There are a plethora of photo apps out there, with many offering overlapping features, and knowing which are really worth your time can be the difference between a so-so Instagram post and one that really pops. Halide’s portrait mode, called Depth, consistently produces more natural-looking bokeh effects and tends to produce less distortion along hairlines and edges. You can’t edit an image’s depth, and Halide doesn’t natively support Portrait Lighting effects, but you can add Portrait Lighting by editing the image using iOS’ Photos app. You can set the exposure and focal point with a tap, but more granular controls are also available, allowing you to easily change exposure levels and see which parts of an image are in focus before you take your shot. Lastly, Halide recently added Shortcuts support, which lets you snap a picture using a Siri voice command, or launch the app in Depth mode. With Halide, you’ll never spend too much time setting up a shot. If you plan on shooting photos for printing, Hydra is a must-have app. It captures a series of images, then automatically stitches them together. While this process requires a few seconds more to snap a photo, it allows for detail-rich pictures of up to 32-megapixels. Hydra also has an HDR mode and a low light mode to create images at a maximum of 12 megapixels. HDR produces stills with more vibrant colors and more contrast, while Lo-Light creates photos with less noise. Hydra also offers a Zoom mode, but the results can vary. It allows you to shoot up to 8x zoom, but the level of detail just isn’t as impressive as its other modes. Furthermore, because of the multi-image processing, anything moving in the frame will cause an aberration in the final image, meaning you’ll likely have to reshoot it. For this reason, Hydra works best when shooting landscapes, buildings, or otherwise still subjects. As soon as you open an image, the app offers a set of Looks (predefined filters and settings) you can apply with a couple of taps, but if you want to go further, you can add film grains, vignettes, and more. Where Snapseed truly stands out from other image editing apps is with its Portrait and Head Pose modes. Portrait gives you options for highlighting eyes and smoothing skin, while Head Pose allows you to shift a person’s face on a four-point axis, with options to adjust pupil size and exaggerate smiles. Snapseed’s Undo and Redo modes make it easy to make changes without fully committing to them, and by opening the full edit history, you can remove or re-apply earlier effects to see how a photo looks while leaving newer ones in place.
The Crop tool is also simple to use, offering an array of portrait and landscape layouts for your images. To get access to all of the filters, you’ll need to sign up for an annual subscription, though a seven-day free trial is available. Using 1967 without a subscription means you’ll encounter ads, many of which will likely interrupt your workflow. The app gives you a collection of free templates, making it easy to get started without purchasing a premium collection. Additionally, several templates let you add multiple stills and videos to a Story, allowing you to go further than the stock Story creation tools found in Instagram and Snapchat. However, most templates in Unfold aren’t free, so if you want to truly experiment, you’ll find yourself purchasing new collections. This is fine if you like all of the templates, but you’ll most likely find yourself paying for at least a few you’ll never use. Unfold also offers some very good text tools that are easy to use and offer a range of fonts and colors. You can also resize and place text by dragging and pinching.
