The best photo apps for travelers in this article, remember, are just some of my favorite ones.
My biggest passions, after my family, are bicycle tourism and photography. When I'm home I always shoot with my reflex camera, which I always carry during my journeys. But in the last years, I enjoyed combining the "classic" photography with some experiments using my smartphone, in order to create content for the web, for the social media especially. During this time I stumbled upon dozens of photo apps for Android: some useful, some less. Since there are a lot of these apps in the Google Store, I decided to enlist those which, in my opinion, are the 11 Android best photo apps for travelers.
Let's discover the best photo apps for travelers
I like to stress that following my vision of photography,
the shots made with a smartphone cannot replace the reflex camera ones, especially when traveling. This being said, nowadays smartphone cameras can shoot pretty high standards pictures, which can be posted on the web. The integration with some apps could become handy, especially in order to change some details and get a better result.
These free photo apps listed below have been tested on an Android OS. For some of them, there is an iPhone alter-ego (and there are some for Apple products only, but I can't try them, being an Android user).
Adobe Photoshop Express
Who already knows the desktop version of this Adobe product, will find it very easy to use this free photo app for Android, available for Windows and iPhone too. The interface is really easy and intuitive to use. The tools for editing your pictures are pretty basic, but still user-friendly and useful for mobile post-production. There are a lot of presets, and it's possible to save your own favorite presets. The harder to please can consider using Adobe Lightroom Mobile, way more complete, but not free: this one requires an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.
Snapseed
Personally, it's the app I use the most for my post-production of mobile photos. This Android app by Google is easy and intuitive: you'll find many automatic filters but it's possible to manually handle the layers, the saturation, the contrast, and many parameters. With Snapseed you can import pictures from your own gallery and then share them on the main social networks or e-mail. It's possible to elaborate selectively on some areas of the picture and even open the RAW files. One of the best I prefer to edit my pictures.
Camera MX
The devs of this Android best photo app have been focusing on the function of Live Shots, in order to be different from the other apps. Basically, while shooting a photo, you'll get one in the background and its animation, so to be saved as a video file or a GIF. Strictly connected to the previous function, you also have the Shoot-the-past function, to save a frame from a movie and share it on social networks. In Camera MX you also find effects, filters, and whatnot to make your shots look better, animated or static ones.
Candy camera
Another App very much appreciated and used: the Korean devs developed other apps, all centered on making your selfies look better. Easy and friendly, it does not present many possibilities of customization and the filters aren't too many, but it's useful the Real-time Filters function which doesn't require the post-production of your shots. You can even choose the auto beauty filter, to get a better look with one click, or one of the many stickers available in the app, and put them in a collage.
Pixlr
One of the most complete, various, and best photo apps. It's interesting to put together two photos with the double exposition technique. You have more than 2 million possible combinations of filters, frames, and taglines. I find very useful the possibility to crop and resize the pictures and save the favorites settings to then reuse them later. Less intuitive than other apps, but once tried, it gives some results.
HDR max
A more specific app than the previous ones: this application allows you obtaining a perfect HDR effect even in a single shot.
Actually many other apps offer this feature, but this one specifically allows us to choose between 90 filters, crop, resize, zoom in, modify the picture in many ways.
Pro Capture Free
Differently than all the apps presented above, Pro Capture (even in the free version) allows you to add some functions in the pre-shoot phase and not the post-production one. The main features of this app will allow you to shoot panoramic and wide-lens pictures. Unfortunately, the free version allows us to shoot pictures in low-res only, so with the better cameras in the newest phones the purchase is pretty much compulsory, or you have to choose another app.
VSCO
This very famous social network and app presents many filters and options to modify your pictures. It also provides a community within the app, so your work can have a quick response. Many many filters, but some have to be paid for.
Camera FV-5 Lite
One of the most advanced and best photo app. Like Pro Capture, the main feature is in the shooting options more than in the post-production tools. With Camera FV-5 you can control every parameter like a real reflex: of course, the pictures will be a bit lower in resolution (it depends on the specs of your smartphone). It's possible to obtain long exposures, define the ISO level, shoot in RAW (only with some phones), obtain macro, and many other results: it's a photography app not for beginners because you'll need to know the basics of photography to properly use this app.
Camera 360
One of the most downloaded apps in the Play Store. This app features a professional photo editor, filters, stickers, and presets. It's possible to have better pictures with personalized effects and obtain more marked lines or light faces, collages, wallpapers, and much more. The interface is intuitive and it's possible to share your pictures quickly on some social networks.
Canva
I recently discovered this free photo app and I must admit I was comfortably impressed. It's not an app to modify the pictures, like other apps... it's way more "social" because it allows creating specific projects: Instagram posts, Facebook posts, stories, but also presentations, posters, flyers to publish or share starting from your pictures. You have many possible templates, and you can use this app on the desktop version too, creating teams and adding up to 400 members to manage your brand. Like this app declares, designing is for everyone!
Many of these apps are also available in their PRO versions, with some special features. Since the offer in this field is pretty much endless on the Google Play Store (like in the Windows and Apple ones), I'm sure you use and already know many other apps during your trips to modify your pictures on Android. Some of the apps listed above, for their learning curve or their useful features and tools for the post-production, are all valid and I don't feel pushing for one in particular. The choice depends on your level of knowledge of photography, your time to dedicate to the mean, and on the use that you're going to do of them.
As I told before, I prefer carrying a little bit more weight and have a camera with me, but I'm using my phone more and more, mostly to share some content live or just after a ride or the trip.
No matter what instrument you're using, the best practice is to dedicate most of your time to enjoy the trip, the people, the views, the social relations... Sometimes technology is the enemy of the time, some others it helps it: it's up to us to use it at its best and for our best! Did you use one of these best photo apps?