10 Fun Photo Effect Apps For Your Mac

Photo Effects / Photo Effects LITE

Photo Effects is a lightweight, and kind of amateur app. The effects deal mostly with colors and shapes and aren’t very original; they’re the usual “crystalize” and “glow” kind that you find in any other photography app. You can drag-and-drop your own photos, or you can take one from your webcam camera. You can also modify the amount and colorization of each effect.

It has been reported as being buggy in the app store, so I wouldn’t rush out and buy the pro version. The paid version gives you 400 effects while the free one only gives you 60. I think the free one has enough.

Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Digital Thought Software

FX Photo Studio is an all-round photo editor with all of the basic features that you might find in Aperture or Photoshop, but what really stands out from it are the photo effects. Not only can you modify and adjust your photos, you can also make them look cool with the 159 effects included in it that range from sketch effects to your hip looking vintage filters.

FX Studio has a Pro version that goes for quite some more bucks, but as it is stated by the developer, the normal version most likely has everything you need if you are an amateur photographer.

Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: MacPhun

FaceTripper is a very simple and cheap application that lets you use your webcam for playing around with the effects that the app gives you. Think of it as a way more complete version of the effects that PhotoBooth has. It even uses face tracking technology to enhance the effects, which range from dorky mustaches to the usual twirl effects that Photobooth is so popular for.

It’s not a very useful app, but it surely is a lot of fun to use with friends, or even to take snapshots and share them through the built-in email and Facebook features.

Price: $1.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Valornaut

While it is a bit on the expensive side, Lomo Studio+ is probably the best app if you want to give your apps a lomography style. Lomo Studio gives you complete control over the final look of your pictures, and it also includes the usual black & white and sepia filters.

Lomo Studio+ is a pretty new app and as such, it has been reported as been a bit buggy still, so you might want to give it a bit of time until the developers fix the reported glitches on the next updates.

Price: $14.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Ramen Shoppe

Magic Mirror is similar to FaceTripper in that it is yet another app that tries to do what Photobooth does, which is let you use your webcam with some cool filters. But unlike FaceTripper, it only has color and shape effects, and no fun features like mustaches. It has around 50 filters that are very similar to the ones found in Photobooth.

Magic Mirror has the same price as FaceTripper, and while it looks prettier and seems like it works better and faster, it falls short in features, as FaceTripper has more than 100 effects.

Price: $1.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Hurryforward

Photo Effect Studio looks more like a full-featured photo editor like Photoshop, but is actually a very simple app. The primary concept here is the numerous filters that the app has available and the customization that it gives you. With it, you can select the level of exposure, shadows, highlights and more from each filter.

While it can be a simple filter app, the ideal use for this is for someone who wants to play around with every single detail of the filters they use in their pictures and don’t want to just choose a filter and save the photo. I think the price tag would scare away any person who wants a simple filter app.

Price: $19.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Everimaging

Sketcher is a one-of-its-kind app that gives your pictures a kind of effect that makes them look as if they had been drawn, or painted. The app gives you three filters to choose from: pencil sketch, watercolor or oil drawing, and while it has some limitations regarding the size of the pictures that you want to draw out, the filters look amazing.

Price: $6.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Helsing Global

Romantic Photo is a very simple app that gives your photos a warm and cozy kind of feeling, as if they’d been retouched by some professional wedding photographer. It mostly just changes the lighting, and you could probably get this effect done if you have any of the other filter apps that we’ve talked about here, but for a regular user I think this app could be very useful. Romantic Photo gives you around 30 different effects that more or less achieve the same objective of providing “romantic pictures”.

Price: $5.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Jixpix

iSplash is an app that gives you the ability to make the overplayed, but still cool effect of having your pictures black & white, except for small parts of the picture where the original color is kept. iSplash makes this process very simple and painless, and most importantly, available to anyone with $1 dollar.

Price: $0.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: T-bone

OldBooth is a simple and fun app that allows you to use your webcam to capture pictures of yourself with some preset “old-looking” elements that will surely make you crack up. Just like the Photobooth-like apps, this one isn’t going to make a big change in your life, but it is a ton of fun to play around with.

Price: $1.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: GetApp