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Review: File New – is this the most useful, smart photo editor for iOS?

Forget the Photos app’s built-in editing options; File New is fast, user friendly, and really well-designed

Price: $0.99 (£0.79)
Version: 1.4
Size: 124 MB
Platform: iPhone/iPod touch, compatible with iPad
Developer: Hi Mom S.A.S.

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Apple improved the Photos app in recent years through adding built-in editing features, allowing users to crop and enhance pictures shot on their iPhone without needing to call on a third-party app. Despite this, developers are continuing to publish photo editing applications, and the aim is often to deliver advanced functionality in an easy-to-use package. The latest app to offer this is File New, a smart photo editor that brings users a number of useful features in a nice, accessible interface.

To begin with, you'll need to choose which image you'd like to edit in the application.

To begin with, you’ll need to choose which image you’d like to edit in the application

File New lets iPhone owners do anything and everything with their photos: you can crop, flip, rotate, retouch, and enhance images easily. When first launching File New, you can choose the picture you’d like to edit: options include a new image shot with the Camera app, a photo imported from the Photos app, a stock image, or the chance of creating a collage from several images. After making your selection, File New then lets users make larger, more apparent changes to their photo on the next page. You can flip your image, either horizontally or vertically, or you can crop it, rotate it, and re-level it. File New processes these changes instantly; on the next page, finer edits can then be made.

File New offers a range of photo editing tools, including crop.

File New offers a range of photo editing tools, including crop

Here, keen photographers will notice that File New includes all the usual options for fine-tuning your edited image. Color temperature, saturation, contrast, and more can be adjusted. There’s also a nice selection of built-in filters, and these let you retouch your image Instagram-style without having to dig through comprehensive settings. Text and logos can even be added onto your pictures, and if, at any point, you aren’t happy with the changes you’ve made, it’s possible to “reset” the photo using a button at the top of the screen.

You can even add text or logos to your creations in File New.

You can even add text or logos to your creations in File New

Collages work really nicely in File New, too. Here, you simply choose the images you’d like to include, and the application auto-populates one of several default templates with your photographs. You can then go ahead and access the same editing tools before saving the image to your Photos app.

Collages in File New offers a great way for iPhone owners to bundle multiple images together.

Collages in File New offer a great way for iPhone owners to bundle multiple images together

File New includes sharing options for the likes of Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, and WhatsApp, but users can of course save the photo to their iPhone and share it from there. Exports are of super quality.

There are sharing options aplenty, though you'll likely want to simply save your creation to the Photos app.

There are sharing options aplenty, though you’ll likely want to simply save your creation to the Photos app

All in all, File New is a super piece of mobile software, and it’s something iPhone photographers should definitely consider taking for a spin. As more and more of us use our iPhones as our go-to cameras, the need for a robust, capable, but easy-to-use iOS photo editor only increases. File New offers everything you’d ever want and more in a well-designed, accessible package.