawing tools rather than for a big effects library. If you want ready-made effects instead, Lumyer at number 8 is the better buy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best cinemagraph app?
Cinemagraph Pro is the strongest pick if you shoot your own video, because it masks the motion against real footage instead of inventing it. Motionleap is the better answer if all you have is a still photo, and it runs on both Android and iPhone. Choose by your source material: a video clip points you to numbers 1, 3 and 4, and a single photograph points you to Motionleap, Vimage or Plotaverse.
Can you make a cinemagraph on Windows?
Yes, but not with a dedicated app. Every purpose-built cinemagraph tool is iPhone, Android or Mac. On Windows the working answer is Photoshop at number 4, using the Video Timeline and a layer mask, and it gives you finer control over the edge of the moving area than any phone app manages.
What is the difference between a cinemagraph and a Live Photo?
A Live Photo records about a second and a half of video around the shutter press, so the whole frame moves when you play it back. A cinemagraph freezes everything except one chosen area, which is what makes the motion look deliberate rather than accidental. That one decision, what moves and what holds still, is the whole craft, and it is why these apps spend most of their tools on masking.
Conclusion
Cinemagraphs are a fun, different way to communicate visually. The best part is that anyone can create a cinemagraph, as plenty of apps make it incredibly easy. No doubt why cinemagraphs keep turning up in feeds and adverts.
There are many fun cinemagraph examples to get inspiration from. And with one of the apps in this list, you’ll have everything you need to get started with your own cinemagraphs.
We hope we have helped you figure out which cinemagraph maker is right for you. We are sure that by using these apps, you will become a cinemagraph pro in no time!
If you want to learn more about making stunning cinemagraphs, check out our Magical Photography Spellbook eBook!
