Best Selfie Apps for iPhone and Android Smartphones : Camera Plus Editing Tools

If there's anything about me that I'm sure those of you who follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram should know well by know, it's that I absolutely love to take selfies.

I take selfies when I'm alone in the cafe; When I'm the bathroom; In front of the mirror; When I'm with friends; With my dogs; And with my folks.

Taking selfies has really become one of the simple joys of my life and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I mean, it's not like I'm harming others whenever I snap photos of my face, right?

This is my selfie with my mom during our Valentine's Day date at the PICC.

Some of you have been asking me which apps I use and recommend for taking self-portraits. Well, I've actually tried out many camera and photo-editing applications that are available on Google Play Store (for Android devices) and Apple App Store (for iPhones and iPads) but there are only two that I find really good and feature-packed.

If you also love to take selfies, there are two free apps that you might want to check out:

1. YouCam Perfect

According to its developer - CyberLink, "YouCam Perfect enhances the natural beauty of your face the moment you capture the photo. This app includes an extensive set of tools to further perfect your shots. Re-touching effects let you edit tired eyes, adjust skin tone, add filters, easily remove wrinkles and reshape your face in just a few touches!"

Some of its YouCam Perfect's features include:

Real-Time Skin Enhancing Effects in Beauty Camera and Video Selfies

• Real-time effects make you look perfect in every frame
• Bring selfies to life with short videos (Android 4.3 above is required)
• Apply stylish effects in camera preview mode that give you the fashionable look even before you snap the shot

Improve your Portrait in Seconds!

• Multi-face detection lets you touch-up every face in your group shots or "usies"
• Instantly choose from 6 enhancement levels – from natural to really sleek

Simple Steps for a Flawless and Luminous Face in Every Shot

• Skin smoother makes dry skin, wrinkles, and fine lines all disappear
• Skin whitener revives tired and darkened skin
• Blemish removal fades the appearance of any annoying imperfections
• Add filter and remove shine to reveal your ideal contours

Face Reshaper gives you the Facial Shape that's Best for You

• A symmetric oval face can be a reality in just a few touches
• Add contours to your face to bring out its true beauty

Three Features that Make Your Eyes Shine!

• Eye Enlarger lets your eyes really stand out and give that perfect dreamy appearance
• Eye Bag Remover diminishes under eye circles and reduces puffiness
• Red Eye Removal so using flash isn’t a problem

Perfect Your Full-Body Portraits

• Add height to your body shots in one touch with the Lengthen Torso and Legs feature
• Look taller and leaner
• Take off pounds instantly by adjusting your body proportion

Object Remover Makes It All About You!

• The unique intelligent object removal tool that you can’t find in other selfie apps
• Erase unwanted background objects or people, so that your photo is all about you!

Stylize and Share with Friends!

• Insert your selfie photo into one of 30 fun scenes and templates! Make your selfies creative and unique!
• With Effects and Frames you can quickly stylize or change the mood of your shots

2. InstaBeauty

I recently downloaded both of these selfie apps on my O+ 360 Extreme smartphone, which has an 8 MegaPixel front facing cam with soft LED flash allowing you take selfies even in low to zero lighting conditions.

Here's how FotoAble describes their great imaging application: "InstaBeauty beautifies your photos with just one tap! Touch up your portraits and snapshots with our quick and easy features and get great results. We also provide powerful functionalities to adjust and fine-tune details as you like."

Selfie Camera with Automatic Enhancements

• Take attractive shots using either your phone's front or back camera. With over a dozen facial improvement presets, you can pick and choose how your skin and face looks - with just one tap! Each preset provides different levels of smoothing, toning, and also removing temporary imperfections such as pimples and blemishes. If you are not satisfied, tap 'Adjust' button to fine-tune further with several advanced features such as slim-face, blemish removal, 'big eyes', and much more!

Create a Selfie Collage

• What to do after taking lots of selfies? Choose from 200+ elegantly designed styles and instantly create Magazine-Style collages that come in Portrait, Square, Landscape, and Stripes style modes to fit all your needs. You can also download new styles every week to get the latest designs from InstaBeauty's library.

QuickSnap

• Change different poses and snap away until you get desired results. Once finished taking snapshots, you will be able to review each enhanced shots and choose which ones you like to keep.

Both of these applications are obviously feature-packed but the key to make them work really well for you is to not overdo the effects. Personally, I only use their skin-smoothener (as I have pimple scars and uneven skintone in some areas) and facial-contour-highlighter to bring out my natural facial structure. Of course, you wouldn't want to look like a whole different person because of over-the-top retouching. Just keep it neat and simple.

Try out these two selfie apps, TP Friends, and let me know which one you prefer. For me, YouCam Perfect's camera has better color replication but InstaBeauty has more 'adjustable' filters that I quite like. The facial-feature-enhancement features of both applications are equally 'clean' (not too obvious) but YouCam perfect has an edge because it covers more areas like facial contour and shine-removal among others.