All the best smartphones in recent years, like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra or the iPhone 14 Pro Max, have made it incredibly easy to capture good photos on the go. You no longer need a professional-grade camera or expensive gear to capture day-to-day moments or even product photography up to a level. Even the best photos, however, can use a little bit of editing sometimes to bring out the details. Not to mention, you can also establish your own style with editing by making the photos look a certain way, so it's an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to photography.

There are a ton of photo editing apps on the Google Play Store, but not all of them are worth downloading to touch up your photos. Because even the best smartphone cameras can use a little help from time to time, so you should get something that offers a good set of editing tools to tweak different aspects of an image. So we have zeroed in on the best apps you can find to edit your photos on your Android phone. All these apps have multiple editing options, and you can use them for a variety of different things, like creating a collage, making graphic templates for YouTube thumbnails or Instagram stories, and more. Let's dive into the list of best photo editor apps on Android.

Best overall: Picsart

Picsart has been around for a while now, and it's easily one of the best photo editor apps on Android in 2023. This particular app has evolved a lot over the years, and it's now packed with some of the most powerful photo editing tools you can have at your disposal on a smartphone. It offers a wide range of crop tools, background removal options, and the ability to add text and multiple image layers, similar to more advanced programs such as Photoshop. In addition to editing photos, Picsart also allows users to create collages and banners for social media.

The basic version of Picsart is free, but it contains ads that may get in the way of editing. It has all the essentials to help you tune your image, but the Picsart Gold membership may be worth considering if you want to unlock some special features and remove ads.

Also great: Snapseed

The only reason why Snapseed isn't on the top of this list as our best overall pick is that Google doesn't update it anymore. That's right, Snapseed received its last update on 26 March 2020, and it's been the same ever since. It is, however, a simple and straightforward application that works well on almost all phones and offers a diverse range of editing tools. Whether you're looking to apply filters to your photos or use more advanced tools like the Healing tool to remove unwanted elements, Snapseed has you covered.

Snapseed is free to use and doesn't feature any annoying ads. This makes it an excellent option for beginners looking to experiment with photo editing without committing to a paid app or dealing with constant interruptions. It's a reliable and easy-to-use photo editor that is definitely worth checking out.

Best for color-grading: Adobe Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is well-renowned among professional photo editors. It's a popular pick on Windows and Mac, and its Android app is also equally good, with a ton of color-grading options. Lightroom lets you meddle with things like exposure levels, highlights, shadows, and color tones. It's great for both beginners and creative professionals like, so it's a great place to start if you want to color-grade your photos.

One of the best things about using Lightroom is that you can preset from all over the internet to update your image. You can simply download and apply them to your image or even tweak them manually to match the overall aesthetic of your image. The basic version of Lightroom is free, but you'll have to subscribe to Adobe's Creative Cloud platform if you want more features.

Best for advanced tools: Adobe Photoshop Express

Like Lightroom, Photoshop is also a part of Adobe's suite of apps and is one of the most popular photo editor apps on Windows and Mac, if not the most popular. While Lightroom is more for color grading and tweaking the elements in a photo, Photoshop lets you do things like adding or removing elements in the picture, adding more image layers, changing perspectives, etc. You can first use Lightroom to tweak the colors in a photo and then import it into Photoshop to add extra elements or vice versa.

Photoshop Express also has a basic free version, but you'll have to subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud to unlock advanced features.

Best for sharing: VSCO

VSCO is essentially a social media app but just for photos. It's a little like Pinterest because users can post their photographs for other VSCO users to look at and appreciate. Apart from being a platform to share your images, VSCO has an in-built photo editor that works great for basic edits in terms of lighting and colors, just like Lightroom. You can modify an image by tweaking things like its brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue levels, along with sharpening it or adding some grain.

Most tools are accessible free of charge on VSCO, while some features like HSL tuning require you to become a member. VSCO is a good photo editor, especially for its built-in filters.

Best for graphic designers: Canva

If you're a graphic designer or use templates to make cover photos for social media or anything of that sort, chances are you've heard of Canva. It's a popular website that can be used to edit photos and is also available as an app on Android.

Canva offers many templates for multiple use cases like Instagram posts, stories, YouTube thumbnails, posters, flyers, invitation cards, etc., and is very handy for creating an attractive image using the existing templates. You can also create your own image entirely from scratch if you want to be more creative. Look no further if you want to design or edit photos for specific templates and purposes.

Best free-to-use: Pixlr

Pixlr offers a very no-frills experience in that you don't have to log in or register before editing your photos. The UI is simplistic and looks beautiful, with a new scenic background every time you open the app.

The options are straightforward - you can edit an image, create a collage, or choose to edit based on a pre-existing template. In terms of features, you get everything you would expect from a photo editing app, and there's nothing behind a paywall except for a few stickers and overlays. You can unlock those and get rid of ads by subscribing to the premium version. It's a solid photo editing app overall, and it'll get the job done for most people who don't want to spend money to use all the important features.

Best photo editor apps on Android: Final say

There's no shortage of photo editor apps on Android, but Picsart is the one we recommend for most users out there. It's free to download from the Google Play Store, and it also offers a good set of features that'll help you tweak and improve your image. Even the free version of this app doesn't have any ads, and only a handful of effects and filters are locked behind a paywall. Picsart has pretty much all the tools you'd need to tune the images on your phone, so you don't have to worry about downloading separate apps like Lightroom and Photoshop Express to achieve different results.

We recommend having a few of these apps installed on your phone just to have a different set of tools and more granular controls. Snapseed, Lightroom, and Pixlr are also pretty good, so be sure to check them out. While you're here, don't forget to stop by our collection of the best Android apps as well.