There isn’t an iPhoto application on the iPad and while it might be nice to have iPhoto for iPad, we have to ask do we really need it. There are available a number of iPad applications that do allow you to edit and adjust your photos, you don’t necessarily need to look for a free photo editing online application. For a start off, the cameras on the iPad to are not particularly good, so it is not likely that you’re going to take many photographs with your iPad. Consequently the photos that you do have on there will be adequately served by the use of the Photo Roll and you will be able to use applications such as ArtStudio or PS Express to do some editing.

What is so bad about the Photos App

The photos app in iOS5 is actually not that bad. I can see all of the photos in my Photo Stream. I have the ability to use faces and places and any of the settings that I have made in my iPhoto app on my Mac are reflected in the photo app on the iPad. So if you have spent a good deal of time to name all of the faces in your photos, then you will be able to use that information also within the iPad application. I can see all of the albums that I have created in the iPhoto app on my iMac. It is even possible to have a slideshow with transitions and even you can have it play music.

If you’re using PS Express you will be able to do the basics in terms of editing, such as crop, adjust exposure, saturation, tint and you can even convert a photo to black-and-white. This application also lets you posterise, although it calls it ‘sketch’. Just by sliding your finger from left to right on the screen, you can adjust the amount of affect that you apply to a photo, including soft focus and sharpen. What you get with PS Express is photo editing for free on the iPad. When you have edited your photos using this application you can also share them out, but only to the PS Express site or to Facebook are supported

Although ArtStudio is sold as as an application for drawings, you can also use it to work on photo editing. The best use of it will be for editing where you need to have layers in place. It may be a good option for you if you are unable to install your favourite photo editing application because will not install as you don’t have cameras on your iPad. It would seem a little bit silly to have applications that deny you the ability to use them on your iPad just because you don’t have a camera. Especially seeing as now we have Photo Stream. So if I take a photo with the iPhone 4S, it will be available on my iPad. It only seems sensible that I would be able to edit that photo using a screen that was larger, on my iPad.

iPhoto 11 on the iPad

One of the reasons that you might want to use iPhoto rather than the photo app on your iPad is because you might be able to organise better in iPhoto including adding tags where you see fit. One thing you might consider is to use one of the Log Me In type of applications, such as LogMeIn Ignition or there is one called Splashtop. Using one of these remote desktop software apps, you will be able to see whatever is on your Mac screen in your iPad. You will be able to control applications remotely. When you use an application such as Splashtop, you can set iPhoto to full-screen mode in Lion. It will almost be like having a native iPad application, except it is running on your Mac.

Using PhotoStudio HD

There are some photo editing apps for the iPad, although most of them do seem to be applications for applying filters than doing any real editing. Any decent photo editing app will certainly have the ability to use layers. Using layers for any photo editing is important because you can work on separate layers to apply effects, so that you can do nondestructive editing. PhotoStudio HD has a number of effects that you can apply and it does have the ability to draw a mask onto your photo so that only certain parts are affected by the filter you want to apply.

There are 190 filters included in the app ranging from borders to vignettes and from grunge to an effect that applies a rough fabric texture to the area where you apply it. But if you go to the tools menu you can make adjustments to brightness and contrast, gamma and also the hue and saturation. Basically you have all of the tools, filters and options, so that you can really mess up a photograph and make it look like total crap.

Free photo editing online

While it is possible for you to do photo editing for free online, I’m not sure that I would recommend it unless you have a particularly fast Internet connection. There is one called Pixlr you can find at Pixlr.com and in terms of editing tools it does look quite full featured. I was quite surprised at how fast it uploaded, although I did only try with a smallish image. The first tool that I tried to select was the gradient tool and each time that I selected it, I got the crop tool. When I chose other tools I did actually get the correct one that I was looking for, such as the pinch tool and the clone Stamp tool. Obviously Pixlr has been designed by people from the Windows environment when it tells you to use the control key as a modifier you actually have to use the command key on your Apple keyboard.

Pixlr-o-matic

You can’t use this web application on your iPad as it requires flash to function. There is though, an application called Pixlr-o-matic and the good news is that the application is free. Only works in portrait mode but has a good way to choose the film effects, lighting effects and borders. You can do a double tap on a photo to see it full screen. Not a brilliant app but could be useful to do a quick simple edit.

Photo Flexer a free photo editing program

There are other free online photo editing applications, there is one called Photo Flexer. With this one you can edit photos from your Facebook, Flickr, Picasso and a few other places as well as you being able to upload your own photos from your computer. Also with this photo Flex application you can apply effects, use fonts and shapes and of course you have distortions, retouching and layers.