Best Apps for Photography
There are so many different factors that go into photography, from planning to navigating to successfully capturing an image all the way to the final product, an edited image. If you’re looking for the best apps to help you with all of these steps along the way, you’ve come to the right place! Let’s briefly go over some of my favorite apps that I rely on and why I love them.
Scouting, Planning and Navigating
AllTrails (Hiking Navigation)
This app has led me to countless places in the pitch dark with no service. Almost every hike you’ll come across is on the app, including offline map downloads, directions to trailheads and trail difficulty & conditions. One of my favorite features is the ‘Record Your Hike’ option. During your hikes, your GPS tracks are recorded and saved to make it easy for you to find your way back. When it comes to finding hikes, how to get there and keeping you on trail during the hike, AllTrails has you covered.
PhotoPills (Scouting and Planning)
This app has unlimited resources and is one of my most used. I use PhotoPills mostly for lining up foregrounds with the Milky Way, sunrise/sets and moon rises/sets. Being able to tell exactly where the Milky Way will be in the sky at any given time on any date is extremely useful for planning. One of my favorite features is the Night Augmented Reality. While scouting during the day, I can see exactly where the Milky Way will be and what it looks like. The amount of useful info packed into this app is endless and well worth the $9.99.
MySunset (Sunset & Sunrise Predictor)
Let me start by saying I never assume their forecast is gospel. However, this app does a great job at giving you an idea of what to expect. It compiles the clouds and weather around you, at the horizon and beyond the horizon. When conditions chasing, I have alerts set to help point me in the right direction. If you’re going to be out shooting and want to have a better idea of where the best sunrise or sunset in your area is, this is a very helpful guiding app.
Tides (Tide Research)
Knowing when high and low tides are and how it affects the foreground are crucial to getting the right shot. Need to know when, where and how high the tide is going to be? Tides App has all of that info for you. This app is free, straight forward and has never let me down!
InShot (Phone Image/Video Editing)
I put all of my IG Reels together using this app. InShot makes it easy to seamlessly put all your images and video clips together with fantastic transition options. This app does so much more and is well worth the free download.
Snapseed (Phone Image Editing)
When it comes to editing an image on my iPhone, I prefer Snapseed. There is a lot of control and editing options and feels the closest to Lightroom. Don’t get me wrong, Snapseed is no replacement for Lightroom or Photoshop, but it’s great to use for a quick edit and it’s free.
Google Maps (Google Pins)
I mainly use this app to save locations I’ve scouted or want to check out. Any place I want to return to gets pinned in my Google Maps. You can add notes about each location and create as many categories you want. I’ve found this very useful over the years when it comes to scouting and remembering spots. Next time you want to go back to a favorite spot or see what is around you, just open up Google Maps, click the pin and start directions.
Editing Software & Apps
Starry Landscape Stacker (Milky Way Stacking)
I love this software and it completely changed everything for my night images. Without a tracker, the quality of single images of the Milky Way are severely limited due to the high ISO needed. Starry Landscape Stacker allows you to take high ISO images and converts multiple images into one, massively reducing the amount of noise. SLS will dramatically improve the quality of your night skies and I can’t recommend it more!
Topaz Labs AI (Sharpening, DeNoise, Gigapixel)
Another absolute game changer! All three of these programs can work magic on what you think are unusable images. Topaz Sharpenong has turned my blurry and unfocused images into tack sharp shots. Topaz DeNoise has converted 3200 ISO images to clean shots with no notice. Topaz Gigapixel has boosted my 5 MB images to printable 24 MB. The combo of these 3 will open up your world just a little more and it well worth the price.
(More on these magical AI apps coming soon in future posts)
Helicon (Focus Stacking)
If you like all of the details crisp throughout your image and use the focus stack technique often, this is the app for you! Helicon does an incredible job at seamlessly stitching together your focused stacked images. Photoshop does a great job too, but I usually have to go in and touch up some areas. If you focus stacking often, you won’t believe the amount of time you’ll save.
Adobe Lightroom
If you are looking to edit your images without having the knowledge of Photoshop, Lightroom is the app you need. There are a lot of great options coming out to rival Lightroom, but it is still my go to for editing. I use Lightroom for a bulk of my editing and love the easy to use layout. If you’re looking for other options, I have been impressed with Luminar AI and Capture One, both have some great features.
Adobe Photoshop
Like Lightroom, Photoshop is a staple in all my edits and is a favorite of mine. Getting through the initial learning curve is well worth the time, I haven’t found any other software that can do everything Photoshop does. If you’re looking to really take your editing to a new level, Photoshop is the app for you.
