Photography

Manipulate your snaps for great results – your digital darkroom is a tap away

Camera+ $2.99 Platform iPhone, iPad

Front and center here is a minimalist viewfinder; manual focus, exposure, white balance, and shutter speed are in a slide-out panel. The Horizon Level option is helpful and unobtrusive, and macro mode is notable, too – the viewfinder zoom and focus slider make this one of the easiest apps for close-ups. Post-processing tools are extensive, and the Clarity option’s great at saving drab snaps.

SKRWT $1.99 Platform iPhone, iPad

If you’ve ever taken an photograph of a building head-on, you might spot that the center of the frame bulges, causing lines to curve into a bowl shape. You can use SKRWT to correct distortion to straighten lines, such as a building you’ve snapped while looking upward.

Infltr $2.99 Platform iPhone, iPad

Filters in iPhone apps are designed to bring a dose of creativity to your digital photos. However, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the choice on offer, and to end up relying on the same old filters time and again. Infltr snaps you out of any such rut, largely by using a swipe-based system for all but unique settings.

vividHDR $2.99 Platform iPhone, iPad

Although the HDR mode in Apple’s Camera app works well, it pales in comparison to vividHDR. The concept is the same: stunning, vibrant photos that capture detail in highlights and shadows. But vividHDR’s combination of speed, presets and before and after comparisons results in better photos – which is what really matters.

Obscura Camera $4.99 Platform iPhone, iPad

Obscura’s smart interface makes it worth attention over other camera apps with pro-level controls. Next to the shutter are big buttons that lock exposure and focus. The chunky ISO and shutter buttons can be quickly swapped for other controls. Want a different filter? Swipe on the viewfinder. Obscura is controllable with one thumb, and focuses on quick feature access without its rivals’ fiddliness.

Snapseed Free Platform iPhone, iPad

Snapseed is an extremely versatile photo editor. It can crop, rotate, ‘heal’, and so on, but its filters are the really creative part, with blurs, photographic effects, and more extreme options like “grunge” and “grainy film.” Most effects are tweakable: swipe up and down to pick a parameter, and then horizontally to adjust its strength. Brilliantly, the app records applied effects as separate layers, each of which remains editable until you save your image.