I’m not an avid photographer. I enjoy taking pictures, but I’ll never be as prolific a photographer as say, um… any actual photographer. Despite this, I do take the odd shot now and again… yes, often of my cat… and have discovered through the wonders of the internet several neat ways to spruce them up and make them more cool looking. I label this Smart Shortcut because ‘Camera Stuff’ didn’t have the impact I was looking for.

I am not a very photogenic person; like many others, I hate nearly every photograph ever taken of me. In lieu of a picture of me making a stupid face, I will use this picture as my base image for all of these reviews:

With that established, let us get into the juicy, delicious meat of the subject.

Free

QuickPic is, simply put, the best replacement to the stock Gallery you can get.

This app is just a Gallery app done right. It moves a lot faster, has way more intuitive controls, and has a lot of little features included that make this an absolute must have, for any Android phone. That’s right; I went there. Go install this now, and I’ll keep typing.

QuickPic does everything the Gallery does, and does it better. It is fast. It shows you the full path of where the pictures are; you can multi-select images (!!!) for sharing/deletion/moving; you can alter your pictures by rotating them, or cropping/shrinking them really easily… gnngh. I don’t even have the time to write any more. Try it, and let it replace your default Gallery – you’ll wonder how you ever bothered using that thing.

Paper Camera JFDP Labs LTD

$1.99

Many of you have likely picked up this app when it was on sale for ten cents, or perhaps free from Getjar… used it once or twice, and then forgot about it. Not me; I love this app. It has such a simple interface for point-and-click nifty pictures. Check out Guts, and my stupid cat Jupiter, below:

I would have happily dropped two bucks for this app if I hadn’t snagged it during the sale. It can even take pre-existing pictures (albeit only ones from your phones’ camera) and apply the cool color filters to them.

Free

An unbelievably polished and well-made app to find for free, Pixlr-o-matic suffers from a difficult to search for name, and little else. Use this app to apply really professional looking color filters, lighting effects, and frames to your pictures. I don’t have much to add to that, so check out a couple samples below, and then go try the app – you’ve nothing to lose.

ObscuraCam The Guardian Project

Free

Have you ever had a great photo to share, but there was someone’s face in it you didn’t want to show, perhaps your own? Ever had a name brand product label which needed covering up in order for you to publish a photo in a portfolio? Ever wanted to put a Groucho Marx glasses/moustache mask on a friend’s photo for a goof? This astonishingly free app is for you.

Developed with WITNESS (http://witness.org), the idea behind this app was primarily to protect the privacy of people who may be present in photos by pixellating or redacting them from the photo. You can even reverse-pixellize, pixellating the entire photo except for a small area of your choosing. Quite a large concern, particularly if you’re snapping pictures of say, police brutality or other criminal activity. Aside from extreme circumstances like that, the app is great for practical reasons as well, and is simple to use. Also; Free! I can’t stress this enough. It is a PUBLIC BETA, and who knows if it will remain free once it is completed, so get it today!

Skitch Evernote Corp.

Free

From the makers of the uber-popular Evernote, comes Skitch. This is a very, very simple way to just doodle on a picture with your fingertip and then do whatever you like with it. Comes in handy if you want to point out a particular thing in a picture and then ship it to who needs to see it; or if you just wanna draw horns and boogers on someone.

Meme Maker Onymous Heroes

Free

If you’ve ever been to reddit, 4chan, lolcats, etc…. anywhere on the internet, really… you’ve seen a ‘meme’. Well, now you can create your own fairly easily; and with your own photos, to boot.

On top of the ability to do things like this with pretty much any photo you choose, it also has a host of some of the most popular memes the ‘net has to offer pre-loaded, so you can insert your own witticism or bloody stupid thing into them, for the low cost of free:

Big props to the good people of Onymous Heroes, who also make fine apps such as the Chandroid /b/rowser and a wicked make-your-own soundboard.