How To Retouch Photos On iPhone
July 26
13 min. to read
In our century, imagining life without a smartphone is challenging. Most people take dozens of photographs on their cell phones every day, and a few decades ago, it was an absolute fantasy. Of course, a smartphone cannot replace a camera, but we don't always have the opportunity to shoot with a professional camera. So why miss important moments? You can create exciting pictures with your iPhone camera and add some post-processing magic so they become a beautiful addition to your social networks.
This article will teach you how to airbrush photos on iPhone and create perfect portraits using Luminar tools and other mobile photo editors. Mobile shooting is good training for beginning photographers; for professionals, it is an assistant in cases with no camera. If the question is, "Can you retouch photos on iPhone?" The answer is definitely "Yes!" Let's now figure out how to do it.
Mobile Airbrushing
Photo airbrushing is a digital retouching and image enhancement often used to remove imperfections and enhance the appeal of a photo. Most photo editors have the necessary editing tools to adjust various aspects of your photo, such as skin smoothing, blur removal, color enhancement, and detail enhancement. The airbrushing technique came to photographic art from graphic design, where an airbrush is used to apply paint or ink to a surface with precision and control.
In the context of digital photography, airbrushing allows photographers and retouchers to achieve professional-looking results by manipulating the pixels of an image. Previously, this function was available only in PC versions of photo editors. Still, with the development of smartphone technology, we can use it even when processing mobile photos right on the device.
How to Airbrush Photos on iPhone
Smartphones today are indispensable not only for leading a social life but also for creating photos and videos. The small cameras of these devices take high-quality pictures, from portraits to landscapes and panoramas, as well as from macro photography to star images. If you are interested in unlocking the full potential of your smartphone camera, read How to Take Night Sky Photos with iPhone and experiment with a clear starry sky.
Calling the fact that modern smartphones take quite high-quality pictures, they can be given a perfect look only with the help of post-processing. You improve the image by removing skin imperfections and extra objects or crowds from the frame, making cropping and color correction. This makes it more attractive and interesting for the viewer. The iPhone has a fairly simple and convenient built-in photo editor, but its functions are limited to color correction, filters, and basic settings for contrast, exposure, temperature, etc. Explore how to invert colors on a picture on iPhone to learn how to create interesting and original photos directly on your smartphone without using a computer.
Speaking of retouching portraits, you will need a third-party program here. Now, there are many of them. You can use any online photo editor or just go to the AppStore and choose one that suits your taste and budget. You may even need several programs to implement the desired idea.
The main thing is to remember that images taken on a smartphone lose their quality a lot during intensive processing. Therefore, the less the photo undergoes various transformations, the better its result will be. Thus, always try to choose apps for mobile editing that cause minimal damage to the quality of the photo and have features that improve the image with minor processing.
If you have a great photo but want to improve its quality, Luminar Neo and its AI functions will save the situation. You can easily enhance picture quality by controlling the tool sliders. No more frustration over lost image quality.
How to Edit Face on iPhone
In the built-in editor on the smartphone, you can control the portrait mode, changing the intensity of the background blur and controlling the light that falls on the face. It is also how to smooth a picture on an iPhone. However, more is needed for deep editing, don't you agree? For this, the installation of programs to help is required. Face retouching is good for creating a photo of a professional level, in which all the necessary features are emphasized, and the flaws, on the contrary, are removed. To be consistent, let's move on to the same mobile photo editing apps that can be useful for retouching portraits and other photography types.
How Can You Retouch Photos on iPhone with Apps
The retouching feature is one of the most popular tools of mobile photo editors. The leading applications for mobile photography are Photoshop Express, Snapseed, Facetune, TouchRetouch, AirBrush, and Fotor. And now Luminar from Skylum joins them with its mobile version for iPhone! Let's discuss everything in detail and order.
1. Luminar Mobile
The iPhone Photo Editor was recently launched to complement the successful PC and tablet products. The mobile version, similar to Luminar for iPad, has a simple and convenient interface, interactive sound addition, and pleasant modern visuals. But the heart of this app is in its quality and powerful tools. A set of AI functions is available to users for editing — from natural landscapes to portraits.
Increase smoothness or sharpness, smooth skin and remove imperfections, improve the expressiveness of the look, work with the general picture or individual parts of the photo, change shapes, remove unnecessary objects, or add generated elements. It is good for professional Picture Retouching as it gives you full editing freedom for different types of photography.
Only with three simple steps, you can get professional-quality portraits strait in your iPhone using Luminar Mobileʼs Skin AI:
Open Luminar Mobile and select the photo you wish to edit
Navigate to the Skin AI Tool and enable the Skin Defects Removal feature. This will automatically correct any skin imperfections.
Use the Amount slider to set the perfect level of skin smoothing. Additionally, use the Shine Removal tool to reduce any shiny or oily spots.
And that’s it! Now you can easily share post-processing results directly on your social networks.
2. Facetune
It's a popular photo editing app that's great for portrait retouching. Its main functions include red-eye correction, teeth whitening, spot healing, and skin smoothing. This application provides high-quality retouching and leaves no traces during processing. However, more than this application will be required if you plan to work not only with portraits. It is narrow-profile. In addition, most of the tools are only available in the advanced paid version.
3. Photoshop Express
This photo editor is more versatile and has a wide selection of filters and presets in addition to the basic tools. It contains all the necessary retouching tools, but most are only available with a paid subscription. In addition, it is difficult for beginners, although its functions work efficiently and smoothly.
4. AirBrush
This easy-to-use photo retouching app also has digital makeup filters. In addition to the basic retouching functions, this photo editor has a body reshaping tool that is rarely found in other photo editors. You can make the body slimmer and more perfect or, depending on your will, distort the proportions to create a comic effect. This app is free but has in-app purchases. It's also limited to portrait editing, so you'll need a different editor for other types of photography.
5. TouchRetouch
This program will help you quickly remove unnecessary objects from your photos, making them neat and uniform. You can effectively remove buildings from a landscape photo or blur from a portrait, as well as lines, grids, people, and other unwanted elements. However, it lacks advanced retouching tools for portraits.
6. Snapseed
It's a completely free app that offers basic retouching, color correction, unwanted object removal, image blending, and more. It also has a smart image enlargement tool, which can be useful for reshaping or unwanted cropping. The app is suitable for working with all types of photography, but some of its tools can sometimes not give you a smooth, perfect effect.
7. Fotor
This photo editor is more similar to Luminar Neo and Adobe products. It has PC and mobile versions. Its advantage is versatility and AI tools for retouching, which greatly facilitate working with images. It also combines tools for working with portraits, similar to AirBrush for changing body shapes. It is not completely free, but the quality of its tools will satisfy you.
Bottom Line
We hope that after this brief discussion of how to airbrush photos on iPhone, you will find your most convenient way of working with pictures on a smartphone. Remember the importance of processing images to give them a finished look and the nuances of working with mobile pictures. It will help you create high-quality natural images.
Choose the most optimal mobile photo editor or even several that, depending on your preferences, will help you create impressive photos. Be bold in your experiments, and remember to entrust important tasks to modern technologies — use the AI functions of photo editors to facilitate the process of working with pictures and achieve professional results. Let your iPhone become your reliable assistant in all photographic processes!
