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10 apps for enhancing iPhone photos

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A good photo editing app can add mood and alter colors to clarify your vision of your dog or any of your photos.
A good photo editing app can add mood and alter colors to clarify your vision of your dog or any of your photos.
Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac

One of my favorite observations by a now-forgotten sage explained the difference between writing and photography like this: A bad sentence can be massaged, but nothing helps a bad photo.

So true. However, I’ve experienced for myself how a good photo-editing app can salvage sloppy composition or bad exposure — and even teach you something along the way. So if you resolve to become a better photographer in 2017, you might want to add some tools to put a finer finish on your iPhone photos.

7 amazing iPad apps to make your photos pop

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All you need are your photos, an iPad, and these apps.
All you need are your photos, an iPad, and these apps.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

When you’re looking to create special, one-of-a-kind photo on your iPad, you might be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices out there. We’ve taken some time to find the best apps for photo editing on the iPad and create some step-by-step how-tos to ensure you get the best results.

Whether you’re just looking to out-game your Instagram buddies or create a stunning double exposure photo on your iPad, here are the 7 best ways to make your photos pop.

How to create stunning double exposures with Enlight

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Make stunning images with Enlight right on your iPad.
Make stunning images with Enlight right on your iPad.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

If you want to create amazing images like the one above, Enlight is a fantastic way to do so on the iPad (or iPhone).

Most of us don’t want to take a huge amount of time, either, learning how to create these images in-camera or with a big application like Photoshop.

Enlight makes it so easy, even a photo newbie like myself can create amazing double exposures with Enlight in just a few minutes.

 

How to capture long exposures and light trails with your iPhone

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A decent tripod and a few great apps can help you capture stunning light trails, motion blur, and low light photos.
A decent tripod and a few great apps can help you capture stunning light trails, motion blur, and low-light photos.
Photo: Ally Kazmucha/The App Factor

app-factor-logo-thumbnailLong-exposure photography lets you capture light trails, motion blur and better low-light shots. While the iPhone’s built-in Camera app doesn’t let you control shutter speed and light sensitivity, lots of apps do. Slow Shutter Cam is my favorite — here’s how I’ve used it to capture long exposures with nothing but my iPhone 6 and a tripod.

10 superb iOS and Mac apps we loved in 2015

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'Appy new year.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac's Best of 2015 Witnessing the ingenuity of app developers both small and large is a real highlight of my job writing about the Apple ecosystem. In that regard, 2015 didn’t disappoint: Some tremendous new apps got unleashed this year on both iOS and OS X.

Here are Cult of Mac’s picks for the absolute best apps of the year for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Week’s best apps: Enlight, Fallout Shelter, and more

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It's the weekend -- and have we ever got some great apps to help you fill up the next two days!

From nuclear bunkers to photo-editing suites, and Apple Music playlist importers to run-and-gun actioners, check out our picks for the week's most newsworthy apps. You won't regret it!

Pixelmator has become one of the standards when it comes to editing photos on your Mac or iOS device. This week's 2.0 update adds a slew of new features, such as the ability to easily change your brush size using your fingertips, a faster and more accurate repair function, and generally bolstered list of available tools.

If you're into photo editing on your iPhone, you really can't go wrong.

Available on: iPhone/iPad (iOS 8.3 and later)

Price: $0.99 (usually $4.99)

Download: App Store

Okay, Fallout Shelter isn't new this week, but I'm including it here on the back of the news that its addictive qualities allowed it to pull in a massive $5.1 million in two weeks.

The game, if you haven't yet played it, is a vault-building sim, in which you protect a population of nuclear survivors from fires, radioactive insect infestations, and attacks from outsiders.

The game is free-to-play, meaning that there are in-app purchases available, but Fallout Shelter doesn't force them on you, and the game's so much fun you won't mind throwing a few dollars its way.

Available on: iPhone/iPad

Price: Free

Download: App Store

Enlight is one of the year's best photo-editing apps.

The arrival of Apple Music means that you may be reconsidering the existing streaming music services you use. But what if you've spent the past several years compiling the ultimate playlist outside of Apple Music? Fortunately that's where this nifty tool from coder Lupin comes into play. In short, it'll seamlessly extract your Spotify and Deezer playlists and transfer them over to Apple Music. Best of all, it's totally free.

Available on: Mac

Price: Free

Download: Lupin's homepage

I'm a big fan of the Mission Impossible franchise, which is why I was happy to hear about the arrival of a new MI game on iOS to coincide with the release of this summer's Rogue Nation movie.

This free-to-play action title from developers Glu Games puts you in charge of tracking down Ethan Hunt. If you're looking for a bit of mindless run-and-gun action this weekend, this game will provide it.

Available on: iPhone/iPad

Price: $4.99

Download: App Store

Phlite, A Lampshade For Your Camera Tripod

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You know all those tripods we feature here on Cult of Mac? Maybe you have a stack of them at home, or maybe you just have one of them, stuck at the back of the coat closet and generally never getting used. Or maybe you don;t even have a closet to keep it in, and you just keep tripping overt it on the way to make you coffee every morning.

Enlight’s new Phlite is here to help. It’ll let you leave your tripod permanently erected in the living room, without anyone complaining. How? Let’s see…

IoShutterCam: Trigger Your iPhone Camera With Sound, Movement, Time

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IoShutterCam is a neat, new take on iPhone camera apps. Instead of focusing (ahem) on adding filters to your images and sending them off to ever more social networking services, the new app instead concentrates on capture.

If you’re interested in time-lapse, triggering your shutter with sound, or many other neat shutter-tripping functions, then the $3 ioShutterCam is for you.