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With the retro trend fueling a renewed appreciation for earlier photographic technologies, from Brownie and SLR cameras to Polaroid SX70s and even early smartphones, here are our favorite apps to give your iPhone photos a retro look. With one exception, we’ve prioritized apps that allow you to shoot with your chosen filter from the get-go rather than sending you down a post-production rabbit hole. To find the right one for you, read on.

Hipstatic

The app that started it all still has one of the most powerful games in terms of effects. Hipstamatic’s interface is designed to look like an analog camera with interchangeable lenses, films and flashes, each producing a different look. Although the company has added a state-of-the-art post-production editing suite that you can use to fix balance, contrast, noise, and more, the app is at its best when you equip his camera before shooting and leave whatever happens unretouched. There’s also a shuffle feature that loads random gear when you shake your phone; it’s random, of course, but it gives combinations of effects that you might otherwise miss. Hipstamatic releases upgrades regularly, and their offerings run the gamut from 1970s-inspired effects to a look best described as “1990s anime lighting.” Additional components are sold separately so you can create your own custom filter suite.
Get Hipstamatic: $2.99 ​​+ in-app purchases

VSCO

VSCO is a photo editing application that offers over 200 presets, including some developed by Kodak, Agfa, and Ilford. It’s not strictly a retro-inspired app, as it has plenty of options for those who want their iPhone photos to look sleeker, cleaner, and more “editorial.” see. That said, fans of retro photography will appreciate options like M4-6 (“Subtle Fade”), meant to evoke vintage 70s hues, and P 1-3 (“Instant-Warm”), which pays homage to instant film and its signature creamy notes. VSCO also has the Film X library, which replicates the look of films made by Kodak, Fuji, Agfa, and Gilford. For example, KCP2, with its low contrast and saturation and slightly warmer tones, pays homage to Kodak’s 1970s Color Plus 200 film. Although this movie is still available today, it’s fun to have a digital version handy.
Get VSCO: Free Download; monthly subscription starts at $7.99

Huji Camera

Around 2018, people started declaring Instagram’s aesthetic dead: it was too perfect, too polished, too contrived. Enter Hujicam, an app whose premise is to help you take photos like in the 1990s. The interface looks like a disposable camera, with on-screen buttons for flash and shutter. There’s also a makeshift keyhole sight that you’re supposed to look at to magnify it. Once you’ve taken the shot, expect distorted colors, light leaks, blurs, and a digital timestamp that takes you back to the year 1998. You can’t tinker with the effects, but if you feeling overwhelmed by the options offered by other retro apps, Huji Cam’s lack of choice is refreshing.
Get Huji Cam: Free Download + In-App Purchases

CAM NAME

NOMO combines Hipstamatic’s plethora of options with an interface similar to that of Huji Cam. It allows you to swap cameras: if you shoot with FR2, for example, a preset developed with the eponymous Japanese fashion brand, you’ll get similar images in color and grain made with Fujifilm’s disposable cameras. More playful options include “Cam Boy,” a throwback to Nintendo’s Game Boy camera and printer, which produces 2-bit photos in four shades of gray, and “2007,” which, as its name suggests, indicates, reproduces the low resolution of the first iPhone. cameras – it was originally released as an April Fool’s Day prank in 2019, but, three years later, it’s still around. It wouldn’t be surprising if this became its own trend! Oddly enough, every time you set up new gear, you have to pretend to physically unbox it.
Get NOMO CAM: Free Download + In-App Purchases

Argentum

Argentum focuses solely on black and white photography and offers just six filters (each sold separately) named after and inspired by photographers Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Irving Penn, Garry Winogrand, Yousuf Karsh and Dorothea Lange . The AA (Ansel Adams) filter, for example, gives images higher contrast, darkens blues and brightens greens and reds, and is recommended for landscape photography; in contrast, HCB (Henri Cartier-Bresson) softens images, brightening both blues and skin tones. For those who want a bit of everything, the GW filter has high contrast, lighter reds, yellows, and oranges, and darker blues.
Get Argentum: Free Download + Free First Filter