24 Cool iPhone Photo Apps

The iTunes App Store has been a huge success and has provided iPhone users with a number of options to take and enhance photos, as well as unique ways to make the sharing process easier.  No doubt about it, the iPhone has changed the way many of us take and share photos.  Some of these cool Apps are free, while some carry a marginal price tag, and many of these are worth the price of admission.

Here’s 24 iPhone Photo Apps that might fit your needs as an iPhotographer.  (Just type the title of the App in the search box of the App Store on your iPhone to locate them.)

Free iPhone Apps

1. FilterFX for Free.

The first few apps on the list come from developer Free the Apps.  All their Apps are free, albeit ad supported.  There is a small banner at the top of the display when the “—— for Free” Apps are open.  FilterFX is pretty cool to quickly add simple photo effects to your photos in your camera roll on the go.  Want to make that photo black and white before you share it on Facebook?  No problem.  Other effects include – Vivid, Cool, Warm, Vignette White, Vignette Black, Sepia, Vintage and Soften.

2. Crop for Free.

Again, the name of the App pretty much explains what it does.  It works pretty intuitively as well.  Hit the crop button once the App is open and you see a crop overly.  Place your finger on any corner and simply drag your horizontal and vertical lines where you need them.  Tap “Save” and it creates a new image from your selected crop.  Additionally, you get buttons to rotate 90-degrees left or right.

3. Flash for Free.

Currently one of the top free apps.  With Flash for Free, you can choose various intensities of fake flash, which looks like boosted exposure or brightness.  On the brighter selections, you have to watch out for excess noise though.

4. HDR for Free.

Like Flash for Free, HDR for Free lets you choose various intensities of the HDR effect to apply.  It seems like it may be a boost in saturation and brightness.  Watch out for noise in the more intense selections though.

5. Flashlight

This doesn’t directly relate to photography on your iPhone.  It can produce a pure white screen which casts a bit of light in dark situations.  It could make for some cool fill light in very dark settings, or for just digging stuff out of your camera bag.  It once helped me find at lens cap at about 1 a.m.

6. Flickr Sendr

Upload images to Flickr and input tags, titles and toggle geotag info on/off.  Also offers integration with Twitter.

7. SmugShot

SmugMug users can use SmugShot to shoot and store iPhone photos.  You can sync your captured images on SmugMug, as well as captioning and tagging them before uploading to SmugMug.

8. Cooliris

Lets you search across Google, Flickr, Picasea, deviantART, YouTube, Yahoo and so on for photo and video content.  You can save cool items in Cooliris to revisit them later, or send by email or Twitter.

9. Bluetooth Photo Share

Share your full-res photos with another iPhone/iPod Touch user with the built-in Bluetooth capabilities in second and third-generation models.

10. Bump

This is the App that you’ve probably seen on one of those “There’s an App for that” commercials.  With Bump, you can swap photos and contact info by just “bumping” your phones together.  When you “bump” you can select whether to share phone, email or your photo with the other person.  This App needs some kind of network connection to work, unlike Bluetooth Photo Share.

11. HP iPrint Photo

Connect via your WiFi network to print to HP inkjet printers.

Pay iPhone Apps

12. Camera Genuis

$0.99 – Currently one of the hottest Apps overall, Camera Genius lets you take some serious control of your iPhone. Say “cheese” to snap a group shot, anti-shake stabilization, shot timer and composition guides are just a few of the features found in this app that have moved it to the top of the App Store sales.

13. onOne DSLR Camera Remote

$19.99 – Works as a remote cable release for Canon and Nikon DSLRs; however, it offers a ton of additional features.  You can adjust your camera’s settings, including shutter speed, aperture and white balance.  You can also preview captured images via your iPhone.  Other cool stuff includes setting up a time lapse shoot up to 999 shots and auto bracketing for you HDR shooters.

14. Mobile Fotos – Flickr Browser & Uploader

$2.99 – Browse and upload photos to Flickr. Allows embedding of GPS and EXIF info. Find photos nearby.  Integrated with Twitter applications.

15. Blossom SmugMug Mobile

$2.99 – Quick access to your SmugMug photos on your iPhone.  Unfortunately, the SmugWallet App appears to be gone from the App Store – it allowed you to download/sync entire galleries from your SmugMug account.  This is probably the next best thing.  Don McCaskill, CEO of SmugMug says it’s “Easily the fastest way to view your SmugMug photos . . . .”  Fortunately, I picked up SmugWallet when it was in the App Store at $1.99, and it’s been the best.  I suppose I would take Don’s advice if I didn’t have SmugWallet already.

16. Camera Flash

$0.99 – It is currently in the Top 25 Apps overall.  Allows you to apply to existing photos and use while capturing images.  Camera Flash attempts to evaluate the scene when taking a photo and refrain from blowing out highlights, applying “flash” only where needed.

17. Camera Zoom

$0.99 – Use a slider to zoom in and out when taking photos.  It’s a 4x digital zoom.

18. Art Camera

$1.99 – 32 different filters help you turn your photos into images in the style of famous artists like Warhol, Picasso and Monet.  Also included are filters like False Mirror, Old Photo and Pencil Paint. Filters can be stacked for blending the effects.

19. Photo fx

$2.99 – This one is by Tiffen and contains 32 filters with over 300 presets.  You can make manual adjustments for things like brightness, blur, saturation and hue.

20. Artist’s Touch

$1.99 – A post-processing app.  Let’s you choose a photo and then “paint” with your finger with a variety of paint media, including: oil paint, watercolor, charcoal, chalk, pastel and more.  You can also add textures such as canvas, brick and cracked paint.  You can even print greeting cards from your photos from the maker’s online service.

21. Picture Safe

$1.99 – Separate, group, organize, password protect and back-up photos.  Recent additions include: copy & paste images from Safari and email, Bluetooth transfer, support for 2500 x 2500px files.

22. Black & White Camera

$0.99 – Just what it says it does.  Take photos in black and white or make photos in library black and white after the fact.

23. iFlashReady

$0.99 – Much like Flash for Free; however, iFlash Ready has 4 options at the bottom that offer you the ability to set photos with no flash, flash, more flash and high flash.  It helps snaz up dim images, so long as they aren’t too dim.

24. f/8 DoF Calculator

$3.99 – Input your camera and lens info and the f/8 DoF Calculator spits out depth-of-field and hyperfocal distance details.  It comes with presets for over 800 camera models.