The 9 Best FREE IPhone Photo Apps

More and more I find myself leaving my digital camera at home in favor of the camera on my smartphone. It's not that my iPhone takes better pictures than my Olympus (it doesn't); but rather, as a non-purse-carrying male, I would rather just take slightly less sharp photos on my phone than shove another gadget in my pocket.

If you're like me and you find yourself taking more and more photos with your iPhone, then you know that the camera itself is fairly no-frills. Luckily, there are a lot of great, useful, fun and--oh yeah--free apps in the iTunes store to enhance your photo-taking, -editing, and -publishing options. Our rundown of Android photography apps is coming soon, but for now, take a look at our favorite photo freebies for the iPhone:

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Instagram

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The Big Daddy of iPhone photography apps, Instagram may already have 7 million users and 150 million photos taken, but the price is still right at zero dollars. After a quick registration, Instagram allows you to apply a number of filters to your photos, making them appear as though taken by an old-school Instant Polaroid camera or Lomography lens. You can then share your new hipster-y filtered photos via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram (where others can "like" it and comment on it) and other sharing sites. And that's it! It's not the most fully-loaded effects app on the market, but it doesn't aim to be, either. A simple idea done well, Instagram has brought vintage-style photography to the masses.

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The Big Daddy of iPhone photography apps, Instagram may already have 7 million users and 150 million photos taken, but the price is still right at zero dollars.

After a quick registration, Instagram allows you to apply a number of filters to your photos, making them appear as though taken by an old-school Instant Polaroid camera or Lomography lens. You can then share your new hipster-y filtered photos via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram (where others can "like" it and comment on it) and other sharing sites. And that's it! It's not the most fully-loaded effects app on the market, but it doesn't aim to be, either. A simple idea done well, Instagram has brought vintage-style photography to the masses.

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Comments

[Gronkie]

08:33 PM on 08/12/2011

Love the first kitty pic! He looks just like my buddy Jake.

[WarrenPease]

04:12 PM on 08/11/2011

test

[Ramonio]

03:57 PM on 08/11/2011

Has anyone came across a social photo sharing app that is better than Instagram? Doubt it!

[GohBokhor]

04:18 PM on 08/10/2011

None of these are nearly as good as Camera+. It's totally worth the $2 or whatever.

[video360]

02:47 PM on 08/09/2011

That link was bad. Trying again - http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=356de7b4-8eb4-4504-997e-ae186b92d46b

[video360]

02:41 PM on 08/09/2011

The free Photosynth App from Microsoft is much more than remarkably easy panoramas, in fact that is only a third of what the app offers. It also lets you upload your panoramas to Bing Maps, "associate" them with businesses, and even GET PAID for doing it via @Gigwalk. Most significantly to me as a GIGAPIXEL panoramic photographer (#3 most viewed at Photosynth.net #justsayin), they allow me to explore the 300+, ultra-high res (250 Megapixels & up) pano I already have up on Photosynth.net on my iPhone. Meaning I always have my portfolio in my pocket, where I can zoom in on all of the details that my images offer (like this .3 Gigapixel panorama I shot of The Old 97's & Sarah Jaffe Band - http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=356de7b4-8eb4-4504-997e-ae186b92d46b. No other app handles gigapixel image tile-sets as well as Photosynth. Congrats to the Bing Maps team on the continued and amazing growth of your panorama platform (5 million users in 5 months). Google, your move. @GigaView360

[erics72]

12:46 PM on 08/12/2011

Unfortunately, Photosynth doesn't allow you to save to your photo library. Big draw back, as I don't like uploading my photos to a dedicated site to view. A lot of the decent free pano apps do this. Another good one is DerManDar.

[Nate Lawrence]

07:34 PM on 08/15/2011

Eric, I believe that you are mistaken.

Tony Ernst on the Photosynth team says that you can use the cropping option in the app to save the panorama to your camera roll.

[Angelus2007]

11:52 AM on 08/09/2011

I use Hipstamatic; it makes square photos and has different filters to simulate different old types of film and different flashes. Makes some neat old timey photos.

I also use HDR Pro, it really isn't an HDR app, but it does take 2 pics together to create a sort of HDR type photo, but the best part is, afterwards you have several sliders likes brightness, contrast, saturation ect to play with to create neat effects. Easily make them B+W by tuning down the saturation, or up the contrast and make some vibrant pics.

[gemini68]

09:58 AM on 08/09/2011

May I also recommend Camera Art FX. It has the ability to take a photo and make it resemble a pencil sketch, comic book art, or old fashioned photo. Its my latest camera app obsession -after Instagram- and they have a free version (with ads) and a paid version (without ads). I use the free one.

[robmclaughjr]

08:46 AM on 08/09/2011

They're not "free" if they display ads. Those apps are eating into your tiny data cap. Sometimes you're better off spending a dollar so the ads are not chewing your data.

[KarateKid]

08:17 AM on 08/09/2011

I really like CamZoom, which takes very clear closeups. Free App.

[Oscar Goldman]

11:59 PM on 08/08/2011

There are plenty of "tech blogs." This is supposed to be politics. Get back to business and give this spam a rest.

[CaptainObvvious]

07:40 AM on 08/09/2011

Actually this is the tech section of the site...

[Angelus2007]

11:53 AM on 08/09/2011

This is the tech section of the site. This is one of the reasons I read Huffpo, because I get more than just political arguments.

[thegirlnextdoor]

11:57 PM on 08/08/2011

Thanks for the tips! Had some, now have the rest. And the tattoo one is hilarious!

[Mitchman57]

06:04 PM on 08/08/2011

Tomorrow: best free iphone video apps. Next Week: best free iphone app for finding the best free iphone apps. On schedule for September: best free iphone app for finding the nearest iphone store selling the new and improved iphone 5. Then.... just in time for the holidays: best free iphone app for delicious holiday cookies.

Yikes. Give it a rest already. We know... we get it.... you own Apple stock.

[inguatu]

08:04 AM on 08/09/2011

Yup.. they get pretty Apple-stupid here. *waits for CaptainDoooche to defend his beloved $teve Job$*

[Pectin]

10:32 AM on 08/11/2011

Why wouldn't they? Any Apple-related article gets hits from people that are actually interested, and those harboring resentment against the company as well. In fact, the more people click on Apple articles to complain about the number of Apple articles, the more Apple articles get posted. Just keep bitching about it, yo.

[WSAY]

11:59 AM on 08/14/2011

You sure obsess over Apple. Just buy one. And if you can't afford it, shut up!

[Mitchman57]

01:05 PM on 08/14/2011

No, I obsess over the hype and the in-your-face advertizing being shoved at us at H.uff po. st. I have an iphone4 and an Android and love them both.