Don’t snap another pic without these 5 Android photo apps

If you’re a more involved photographer like me, you know that the selection of digital tools can get a little overwhelming. The Google Play Store is home to a countless number of photography and imaging-related applications for the Android operating system. Many of the most popular apps are free-to-start, but require in-app purchases or subscriptions to remove ads and unlock functionalities.

Amid the crowded landscape, there are a number of good quality, entirely free apps with no strings attached. Here are the five photo apps built for Android phones that fall precisely into this category.

1 Aves Gallery

A simple and highly compatible camera roll application

Aves Gallery

A simple and friendly gallery app for viewing all your favorite memories.

Aves is a completely free photo gallery app that focuses on compatibility and simplicity. It’s compatible with Android phones going as far back as 4.4 KitKat, and it supports somewhat obscure file formats like GeoTIFF, Google Photo Spheres, 360° videos, and more.

These days, OEM gallery apps like Google Photos feel more bloated than ever, with AI, cloud storage integration, and a ton of other bells and whistles added in. If you’re looking for a free and consolidated app for viewing your camera roll of photos, then Aves is a solid choice.

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2 Snapseed

A simple and highly useful image editor

Snapseed

A Google-owned photo editing app that is lightweight yet surprisingly powerful.

Snapseed has been a popular Android photo editing app for quite some time now, and Google itself purchased the app a number of years back. The app supports RAW image files, and has a ton of tools and filters to manipulate photos. These include crop and rotation tools, healing and brush tools, advanced filters, and much more.

Snapseed is completely free, and it offers all the basic essentials for when you want to quickly edit a photo directly off of your Android phone. It might not be as feature-rich as some other options, but the lack of a price tag makes it hard to complain about.

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3 PhotoScan

A made-by-Google solution for digitizing your memories

PhotoScan by Google Photos

An underappreciated Google utility that makes digitizing your old-developed photos a breeze.

Google’s in-house PhotoScan app is an underappreciated tool — it looks to solve the problem of glare and crooked composition when taking a digital image of an already developed photo. The app is dead simple to use, with a basic prompt that guides you to point at the four corners of whichever photo you’re digitizing.

Most of us have developed pictures stowed away in photo albums or displayed within photo frames. PhotoScan is a perfectly lightweight and simple utility to help you preserve precious analogue memories in a matter of seconds.

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4 Open Camera

A free and open-source app for taking pictures on the go

Open Camera

A free and open-source alternative viewfinder and photo capture app.

Generally speaking, the default camera app on most modern Android phones is more than serviceable for daily use. In fact, in most cases it’s advisable to stick with your phone’s native shooter — the software often benefits from tighter computational integration than a third-party app can provide.

That being said, there’s always room in the market for something free and open-source, which is precisely what’s on offer with Open Camera. The app is relatively full-featured, and so it’s a solid solution if your phone’s default camera app isn’t working out for you. The interface lacks some visual polish, which is unfortunate, but it’s a small price to pay for software that isn’t tethered to big tech.

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5 Muzei Live Wallpaper

An app to bring a dynamic new look to your home screen

Muzei Live Wallpaper

A wonderfully free live wallpaper curation app with a focus on famous works of art.

Live wallpapers were once a major selling point in the world of Android — remember that iconic Nexus glowing cube showpiece? While the novelty may have worn off over the years, live wallpapers are still actively supported by the Android OS, and there are some great options out there to inject some liveliness into your home screen setup.

Muzei is an excellent choice with an interesting backstory, curating a selection of live backdrops that are based on famous works of art (think van Gogh’s The Starry Night). The app cycles through new wallpapers each day, keeping your device feeling fresh and and in style.

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Unlike many other live wallpapers that operate in constant motion, Muzei’s collection is on the subtle side — a double tap gesture on your home screen will temporarily place focus on the work of art in question, as well as remove the darkening filter. The live aspect here will cause a bit of extra battery drain, but it’s arguably worth the trade-off for the eye candy it provides.