4 Essential Android Apps For Photography That You Should Be Using

For photographers looking to use a mobile device for high-end results, the camera app that comes installed on many Android phones rarely gives enough control over the camera hardware to achieve those results. In order to help less experienced mobile camera users with quick, share-ready results, these apps rely heavily on post-processing and generalized algorithms instead of user input.

Even newer flagships such as the Google Pixel 10 and Samsung Galaxy S25 don't necessarily give experienced photographers the camera controls they need in order to capture the world to their specific visual liking. But many Android phones have camera hardware perfectly capable of doing more, which makes it simply a matter of finding the right software to unlock a phone's photographic potential.

The Google Play Store is full of Android photography apps — both free and paid — that can help you fully tap into what your phone's camera can do. We've narrowed them down to the essentials, and among them you'll find options that offer full exposure controls and the ability to shoot RAW images, as well as some that offer editing features to help you achieve the look you're going for.

The comprehensive manual controls found in ProShot are a big part of how the app brings DSLR-style photography to Android. With ProShot, you can manually adjust ISO settings, shutter speeds, white balance, focus, and even exposure compensation. ProShot supports RAW and JPEG photography, and like DSLR and mirrorless cameras, allows you to take pictures in both RAW and JPEG formats at the same time. Shooting RAW allows for more flexibility when editing photos, which can come in handy whether you have professional ambitions or hope to take Instagram-worthy pictures of the moon.

And if Instagram and other social platforms are your primary photography outlets, ProShot's aspect ratio options give you some flexibility. It has settings for 4:3, 16:9, and 1:1 photography, but it also allows you to set up your own custom aspect ratios. The app's Dual Dial interface mirrors the feel of professional cameras, so anyone coming from DSLRs or mirrorless cameras should feel more at home using their phone camera with ProShot.

ProShot costs $8 as a one-time purchase and does not require any sort of subscription. You also don't have to worry about in-app purchases, as that $8 price gets you access to the complete suite of features. You can also download the ProShot Evaluator app for free, which allows you to test exactly which features your specific Android device supports.

Android users who haven't yet come across Open Camera have been missing out on a highly capable yet entirely free third-party camera option. Open Camera has a lot of features available that are similar to ProShot, but it offers them at absolutely no cost. While you will find some ads within the app, Open Camera does not have in-app purchases or subscription fees. Getting full access is simply a matter of downloading and opening up the app.

Those features include the ability to shoot in RAW and JPEG modes, as well as HDR shooting with auto-alignment. A panorama mode is available for landscape photography, and GPS location tagging will ensure you never lose track of where each photo was taken. For photographers who may just be getting started with professional camera controls, Auto modes can be turned on for help while you learn.

There's a lot of versatility within the Open Camera app, which makes it a great Android photography companion for photographers at all skill levels. Features like exposure bracketing and dynamic range optimization are there for the pros. For everyday photographers, the ability to trigger the camera shutter remotely by making a noise is helpful for self-portraits and family photos.

Adobe Lightroom is best known as a photo editing app, but it includes a built-in camera with professional shooting controls. It comes with manual adjustment controls for ISO, shutter speed, white balance, and focus distance, offering the kind of precision most default Android camera apps lack. The kind of dynamic range you need in order to take full advantage of Lightroom's editing features is also available by taking RAW pictures using Adobe's DNG format within the app.

These editing features are what make Lightroom Mobile an essential Android app for photographers. Its core editing tools include exposure adjustments through dedicated sliders for highlights, shadows, saturation, contrast, and even more. In fact, Lightroom offers precise controls for just about every aspect of photo editing, and if you're willing to pay for a monthly subscription, Adobe even chips in a lot of AI help for the photo editing process.

Adobe Lightroom Mobile is available as a free download, though it will cost a minimum of $12 per month for full access. That $12 per month price is for the Lightroom-only photography plan, but the app is also available as part of Adobe's Photography Plan for $20 per month. This package includes desktop and web versions of Lightroom, as well as Photoshop for Android and the Photoshop desktop and web apps.

Snapseed doesn't have built-in camera functionality, but it's a powerful piece of photo editing software that has a simple, intuitive interface. It's capable of importing and editing both JPEG and RAW files, so it's a particularly useful tool to pair with camera-only photography options like the previously mentioned ProShot and Open Camera apps.

This is also a photo editing app worth installing if you have a large library of previously unedited photos. Snapseed imports photos one at a time for editing, and it comes with a large selection of film-like filters that can give photos taken with your Android phone's default camera app a more unique look. Snapseed utilizes a layer-based, non-destructive editing workflow that allows for modification of individual layers at any point in the process.

Google is the company behind Snapseed, and it has chosen to make the app entirely free to use. There are no ads within the app, and no watermarks when you're ready to export your final edit. It isn't an all-in-one photography app like Lightroom Mobile, but at zero cost, its professional-level editing tools are incredibly accessible and complement a dedicated camera app well.