Drawing & Photo Editing Apps
From color-by-number to professional retouching.
Procreate (iPad only)
$13 onceBest digital drawing app. One-time purchase. Industrial-strength but easy to start.
Pair with Apple Pencil for the full experience.
Affinity Photo / Designer
$70-90 oncePhotoshop / Illustrator alternative. One-time purchase, no subscription.
Best Photoshop alternative for serious editing.
Adobe Lightroom
$10-12/moIndustry standard for photo editing. Cloud sync between phone and computer.
Worth it for serious photographers.
Photopea (free, browser)
FREEPhotoshop in your browser. Free. No install. Open .PSD files.
Best free Photoshop alternative.
GIMP
FREEFree Photoshop alternative for desktop. Steep learning curve.
Genuinely capable, just looks dated.
Canva
FREE; $13/mo ProEasy graphic design — birthday cards, posters, social media, family newsletters.
Templates do most of the work.
Snapseed (free)
FREEPowerful free photo editor on phone. Made by Google.
Best free phone photo editor.
For absolute beginners
- Apple Photos / Google Photos — built-in editing. Auto-enhance, crop, light tweaks. Often enough.
- Snapseed — free, good selective editing without learning curve.
- Canva — drag-and-drop. Make a Christmas card with family photos in 10 minutes.
- Paint by Numbers, Happy Color (free) — relaxing color-by-number on iPad/phone.
For serious photo editing
- Adobe Lightroom — industry standard. $10/mo.
- Affinity Photo — $70 once, no subscription. Excellent.
- Apple Photos\' built-in tools — improved enormously. Free.
- Pixelmator Pro (Mac) — $40 once, very polished.
Free YouTube tutorials beat paid courses
Whatever app you pick — search YouTube for "[app name] tutorial for beginners". Hundreds of free hours of teaching. Watch 30 minutes, then play. Better than any paid course for first-timers.