Coming from Lightricks, the maker of the top-selling app Facetune 2 ($0.00 at Apple.com) , Enlight is the company's more general-purpose photo editing app. More than a simple photo-correction tool, Enlight offers Photoshop-like creative possibilities such as drawing, text overlays, and local brush-based effects. It's a very powerful, deep, and fun photo app that's worth dropping a little cash for, despite the existence of free alternatives.
Getting Started
Enlight is—gasp—an app you have to pay for! Even though it costs less than a jumbo latte at your local artisanal coffee shop, I know that some will baulk at its $3.99 price. The comparably full-featured PicsArt ($0.00 at Apple.com) app is a free download, but some of its tools come as in-app purchases. Enlight, on the other hand, is a one-and-done kind of purchase. It's a 100MB download, and requires iOS 8.1 or later. I tested it by installing it on my iPhone 6s. (599.99 with code VZWDEAL at Verizon) Note that Enlight is only available for iPhone; there's no Android version, nor are there any plans for one, according to the developer.
A six-page tour introduces you to Enlight's interface and tools, most of which are accessible from a vertical menu panel on the right side of the screen. You can hide this right-side menu panel for a full view of the image, and a double-rectangle icon lets you see your original image for comparison with your edits. Whenever you first use a feature, a help drawer drops down with info on how to use it. Usually you can turn adjustments or effects up or down by sliding a finger right or left right on top of the image.
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Similar to Adobe Photoshop Elements' Guided Edits, Enlight's Tutorials take you through the steps for creating particularly arresting effects, such as Dramatic Portrait, Double Exposure, Masks, and Gradients. The app doesn't provide any special tools for shooting photos within the app; for those, look to ProCamera. ($7.99 at Apple.com)
Editing Images
Enlight presents its tools in an order that makes sense as a workflow, but it doesn't actually enforce the workflow—you can use the tools in any order you want. PicsArt, too, provides a workflow-promoting interface, and it even has an arrow that takes you to the final step of sharing your touched-up image. Enlight merely arranges the editing steps in a sensible order, with the last button being Finalize.
I really like that the app offers back and forward arrows that take you back and forth in your editing process, letting you undo or redo from any point. PicsArt also has Undo and Redo buttons, but only after you've applied an effect within its own mini-interface. Enlight also remembers your editing process, saving your ten most recent editing sessions.
Enlight's list of tools is deep: You can do 3D transformations like tilting and rotating your image on three axes. You can also distort the perspective with the Refit tool, which lets you finger paint on part of a photo to preserve that area and then squeeze the objects around it. Notice in the image below how the house in the right side is the same size as the original on the left, but everything around it is squeezed in.
The app includes a wealth of filters, including a set of 23 that convincingly mimic analog film looks à la VSCO Cam, and 17 impressive black and white looks. You can adjust the filters by swiping up and down on the screen. You also get tilt-shift and bokeh selective blur in the Tools section. For me, the most effective, artistic filters are found in the Urban section under Filters. These radically change your image to a watercolor-y or graffiti-esque artwork, suitable for framing. You can even brush on more of the effect, change the background color, and change the blending mode. There are some nifty brush-on effects, too, such as bubbles, contrails, hearts, and birds.
In the sheer number of effects and editing tools, however, Enlight hasn't yet equaled PicsArt. It also lacks Prisma-like ($0.00 at Apple.com) AI artist-emulating filters, though it does include Painting filters reminiscent of the ones long found in Adobe Photoshop, ($9.99 Per Month at Adobe) as well as effective, adjustable Sketch filters. And you can just brush paint on with an adjustable brush tip. Text tools include regular type, Decals, and Meme. You can transform the font as you please in 3D, and you get a good selection of fonts in any color. There are also premade Decals, for expressions like Yolo and Swag. Finally, you get a Meme option, which places the familiar simple text font across the top and bottom of the photo, in case your cat does something funny.
The Finalize section offers borders, frames, collages, and formatting for Instagram with borders that fill out a square. This isn't really necessary now that Instagram accepts other aspect ratios, but its results do look good.
Sharing and Output
Enlight lacks the active photo sharing communities of Flickr, Instagram and PicsArt, especially the latter's ability to "remix" photos submitted by other users. The app does include an InstaFit tool to make photos Instagram-ready, and you can output multiple photos at once. A nice touch for those who like tangible results for their efforts is the option to turn your picture into a print, a poster, a card, or even a phone case.
Enlightened Photo Editing
Enlight is certainly worth the price of a large latte. This impressive iPhone app offers effective and impressive photo editing options, and it never sullies your iPhone screen with an advertisement. That said, I still think you get more with PCMag's iPhone app photo editing Editor's Choice, PicsArt, which offers an unbelievable amount of Photoshop-like image editing, Prisma-like AI art filters, and a thriving community of photos sharers and remixers.
Enlight is a powerful photo editing and image creativity app with a clear interface and no ads, though it lacks an integrated photo-sharing community and a few tools offered by the competition.
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