Summary
- The iPad is a natural fit for photo editing and other creative work.
- Affinity Photo 2 offers an iPad-focused, powerful alternative to Photoshop.
- Photomator works as more of a Lightroom-alternative.
- And TouchRetouch allows quick object removal using AI.
As a big screen designed to be touched, the iPad feels uniquely suited for creative work, and even more so since the Apple Pencil was introduced. Drawing feels like an obvious fit for an iPad, but a bright, high-resolution display also makes for an excellent canvas for photo editing, too.
You’ve been able to get Adobe Photoshop on the iPad since 2019 for $9.99 per month, and the well-known editing tool feels like a natural fit on the tablet. Adobe even introduced features on the iPad first before bringing them to other versions of the app. Still, Photoshop is not exactly intuitive, and for the price, it’s also more than a little expensive. It’s hard to avoid subscriptions when you’re looking for well-supported creative software, it if you’re looking for a way to edit photos on your iPad that’s more approachable, powerful, or cheaper than Photoshop, the list below has some great options to consider.
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1 Affinity Photo 2
The more consumer-friendly version of Photoshop
Affinity Photo 2
Affinity Photo 2 is an iPad-focused image editor that serves as a capable one-to-one replacement for Photoshop.
Affinity has offered alternatives to Adobe apps like Illustrator and Photoshop for years at this point, and depending on your taste, the company does make a more intuitive product. Of the apps on this list, Affinity Photo 2 for the iPad gets the closest to recreating and replacing Photoshop’s features. Like Adobe’s app, it lets you work with layers, adjust the look of a photo, and mask and remove individual elements to create a composite image.
Affinity Photo 2 for the iPad gets the closest to recreating and replacing Photoshop’s features.
Affinity Photo 2 includes some AI-powered object selection tools that use machine learning that make the process of adjusting individual parts of a photo easier, too, though you won’t find anything as in-depth as Photoshop’s Generative Fill. You can get Affinity Photo 2 through the App Store or directly from Affinity’s website for $18.49 for just the iPad version or $164.99 for every piece of software Affinity currently sells. The price and the ability to pay once is worth it. Affinity Photo 2 has a bit of a learning curve, but it’s by far the most powerful app on the list.
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2 Photomator
Adobe Lightroom’s friendlier photo-editing cousin
Photomator
Photomator is an alternative to Lightroom with a focus on batch editing photos and using AI to streamline the process.
Pixelmator’s Photomator is more of a Lightroom alternative than a Photoshop one, but if you’re looking for an intuitive, but still capable tool for making your photos ready for public consumption, it works remarkably well. Photomator lets you crop, touch-up, and recolor photos, and can even make some of those adjustments automatically, if you trust the app’s built-in AI. Like all good photo-editing software, Photomator makes it simple to favorite shots, and batch edit photos, saving you the work of making adjustments to each image individually.
Most helpful to me, you can instantly upscale and increase the resolution of an image, turning a grainy screenshot into something worth at least embedding in a blog. The app’s object removal tool makes it simple to remove blemishes, too. Photomator is available for a $7.99 monthly subscription or a one-time purchase of $119.99. The app’s developer, Pixelmator, was acquired by Apple in 2024, which could mean changes to pricing or availability are on the way, but at least for now it’s a great option.
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3 Darkroom
Filters and all the editing tools most people need
Darkroom
Darkroom is a photo and video editor with nearly all the tools and features of a desktop app.
Darkroom offers an interesting mix of simple editing tools (the basic filters of an Instagram) with more in-depth, powerful features waiting in the wings if you need them. That includes tools for cropping and making adjustments to things like highlights and shadows, with masking and color grading options available for an additional fee. If you’re just looking to quickly change the look of an image, a simple filter can go a long way, especially Darkroom’s options.
The vast majority of Darkroom’s features can be used without a subscription, but if you want things like masking or the ability to edit videos in the app, too, you’ll need to pay for Darkroom+, which costs $6.99 per month or $39.99 per year.
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4 VSCO
A photo-sharing app with some unique filters
VSCO
VSCO is a photo-sharing and editing app with a focus on filters that mimic real film.
If you’ve been shooting photos with a smartphone for a while, there’s a good chance you’ve used or at least heard of VSCO. The app initially offered a more interesting selection of filters and photo-editing tools than you could get out of Instagram, but has since morphed into a photo-sharing and photography portfolio platform all its own, with editing taking a secondary role. The app works on the iPad more or less how it does on an iPhone. You’ll have to upload a photo to start editing it, but then you can select from a range of filters (that themselves can be tweaked) or make adjustments to things like brightness or grain with just a few swipes.
From there, you can share your photos to your profile on VSCO or take them from the app and use them elsewhere. To gain access to everything VSCO has to offer, you have to subscribe for $12.99 per month or $59.99 per year. I’ve found that the app works better as a social media tool than a productivity one if you’re looking to work with a lot of photos, but there are some pretty fun filters to choose from in VSCO.
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5 TouchRetouch
The ultimate AI background remover
TouchRetouch
TouchRetouch is a focused, AI-powered photo editor with the ability to quickly remove objects and backgrounds.
Sometimes you don’t need all the bells and whistles of an Affinity Photo or a Photomator. Sometimes you just want to remove an object from your photo and go about your day. For those instances, TouchRetouch might be your best option. The app is focused on using AI to competently complete a small list of photo editing tasks, like removing a distraction in the foreground or a photo, completely removing the background of a photo, or removing an object, and that’s it.
If you’ve used the AI editing features built-in to Pixels, Galaxy devices, and iPhones, you have a sense of how TouchRetouch works.
In my experience, the app works well if you’re looking for the quickest possible edit. In-depth changes are still better served by one of the other apps on this list, but TouchRetouch can make a big difference in a pinch. You’ll sometimes run into weirdness along the edges of the subject of a photo, but the vast majority of the time the app allowed me to quickly replace the background of a photo or eliminate a blemish. Access to all the app’s features requires a subscription of $7.99 a month or $19.99 per year, but you can pay weekly if you know you’re only going to need the app for a short amount of time.
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The iPad can be an all-in-one photo studio
It’s hard to find a quality photo editor that doesn’t include some kind of subscription at this point, but you definitely don’t need to pay Adobe prices to get your photos looking the way you want them to. The apps in this list should hopefully work as alternatives for you.
If you happen to be putting the cart before the house and looking into iPad apps before you actually own one, Apple recently announced updates to the iPad Air and the entry-level iPad that should make both varieties of the tablet more than capable enough to run any of the photo-editing apps we’ve mentioned above.
