Photoshop itself now runs on a phone. Adobe ships the full app for iPhone and Android, so “a Photoshop app for your smartphone” no longer means a cut-down cousin of the desktop program. It still means a choice, though. Adobe alone ships three mobile editors, and the app that fixes a flat sunset in ten seconds is not the app that builds a layered composite.
Install Adobe Lightroom first if you only install one. It handles exposure, colour, presets, and RAW files better than anything else here. Add Photoshop on mobile when you need layers, selections, and generative edits. The other six apps below each do one job better than either of them.
Note: “Photoshop apps” here means the whole range of smartphone image editors, not only Adobe’s.
Should You Use a Photoshop App?
In short, yes, you should! It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced or beginner photographer. Editing your photos is a must. You can develop your photography style, and it helps you clean up photos if needed.
There are dozens of photo editing programs for desktop computers and laptops. But there are just as many Photoshop apps for your smartphone.
Which one to download depends on which tools you’d like and your skill level. Having at least one Photoshop app to make your photos stand out is always good.
8 Best Photoshop Apps for Smartphones
You can pick a simple photo editing app with only filters or a more advanced one. Here’s a list of the best Photoshop apps for smartphone photography.
Like Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom is a preferred desktop program for professional photographers. You can download the Adobe Lightroom for Mobile app for free. It is a great choice for smartphone photography.
The free app lets you use Lightroom presets and adjust light and colour on RAW files straight from your camera roll. Quick Actions suggests an edit for the photo in front of you. Adaptive Presets shape a look around the subject rather than the whole frame. Generative Remove erases a distraction and fills the gap.
Two features earn it the top spot for photographers specifically. Background Blur adds depth to a shot taken on a phone lens that never had any. And you can copy one edit across a whole shoot in a couple of taps, which matters after a day out when you have 200 frames and one look in mind. The possibilities are comparable with the Lightroom desktop version, and the two sync.
Pros:
- Advanced tools for professional editing
- Supports RAW images and imported presets
- Paste one edit across a whole batch of photos
- Syncs with Adobe Creative Cloud (editing between devices)
- iOS and Android
Cons:
- Free to download, but the premium tools and cloud sync need a paid Lightroom or Creative Cloud plan
- No layers, so it cannot build a composite out of two photos
Photoshop is not a desktop-only program any more. Photoshop on mobile runs on iPhone and Android, and Adobe’s own product page describes it as a free, standalone app with premium features you can subscribe to. It is the real thing rather than a companion app: layers, selections, blend modes, masks, and Generative Fill all live on the phone.
It earns its place here because nothing else on this list does compositing. Every other app improves a photo you already took. Photoshop builds a new one out of several. Tap Select isolates a subject in a tap, layers stack images on top of each other, and Generative Fill writes in whatever the frame is missing from a typed prompt. Harmonize matches the colour and light of a pasted object to its new background so the join stops looking like a cut-out.
The free side covers more than you would expect. Layers, Tap Select, the Spot Healing Brush, background removal and replacement, and a daily allowance of AI generations all come with the download. The paid Photoshop Mobile and Web plan adds the Remove Tool, Content Aware Fill, Object Select, the Magic Wand, advanced blend modes, 100 generative credits, and export to PSD and TIFF. That plan also covers Photoshop on the web and on iPad.
The catch is that it asks more of you than anything else here. A layers-and-masks interface on a phone screen takes real learning, and App Store ratings show it: 4.5 stars from 92,000 ratings against Lightroom’s 4.8 from 336,000. Skip it if you mostly want to correct exposure and colour, because Lightroom and Snapseed do that job faster and with less thinking. Install it when you have a picture in your head that the camera did not give you.
Pros:
- Layers, masks, and blend modes on a phone
- Tap Select and Object Select make one-tap cut-outs
- Generative Fill and Harmonize add and blend new objects
- Free tier includes a daily allowance of AI generations
- iOS and Android
Cons:
- The steepest learning curve of any app on this list
- The Remove Tool, Content Aware Fill, and PSD or TIFF export need the paid Photoshop Mobile and Web plan
- Overkill if you only ever adjust exposure and colour
Adobe is well known for its excellent photo editing software and has a great reputation. Adobe Photoshop Express is the lightest of its three mobile editors, and it is the one to reach for when you want a photo fixed rather than rebuilt.
Where the full Photoshop app hands you layers, Express hands you one-tap corrections: red-eye, dehaze, straightening, blemish removal, collage grids, and a filter library. It also trims and recolours video, which neither Lightroom nor Snapseed sets out to do. Even if you’ve never used a Photoshop app, you won’t have any problems getting used to this one.
Pros:
- Easy to navigate
- A good set of one-tap tools for basic photo editing
- Adobe Creative Cloud integration
- Sharing straight to Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, Line, and Telegram
- RAW and TIFF file support
- Basic video trimming and recolouring
Cons:
- Free to download, but the extra filters and tools need Photoshop Express Premium or a Creative Cloud plan
- No layers or masks, so it cannot do the work the full Photoshop app above is here for
Afterlight Photo is a great photo editing app for beginners on either iPhone or Android. It includes a ton of features. You can spend hours exploring the app and experimenting with your images.
The pull is the film library. Afterlight ships over 300 film-inspired presets built to emulate stocks like Kodak Gold and Portra, plus dust, paper, VHS and light-leak textures made from real 35mm film. Effects like Halation, Double Exposure, Color Shift and Chroma sit alongside them, and you can combine any of it into your own Fusion Filter.
The app’s simple layout has clear icons that make it easy to navigate. It offers the perfect balance between simple and advanced photo editing apps. You can read our full review of Afterlight Photo.
Pros:
- User-friendly
- Over 300 film-inspired presets and 90 texture overlays
- Polaroid, film reel, and Instax frames with a custom background
- Text overlays
- Selective hue and lightness adjustment
- iOS and Android
Cons:
- Free to download, but the full library is unlocked by in-app purchase
- Built around looks rather than correction, so it is the wrong first stop for a badly exposed frame
Snapseed is probably the best app to start with if you want to get a mobile editing app. You need some editing experience, but for the most part, it’s very user-friendly. That’s because many of its preset filters are comparable to well-known Instagram filters.
Google gives away more here than anyone else on this list. There are over 30 pro tools and filters with no subscription, no in-app purchase, no ads and no watermark. Recent versions added a camera that shoots straight into your chosen film look, one-tap masking that isolates a subject or a background for you, and batch editing so a look can be pushed across a set of photos. Halation, Bloom and Grain sit alongside the film simulations for a more analogue finish.
Once you know the options of Snapseed, you can develop your own presets that suit your style.
“Expand” is one of Snapseed’s most interesting tools. It calculates what the area surrounding the subject looks like. Then it uses this data to make the canvas larger.
Pros:
- Several great one-click presets and editing tools
- It supports RAW files and gives you full control
- Suited for amateur and professional photographers
- Completely free: no subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads, no watermarks
- iOS and Android
Cons:
- Not for complete beginners because there is a slight learning curve
- No layers or compositing, so it cannot do what the Photoshop app does
- No cloud library, so your edits live on the phone that made them
This photo and video editing app provides a massive collection of VSCO filters and high-quality editing tools. You can adjust brightness, contrast, and saturation. But it also has advanced controls such as perspective.
The Film X presets are the draw. They are built to recreate the look of Kodak, Fuji and Agfa stocks, and you can save your own combinations as Recipes and paste one edit onto up to 100 photos at once. On top of all that, VSCO has a community of photographers to show off your work! It is perfect if you like the look of film photography.
Pros:
- Designed for editing mobile images
- Best film look filters out there
- Save your own looks as Recipes and paste them onto up to 100 photos
- Can share with the VSCO community
- iOS and Android
Cons:
- Free to download, but the full 200-plus preset library and the Film X stocks need a VSCO Membership
- Aimed at a look rather than a fix, so it is weaker than Lightroom for straight correction
TouchRetouch is all about taking things out of a photo. It lets you remove street signs, people, power lines, and more. Read our tutorial on how to use TouchRetouch.
It has grown well past a single trick. Erase AI finds background clutter on its own, a dedicated tool clears wires and other linear objects, and the background remover will cut a subject out or drop it onto something else. There is a face retouch mode for blemishes and wrinkles, and the app claims a share-ready result in under a minute, which matches how it is built: brush over the thing, wait, done.
Pros:
- Best choice for removing unwanted objects
- Erase AI removes clutter, wires, and background people automatically
- Background removal and replacement
- Natural-looking face retouch
- iOS and Android
Cons:
- Free to download, but the tools are unlocked by in-app purchase
- No exposure, colour, or tone controls, so it is always the second app in a chain
Darkroom is the closest thing here to a desktop editor that happens to run on a phone. It’s a strong alternative to Lightroom with a different workflow take, and it won an Apple Design Award in 2020.
The Library is what it’s all about. Instead of importing photos, Darkroom works on your existing photo library, so you won’t end up with a duplicate copy of everything. Import, browse, cull, favourite and reject all happen in the same place you edit.
Darkroom handles RAW and ProRAW files, and it treats video the same way it treats stills: the same curves, masks and presets run on 4K and 8K clips. Every adjustment is non-destructive, with the full edit history kept so you can step back at any point. It also features a unique take on depth-enabled Portrait Mode, which means you can apply different edits to different parts of the picture, depending on how far away they are.
Pros:
- User-friendly design
- Access your entire photo library without importing each one individually
- Supports RAW and ProRAW files
- Same tools for stills and video, up to 8K
- Non-destructive, with a full edit history to track, undo, and redo
- Create and save custom filters, and browse a free community preset library
- Batch edit any number of photos
Cons:
- No Android version (iPhone, iPad and Mac only)
- The full tool set sits behind the Darkroom+ subscription
How to Choose a Photoshop App for Your Phone
Eight apps is a lot to weigh up, so work backwards from the job rather than the feature list.
Adobe Lightroom is the answer if you want your photos to look better and nothing more complicated than that. It handles RAW files, light, colour and presets, and one edit copies across a whole shoot. Snapseed does the same work for free if you never want a subscription.
Adobe Photoshop is the answer if you want to build an image rather than fix one. It is the only app here with layers, and the only one that can put something into a photo that was never there.
Afterlight and VSCO are both for a look rather than a correction. Afterlight leans on film emulation, with textures and frames to finish it. VSCO adds a community and Recipes you can reuse across a whole set.
TouchRetouch is for when one thing has to go. Take the wire, the sign or the stranger out, then finish the photo somewhere else.
Darkroom suits an iPhone shooter who wants everything in one place: library, culling, stills and video in a single non-destructive workflow.
Photoshop Express is the smallest option here. One-tap fixes, collages and a bit of video, with nothing to learn.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is There a Free Photoshop App for Phones?
Yes. Adobe’s Photoshop app for iPhone and Android is free to download, and the free tier includes layers, Tap Select, the Spot Healing Brush, background removal and a daily allowance of AI generations. Photoshop Express is free too. In both cases a paid Adobe plan unlocks the rest.
Do I Need Both Photoshop and Lightroom on My Phone?
Only if you do both jobs. Lightroom is for developing a photo you took: exposure, colour, presets, RAW. Photoshop is for changing what is in the photo: cut-outs, layers, generative edits. Most photographers get more out of Lightroom day to day and add Photoshop when a specific image needs it.
Which Photoshop Apps Work on Android?
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop Express, Afterlight, Snapseed, VSCO and TouchRetouch all have Android versions. Darkroom is the only app on this list that does not.
Conclusion: Best Photoshop App
If you want to improve your smartphone photography, learning how to edit images is important. Install Adobe Lightroom first, since it does the most for the most people. Add the Photoshop app the first time Lightroom cannot give you what you want, which will be the day you need to remove or add something rather than adjust it.
Then pick one look-led app and stick with it long enough to build a style. Afterlight and VSCO both reward that, and neither costs anything to try.
Why not check out our post on the iPhone Photo Academy course review or our Gurushots review? The latter is a fun photography game to get your images seen.
