Best Apps for Serious Photographers

Every camera needs a great lens, and Camera+ is just the ticket. The app has every feature you could think of for taking photos with your iPhone: an option to use the LED flash as a flashlight, the ability to set exposure on one part of an image and focus on another, a stabiliser that waits until the iPhone is being held perfectly still to take the photo, a grid to banish crooked shots and many, many more. The features don't just end at shooting photos either; once you've taken the photo, you can add a number of effects, crop, rotate, add a border and use the apps built-in auto corrector "Clarity" to bring things out of shadows and into the light. You can also share taken photos to Twitter and Facebook to show your friends your masterpieces.

If you're going to be taking photos of people or people's property that you intend to use for other uses than personal, you're going to need to get their permission. This app makes it easy to collect signatures from your models or the owners of property so you can legally use their images. You can take pictures with the iPod touch, iPhone or iPad's camera to embed and ID a photo into the PDF, and you can personalize the branding header with your company's name and logo. The PDFs generated by the app are recognised by major photography agencies like Getty Images and Aleny. If you're going to use your photos in media, this app is quite literally a must-have, as you could get into legal trouble if you don't have your models' permissions.

To take the perfect shot, you'll need an app to calculate the perfect depth of field. No app does it better than f/8 DoF Calculator. All the calculations are done a single screen, which makes it easy to read, but if you don't know much about the subject you might be a bit confused. Aperture and distance variables are adjusted by sliders, and all the info you need is displayed in a panel just above the sliders. The app will display: total DoF, near and far limits, and the distances it extends in front of and behind the subject. You can choose to view the app in metric or imperial measurements, and the built-in camera bag has support for hundreds of camera bodies, sheet film sizes and cinematography settings. You'll need to enter your lens information manually however. This app will let you quickly calculate DoF very easily.

Okay, so you have the perfect DoF calculated, but what about your exposure setting? Pocket Light Meter is a great free app that does everything you could want in an light meter app, including reciprocity calculations. For a reasonable price of $0.99, you can remove the ads and make the exposure display larger. A must have for a serious photographer.

This universal app will help you to calculate when the light conditions will be perfect for you to take your shot. The app will track both the sun and the moon, and help you find sunrise, sunset, twilight and their lunar equivalents for any day of the year. Anything you need to know about the movement of the sun or moon, this app will help you find it. It has an awesome icon too.

If you need some tips for taking professional-looking photos, look no further than this app. Renowned photographer Scott Kelby talks through different techniques in capturing the perfect scene. The app includes all the videos from his DVD, 2 hours' worth, and explains how the professionals get those amazing shots you see in magazines. The app shows some example shots, then details every aspect of setting up and taking the shot.

Once you've taken those photos, you'll want a way to touch them up and remove any imperfections. PhotoForge2 will let you do just that. It's a universal app, so if you've taken the photo with your iPhone, you can edit them right on the device, and if you took them with a DSLR and have the Apple Camera Connection Kit, you can upload them onto your iPad for an amazingly full-featured editing suite. Think Photoshop on iOS. It supports multiple layers, masks, curves and levels, cropping, filters, FTP so you can back up your photos on the go, direct upload to many popular social networks, loading of most RAW formats, editing of IPTC and GPS data, and so many more I can't list them all. Truly an essential app.

This app is like having an easel in your iPad. You can use it to mix colours with your fingers and make custom swatches that can be imported straight into Photoshop. With the intuitiveness of mixing colours with your fingers, you'll be able to make swatches you could otherwise only make with an expensive graphic tablet. You can also import colour from photos in your iPad's library, so you can capture the all the beautiful hues nature has to offer.

Most serious photographers use Photoshop, and Adobe's app makes it easier to use. You can transfer photos that are on your iPad directly into Photoshop on your computer, and quickly change tools using your iPad. If you use Photoshop to touch up all your photos, this companion app is a great aid to make it easier and faster to make the adjustments you want.

Of course, you're going to want to organize all your photos into albums, and no app lets you do it more easily than Album App for iPad. It lets you create albums of any size right on you iPad, then print them via AirPrint. Alternatively, you could email the whole album, or upload it to Facebook or Twitter. If you're missing iPhoto on the iPad, this is the app for you.