No need for multiple Adobe Mobile apps, Adobe Express is the only app you need!

Adobe offers more than four specific photo editing apps on your phone – all of which are so similar, it’s hard to decipher which one you really need. After testing, Adobe Express Mobile is the only Adobe mobile app you’ll ever need on your phone.

Table of Contents

• Adobe has a variety of mobile editing apps.
• Photoshop Mobile
• Adobe Express Mobile
• Lightroom Mobile
• Adobe Photoshop Express
• You just need Adobe Express on your phone!

Adobe has a variety of mobile editing apps.

Adobe is best known for its suite of creative desktop software. Adobe Creative Cloud has long dominated the top creative tools with popular software like Photoshop , Illustrator, and InDesign, often making up the top three tools that professional designers should learn.

In this day and age where we’re on the go more, Adobe has started building a suite of mobile apps that allow for better access to creativity wherever you are. There are a number of Adobe apps that you can try for free that offer a variety of uses, such as Adobe Capture, which can create digital content from real-world images, or Adobe Firefly , which is a web app that uses Adobe’s latest AI creation tools.

You might be confused to learn that there are more than 4 Adobe mobile apps that focus on photo editing and image manipulation. They are all similar, but different enough that you feel the need to install them all.

It can be hard to decide which app is best for your needs. You don’t need all four apps taking up space on your phone. Here’s what each app does and why we ultimately recommend Adobe Express Mobile.

Photoshop Mobile

Adobe released Photoshop Mobile for iPhone in February 2025, with an expected release for Android phones before the end of 2025. There have been many discontinued Photoshop apps for phones in the past, including apps like Photoshop Fix and Photoshop Mix, among others.

Photoshop for mobile is the first Photoshop app to bring many of the same features as Photoshop on the desktop to your phone. It gives you the photo editing and composition power of Photoshop—including layers, AI features, selection tools, blend modes, and more—on the go, right in the palm of your hand.

Photoshop Mobile is free to install, but some features are locked behind Photoshop Mobile Premium. If you're subscribed to any Adobe plan that includes Photoshop, Photoshop Mobile Premium comes free, otherwise you'll have to pay $7.99/month.

While it's great to have a mobile version of Photoshop, with many of the same powerful features as the desktop version, it's difficult to do such detailed image editing and manipulation using just your phone.

Many people prefer to use a laptop and take advantage of the larger screen space and the precision of a mouse or drawing tablet. Using your finger on a small screen makes it difficult to make precise edits.

• 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 used to create images and videos for sharing.

Adobe Express has built-in AI features like the image generator powered by Adobe Firefly, as well as third-party apps that provide additional tools. Many AI tools are locked behind Adobe Express Premium.

Since Adobe Express is not a photo editor but a composition tool, it only offers basic image editing features like blur, brightness, duotone, and minimal blend modes. You can remove the background, but there are no advanced selection tools like in Photoshop.

Adobe Express offers great video, animation tools, and audio features, as well as great text and image-based tools. It's great for social media, digital marketing, and even print-based projects. Use Express Mobile for any social media designs you create or when you need quick access to regular image creation or AI image creation.

You can install Adobe Express for free – and access it from your desktop browser using 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.

• Get Adobe Express Mobile for iOS | Android (Free in-app subscription)

Lightroom Mobile

Lightroom Mobile is Adobe's mobile photo editing tool. It's based on the same editing features found in Adobe Lightroom for desktop — which comes in two versions: Lightroom Classic or Lightroom CC — and it closely matches the web browser version, Lightroom on the Web.

Like Adobe's other creative mobile apps, you can download and use Lightroom Mobile for free, but more than 10 features — like RAW editing, selective adjustments, and Sensei search — are locked behind a paid plan.

Note : There is no longer a Lightroom Mobile Premium upgrade; instead, it is included in one of three subscription plans: the Lightroom plan from $11.99, the Photography plan from $19.99, or the Adobe All Apps plan from $59.99/month.

Lightroom Mobile isn’t a photo editing or composition tool – it is a photo editing tool. You’ll find powerful editing features like lens blur, masking, and presets, as well as some AI features.

People often choose to use SnapSeed instead of Lightroom Mobile to edit photos on their phones. This article especially recommends it for those who are only accessing the free plan of Lightroom Mobile. Many people prefer to edit their professional photos from their laptop in the Lightroom desktop app.

• Get 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 – despite their similar names. Adobe Photoshop Express Mobile is available for both iPhone and Android devices, unlike Photoshop Mobile which is (at the time of writing) only available for iPhone.

Unlike the apps mentioned above, Photoshop Express is the only one that’s only available on mobile devices. There’s no desktop app or software, and there’s no web app with editing tools—although there is a web app gallery of people’s creations. And best of all, Photoshop Express is completely free.

Photoshop Express has a number of AI tools: an AI image generator, an AI object insertion feature, and an AI costume swap tool. It has a large number of non-AI tools, including a background removal feature – which uses a mask instead of actually removing the background.

PS Express has a lot of tools that you would be surprised to see in a free app; however, the quality of the results is not that great – that’s why it’s free. It offers some animation options, borders, overlays, and many of the same manipulation features as ByteDance’s Hypic photo editing app.

All the editing results seem basic and just use this app for fun rather than serious photo editing or manipulation.

• Download Adobe Photoshop Express for iOS | Android (Free)

You just need Adobe Express on your phone!

Adobe's mobile apps are a huge step forward in mobile creative software; however, you'll never be able to fully create from a small touchscreen on your phone.

Both Photoshop and Lightroom for mobile are too complex to produce impressive results from just your phone—you're better off using the desktop versions of these apps if you're really interested in creating your best images.

Photoshop Express is a random editing tool that lacks the power and expectations of Photoshop in general.

Adobe Express has Quick Actions, which can easily connect to Adobe Libraries to pull images from other software projects, and you can do a lot with it, from creating images to videos or animations.

Most people who use their phones for creative purposes usually plan to post the results to social media, and Adobe Express is perfectly designed for that purpose. You don't need other Adobe apps on your phone.