Whether you’re out at the game with friends, on the dance floor, at graduation, upping your dating profile game or sending a pic to your loved ones, a good selfie regime is essential. You not only want to capture your moment at the right time but tweak it enough so it stands out. We compiled a list of 7 of the best apps for selfies leaving the obvious Snapchat and Instagram off.
FaceTune
Facetime can give you close to Photoshop-level airbrushing with just a few swipes and taps. It’s a great app to play around with different make-over looks. The smile enhancer lets you extend and widen your smile, smooth over pesky blemishes and revitalize your skin tone. It also lets you adjust your eye color, dark circles and even reshape facial features. There’s a section for your hair where you can add volume or eliminate unwanted gray and strays. The makeup section lets you add eyeshadow, blush, eyeliner and gloss or lipstick. Once you’re happy with your look, you can add filters, refocus or play with the color and lighting levels.
Prisma
If you are into more of an abstract or artistic vibe, Prisma features many filters hard to find elsewhere. You can either take a photo (and now videos) with the app or use your gallery, and like Instagram, then choose from a variety of different filters. Click on a filter and your photo loads as the screen tells you it’s ‘Creating Artwork’. Filters are inspired by modern and timeless patterns and impressions and are applied using an advanced artificial intelligence. If you want sophisticated and wow-factor art out of your clicks and videos, this one is for you.
Filterra
Considered one of iOS’s most powerful and expansive photo editors, Filterra lets you deep dive into perfecting your perfect portrait on your iPhone or iPad. Softening skin is as simple as rubbing a finger along your face, and you can change lighting and coloring just as fast. Aside from the many features already in the app, you can use the store to buy bundles or individual settings to enhance your editing, from textures, filters, special effects and lighting improvements. You can make your edits side by side to the original, reverting changes with a tap of the screen. Making your own filters and saving your own settings is also possible. This app has a lot of features and will leave you tweaking your pictures for hours. The company also makes a collage and video editing app.
Camringo
Cameringo is an intriguing app as you can use the live filters with the in-app camera or your old photos. You can play around with how your photo would look before you even snap, making the work easier after the candid moment. You can go for professional quality, silly, artistic or psychedelic with Cameringo, as there is everything from faux HDR, fish eye, cartoon, bright and arty filters. It also comes packed with a gif record, DSLR settings, retro film settings and you can even shoot video with the live filters. You can use macro focus for those up close and personal shots, silent and incognito modes, as well as snaps in the dark after the screen lights up. This app is a lot of fun if you are looking for creative ideas for taking your pics and want to see how they’d look in real time.
Retrica
While not the juggernaut Instagram, Retrica boasts over 300 million users and has 150 filters to keep them happy. Easy navigation allows you to long press the screen for an instant snap or double tap the screen to change the orientation of the camera. It comes loaded with collage, video, and gif editors, and you can make private albums so you can share them with friends and loved ones. For added fun, turn your background into a photo booth or you can press the random button to use an unexpected filter. This app is good for sharing your favorite edits and branding your images Retrica style.
YouCam Perfect
YouCam Perfect is an app similar to Facetune with a lot of extras. It features the Beauty Circle, an online community where users can stay up to date on fashion, style, and makeup, where you can learn techniques from the pros. Whether using the live camera, old photos or taking short videos, you can adjust skin tones in real time as well as eyes, wrinkles, and fine lines. Have multiple people in the photo? You can easily edit each person or cut them or unwanted backgrounds out with just a few taps. With the Lengthen Legs and Body Slim features, you can even add height or make your waist appear thinner. This is a heavy-duty app that comes loaded with other filters and features to make sure you’re always putting your prettiest face forward.
Snapseed
Snapseed is one of Google’s apps that provides you with professional tools for your photo editing. There are 25 filters and effects that you can re-stack in different orders as well tweak with meticulous tuning ability. You can open RAW files through the app, allowing you to make endless changes before saving as a JPEG. Control Point, which allows you to choose up to 8 different spots in your selfie and the features you want to add, then completes the task by an intuitive algorithm. You can also add focus to different places, add lens blurs, adjust different types and areas of contrast, and tweak lighting, skin tones, and white balance. HDR Scape gives off the impression of multiple exposures, the glamor glow gives your selfies a boosted radiance or you can adjust each setting individually with the brush tool. Google rarely misses a step with their apps, and Snapseed is no different.
Conclusion
Photography has evolved so much over the past decade thanks to smartphones. The cameras on older phones are blown out of the water by the technology of today’s models. But even an average camera can take breath-taking and memorable photos with the best editing apps. Whether it be beauty-focused selfies (FaceTune, YouCam Perfect), professional (Snapseed, Filterra), fully-loaded(Retrica, Camringo) or arty(Prisma), the editor for every photographer is out there.
