Adobe offers over four specific image-editing phone apps—they’re all so similar, it’s hard to decipher which one you actually need. I’ve tested them all, and I recommend Adobe Express Mobile to be the only Adobe mobile app you need on your phone.
Adobe Has Many Mobile Editing Apps
Adobe is best known for its suite of creative desktop software. Adobe Creative Cloud has long reigned at the top of creative tools with famed software like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, typically making a trio of tools that professional designers should learn.
In the modern-day, when we’re more on the go, Adobe has begun building a suite of mobile apps allowing for better accessibility to creativity wherever you are. There are loads of Adobe apps you can try for free that offer a range of uses, such as Adobe Capture, which can create digital assets from real-world images, or Adobe Firefly, which is a web app that uses Adobe’s latest AI generation tools.
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I Tested 10 Adobe Mobile Apps and These Are the Ones Worth Using
Adobe apps are typically linked to desktop use, but there’s also a range of mobile apps available. Here are the ones you should consider using.
It might confuse you that there are over four Adobe mobile apps focused around photo editing and image manipulation. They’re all similar, but different enough you might feel the need to install them all.
It’s hard to find which is the best one for your needs. You don’t need all four taking up space on your phone. Here’s what each one does and why, in the end, I only recommend Adobe Express Mobile.
Photoshop Mobile
Adobe released Photoshop Mobile for iPhones in February 2025, with expectations it’ll be released for Android phones before the end of 2025. In the past, there have been a variety of Photoshop phone apps which have since been discontinued. These include apps such as Photoshop Fix and Photoshop Mix among others.
Photoshop for Mobile is the first Photoshop app that brings many of the same Photoshop desktop features to your phone. It gives you the power of photo manipulation and composition found in Photoshop software—including layers, AI features, selection tools, blend modes, and more—on the go from the palm of your hand.
Photoshop Mobile is free to install, but some features are locked behind Photoshop Mobile Premium. If you already subscribe to any Adobe plan which includes Photoshop, you’ll get Photoshop Mobile Premium included, otherwise it’s $7.99 per month.
Although it’s cool to have a mobile version of Photoshop, with many of the same powerful features as the desktop version, I personally find it too fiddly to edit and manipulate images in such detail from only my phone.
I prefer to use my laptop and benefit from the extra real estate of my larger screen and the accuracy of a mouse or drawing tablet. Using your fingers on a small screen makes it hard to be accurate with editing details.
Download: Photoshop Mobile for iOS (Free, in-app subscription)
Adobe Express Mobile
Adobe Express is Adobe’s best tool for content creators. Express is similar to Canva, offering thousands of design templates and digital assets to use for creating images and videos to share.
Adobe Express has built-in AI features such as the image generator powered by Adobe Firefly as well as third-party apps providing further tools. Many AI tools are locked behind Adobe Express Premium.
Because Adobe Express is less of a photo-editing tool and more of a composition tool, it offers only basic image-editing features such as opacity, brightness, duotone, and minimal blend modes. You can remove backgrounds, but there are no advanced selection tools like the ones in Photoshop.
Adobe Express offers video, great animation tools, and audio features as well as image-based and fantastic text tools. It’s great for use across social media, digital marketing, and even print-based projects. I use Express Mobile for any social media designs I create or when quickly requiring access to AI generative fill or image generations.
You can install Adobe Express for free—and access it from your desktop browser from the same account—and use most of its tools under the free plan. Adobe Express Premium is worth subscribing to for its extra features, and if you subscribe to other Adobe plans, it’s often included.
Download: Adobe Express Mobile for iOS | Android (Free, in-app subscription)
Lightroom Mobile
Lightroom Mobile is Adobe’s hand-held photo editing tool. Derived from similar editing features found in Adobe Lightroom for desktop—of which there are two versions: Lightroom Classic or Lightroom CC—and it aligns closely with the web-browser version, Lightroom on the Web.
Similarly to other creative Adobe mobile apps, you can download and use Lightroom Mobile for free, but there are over ten features—such as RAW editing, selective adjustments, and Sensei search—locked behind the paid plan.
There’s no longer a Lightroom Mobile Premium upgrade; instead it’s included with one of three subscriptions: Lightroom Plan from $11.99, Photography Plan from $19.99, or the Adobe All Apps Plan from $59.99 monthly.
Lightroom Mobile is not an image manipulation nor composition-based tool—it’s a photo-editing tool. You’ll find powerful editing features such as lens blur, masking, and presets, as well as a selection of AI features.
I typically choose to use Snapseed instead of Lightroom Mobile to edit my phone photos. I’d recommend this especially for those who only access Lightroom Mobile’s free tier. I’d prefer to edit my professional-standard photos from my laptop in Lightroom’s desktop app.
Download: Lightroom Mobile for iOS | Android (Free, in-app subscription)
Adobe Photoshop Express
Surprisingly, this is a different app from both Photoshop Mobile and Adobe Express Mobile—although the name is confusingly similar to both. Adobe Photoshop Express Mobile is available for both iPhone and Android devices, unlike Photoshop Mobile (at the time of writing) which is currently only available for iPhones.
Unlike the previously mentioned apps, Photoshop Express is the only one available solely for mobile devices. There’s no computer app or software, nor web app with editing tools—although there is a web app library of people’s creations. And best of all, Photoshop Express is 100% free.
Photoshop Express features a few AI tools: an AI image generator, an AI insert objects feature, and an AI outfit swap tool. It has a large amount of non-AI tools, including a background removal feature—which uses a mask rather than actually deleting the background.
PS Express has many tools you’d be surprised to see in a free app; however, the quality of results isn’t very high—which explains why it’s free. It offers some cheesy animation options, borders, overlays, and many manipulation features similar to the Hypic photo-editing app from ByteDance.
All the editing results feel elementary, and I would just use this app for fun rather than serious photo editing or manipulation.
Download: Adobe Photoshop Express for iOS | Android (Free)
You Only Need Adobe Express on Your Phone
Adobe’s mobile apps are a great step forward into portable creative software; however, I think you’ll never do your best creative work from a tiny touchscreen on your phone.
Both Photoshop and Lightroom mobile are too fiddly to create impressive results from your phone only—I recommend using the desktop versions of these apps instead if you genuinely care about producing your best images.
Photoshop Express is a haphazard editing tool that lacks the power and expectations of Photoshop overall.
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Why Adobe Express Is the Ultimate Tool for Digital Artists and Creators
Adobe Express takes the stress out of design.
Adobe Express has Quick Actions, it can connect easily to your Adobe Libraries to pull images from other software projects, and you can do a lot with it from image creation to video or animation.
I believe most people using their phones for creative purposes are typically planning to post the results on social media, and Adobe Express is made perfectly for that. You don’t need the other Adobe apps on your phone at all.
