How to Create a Photo Editing App: Choosing the Features and Technologies

So, the question arises — how to create a photo editing app for iOS or Android? Photo editing application development is time-consuming and challenging due to various filters and effects integration. To provide you with all the details, we’ve created the full guide on how to make a photo filter app. We’ll discuss the lists of basic and advanced features, tech stack for application development, and more.

How to make a photo editor? We’ve discovered eight main steps to follow.

• Step 1. Research the marker and look through your competitors’ solutions.
• Step 2. Hire in-house developers or an outsourcing company to make a photo app.
• Step 3. Choose several basic features of your own photo editing app.
• Step 4. Consider the right tech stack to create a photo app.
• Step 5. Develop an application and launch an MVP version.
• Step 6. Create a marketing strategy and consider ways to monetize your photo app.
• Step 7. Add some unique and advanced features to make your own filter app unique.
• Step 8. Release the application to the App Store and update it regularly.

There are a lot of photo editors in the modern market. Each of them has unique features, but they tend to work with the same logic.

To make your own filter app, you need to understand how it works from the users’ point of view. There are five main steps:

• Step #1. Uploading a photo. Modern photo editing apps provide an opportunity to choose an image from the library or take a photo instantly.
• Step #2. Choosing a filter or preset. After selecting a necessary pic, users need to try and use the filter they like the most. Additionally, the app can offer to adjust the filter strength.
• Step #3. Editing a photo. Applications provide many options for changing the photo. For instance, users can crop or rotate it, adjust saturation, brightness, and more.
• Step #4. Saving a picture. Having made all the changes, visitors want to save a new picture to the device.
• Step #5. Sharing a ready image. Such applications, as VSCO or Snapseed, also offer to share a photo on social networks without leaving an app.

To create a photo app, you need to consider the required functionality. Usually, the features are divided into two parts according to their complexity — basic and advanced. The first group represents the part of the functionality that is obligatory for every photo editing app to work well and be user-friendly. As for the second part, these features are responsible for making your app distinctive.

Basic features can be also considered as MVP ones while making a photo app. They are required to release an application and get some feedback from the first users. After that mobile app developers can build more complicated and exciting features.

To create a photo app, you need to hire a development team. These days, it’s quite widespread to cooperate with software development companies since they provide lower hourly rates and high quality. For instance, developers from Eastern Europe (e.g. Ukraine) have an excellent reputation and affordable hourly rates (〜$50).

Developing a photo editing application for iOS and Android requires various specialists. We’ve listed required team members below:

• Business Analyst
• Project Manager
• UI/UX designer
• 1 or 2 Android developers
• 1 or 2 iOS developers
• Back-end developers
• QA engineer

Photo apps have various features that should work smoothly. So, you need to use powerful and modern technologies to make your own filter app.

Various programming languages can be used for photo editing app development. Considering Android application, developers may choose Kotlin or Java. As for iOS development, the most widespread languages are Swift and Objective-C.

Our developers recommend to choose Open Graphics Library (OpenGL) for creating a photo editing app. OpenGL is a cross-platform application programming interface (API) that software builders use for writing app with vector graphics. As for the libraries, it’s better to choose OpenCV (Open Source Computer Vision). This library supports both operating systems — iOS and Android.

Of course, the tech stack is approximate. The final set of tools and technologies will always depend on your project requirements and business goals.

How to build a photo editing app? If you aren’t a technical guru, it’s better to consult with specialists. They can provide you with the best technical solutions. Making your own filter app, you need to consider all the tech issues beforehand.

Our idea is to create an MVP version of the application and release it. After getting some feedback from the users, you can choose what features to develop next.

How to make a photo editor profitable? You need to consider the monetization strategy beforehand.

These days, there are a lot of ways to monetize your photo editing app. These strategies can be easily mixed and matched to find the perfect option. Let’s discuss some popular monetization models more precisely.

This idea seems the most obvious. Having a great design and exciting features, you can set a reasonable price and receive some money from a paid version of an application.

However, users tend to have a kind of mental barrier for paid apps. They often try to find free applications with similar functionality. So, you need to integrate several unique and exciting features to persuade customers. Additionally, you can offer a free trial period for users to test your filter app.

Top paid photo editing apps:

• Facetune
• TouchRetouch
• SKRWT
• Glitty

As you can guess, it's a business model, whereby some essential functions are offered at no charge while users have to pay for accessing more advanced functionality.

It’s necessary to mention that this model is commonly used for photo editing apps. Such applications like VSCO provide several filters for free, but to get more beautiful and advanced effects, users need to pay for a premium account or purchase every filter separately.

How to integrate this monetization strategy? It’s possible to create a photo editing app with some MVP features and make it free. After that, you can add complex functions and make users pay for them.

Top photo editing apps with in-app purchases:

• VSCO
• Snapseed
• Adobe Lightroom
• Facelab

This monetization strategy can seem quite evident, but quite effective. In-app advertisements allow making a photo app free for users but still bring some revenue to the owner.

However, this business model has one great pitfall. Users can get annoyed by the amount or frequency of the shown ads. So, it’s better to let users close the advertisements and return to your photo editor.

For instance, Instagram offers relevant ads for the users that look like a part of the feed.

One of the latest trends in the mobile advertising industry is video ad. Such ad solutions provide users with better experience and understanding of the app's purpose.

Top photo editing apps with in-app ads:

• Instagram
• VSCO

As you can see, there are various monetization models that can be used for photo editing applications. Additionally, you can also combine them. For example, your photo editing application can utilize such strategies as in-app purchases and advertisements.

Social media applications become more and more widespread. Photo editing apps also gain their popularity all over the world since users want to post fantastic and creative images. To make a photo app, you need to find a reliable tech partner and set precise requirements.

Cleveroad has built various photo editing and sharing applications. If you’re curious about our expertise, look through our portfolio, and study profiles on Clutch and GoodFirms.