Polarr: Photo Filters & Editor Reviews

by XxTylerhxx

I absolutely loved using this as a photo editor, it was incredibly convenient to use on the go to get professional edits that could honestly rival photoshop use on the desktop. However with this new update things are now just overly cluttered and make no sense. I loved using this exclusively to edit my photos from my DSLR that were transferred to my phone but now with the new update things are just super messy and cluttered to the point of not being able to use it anymore. The old UI was clean, very enjoyable to use, and extremely professional.. now it’s just a cluttered mess that looks like it’s trying to fit in with common photo editors. However, this isn’t a common photo editor, this is something used by people who understand photography and what it takes to edit their photos. So please revert to the previous UI, you’ll be doing thousands of us a favor so we can get back to doing what we love!

by TMikeC📸

I’ve been using this app Pro for years now but with each new update it gets further and further away from the original app that was worth spending money on.

First they remove functionality like the Spot Healing tool for no reason. Now they’ve put almost all new focus and development into Styles which in and of itself is fine, but Polarr is so unintuitive and buggy now that it isn’t even worth keeping around anymore. I can’t edit and save more than one photo in any one session without force closing and restarting, edits disappear and reappear at random, copying adjustments from one photo to another causes all of the previews in the photo selection screen to go haywire; really the list just goes on and on.

It’s unfortunate that Polarr has become less about photo editing and more about preset-sharing but I could live around that if it would just work at a basic level and at this point it does not.

by Wh0rfin

It appears “rental” means “subject to total change whenever we feel like it”. What does Polarr even do anymore? I am beginning to think this “javascript-first” webdev architecture is unsuited to real tools people depend upon. BEWARE: now features we paid for are GONE. No Landscape mode! No more drawing tools or text or shapes. I don’t want your garbage clipart lens flares i want the imaging tooks i freaking paid for. Another Update: All my favorites vanished because they changed the way they “package” favorites, and seem to have given no thought to how that interacts with previously referenced Styles. This is the _SECOND_ time my favorites have been nuked because of app changes. This time total silence from support. Update: still busted. Cute garbage like “pixelate with triangles” gets added, while the image type tags have been broken since first release. I have reported the issues in every release; sometimes I get a response asking for the same information provided in first report - it’s broken the same way, please read the first full bug report. Read the reports from all your customers while you’re at it. I used to love the potential and philosophy, but there are still fundamental bugs unaddressed since launch almost five years ago. Every release adds a new feature or fiddles with UX while breaking something fundamental. Moving fast and breaking things is what children do, we expect better from professionals

by MB_studio

Okay, okay, I got used to the new design and even got over the fact that some of the main features I previously used were taken away. I think the new perspective and cropping tools are an improvement. But the thing that is now making Polarr completely unusable for me is a new problem I've gotten no response from support - despite submitting several weeks ago. Polarr now, upon every single opening, says that “due to insufficient space, your recent edits will not be saved” and then reverts all of your edited photos back to their original form whenever you click on them. There is no way to undo this, or get your edits back. I have more than sufficient space on my phone, more, in fact, than when I used the previous version of Polarr, and more than when I started using the upgraded version (and did not have this problem at the beginning).

This bug is making me search for other photo editing programs, which is frustrating, as I’ve been a longtime this app supporter.

by 5sosfangirl888888

i’ve used this app for a while and it was my favorite app for filters when i can’t use psd, but this update is terrible. the design is not only a sore on the eye because it looks like every other editing app now, but it takes more steps to do simplest tasks. i don’t want to have to open a new tab EVERY time i want to use a different tool. i also can’t pinch the image to make it smaller for a better viewpoint, which is upsetting. and back to the new style visually, not being able to change the color of the background is highly problematic seeing as most of my content is black and i can’t differentiate the background from my photos, as well as the fact that i have other difficulties using Polarr with the background being black. honestly, don’t even try to fix the update with a new one, just go back to how it used to be. and stop throwing the “upgrade to pro” in our faces every time we open at app, it’s annoying and i’m on the verge of deleting Polarr —and so are all of my editor friends who use it.

by Shrimpy Doodles

There are four major issues I have with Polarr:
1. It used to have more editing options, they majorly cut down on them. Instead of being able to blur/ fix blemishes they now have the much less flexible face retouch feature.

2. It logs you out seemingly every couple hours. I swear I have to log in again every other day if not sometimes within the same day, seems to log you out at random, which brings me to problem three.

3. Every time it logs you out it forces you to look at their stupid “this app Pro” ad which you have to look at every time you open Polarr without an account. Then after that it has these ridiculously annoying pop ups that are always trying to show you their stupid selections feature and how to share your presets with your friends. They’re super annoying.

4. Exiting Polarr and re opening Polarr deletes all edits from photos, even if the edited version is currently saved over the original in your photo gallery. It’s counterintuitive, not every batch of photos needs the same edits so I don’t want to have to save a preset any time I need to exit Polarr for something. Otherwise I risk needing to figure out whatever adjustments I made to the finished photos when I go back in and need to edit the rest of a batch.

This used to be a fantastic app that had essentially all the photo editing tools you could want, now it’s a barely functioning dumpster fire. Don’t bother.

by Kasper64

I’ve been using Polarr for YEARS and have never had a real issue with it. For the past five days, when I’m choosing a filter (and adjusting it and so on) it’s fine. It’s when I’m saving the image that’s the problem. As soon as I hit “save copy” it blacks out the screen for a couple seconds, then the screen is completely white for a couple more seconds, and then it resets to “open photos” & “use existing photo” and it just keeps happening every time I try to save it. I’ve even gone into another app to save a different copy/change the size of it etc to see if that could be a solution but it happens regardless. Once I think I’ve fixed it on the one photo, I feel relieved, then it does the same exact thing for the next photo. I haven’t used this app in 24 hours, trying to see if it needed a break or something, but that did nothing. Today I see that there was an update, but even after updating it, it’s happening. I don’t know what to do.

by JacksonAG

this app has been my go-to photo editing for several years. I’m a freelance digital artist, and after trying dozens of different apps, this app was the best. It had very specific abilities regarding layering images and the size/resolution abilities, which I can’t find anywhere else.
Unfortunately, a few months ago, it started having more errors. It would freeze and close, sometimes losing any edits I’d made. It would open files as black boxes. These issues increased to the level it was hard to work. Their email customer service responds only after multiple emails, and the responses are copy/paste “please wait for a future update.”
The most recent update changed the max resolution from 17”x17” to 13”x13”, so even if the now extremely frequent glitches are fixed, I have to reduce my size of my art by 20%.
So, I’m again hunting for a new image editing app.

by Moreamealz

this app was by far my favorite photo editing app in the market, and I was happy to upgrade to Pro. The UI design was intelligent and intuitive. I used Polarr multiple times a week to edit photos for a small business I work for.

I truly hate this new update. I don’t understand why this app changed the UI so dramatically and to such a poor design. The new UI is now very similar to most interfaces I’ve seen in the marketplace (including the editing software in Apple Photos), which not only removes a key differentiator of this app, it also leaves it feeling clunky. Why would I use this app if the design is similar to what already exists in Apple installed software? Or similar to another app on the marketplace? Not only is the layout of the editing capabilities now more obstructive, you can’t even rotate the screen! It’s very annoying to edit all my photos in a vertical view, rather than landscape. Maybe I’m just missing something?

It’s rare that I leave reviews, especially negative ones, but there honestly isn’t anything I like in the new update. I felt very loyal to this app and truly disappointed.

by AziaW

I’ve used this app for a while and the set up was easy and efficient and didn’t get in the way of me seeing my project I was working on. But since the new update the set up had changed and it’s harder to see and navigate what I’m doing. The bar of items and things I can do has gotten bigger and when I try to make changes it zooms in on the picture defeating the process.

All in all I don’t really care for them taking away some features but changing the layout was a mistake in my opinion, Inter of staying at the bottom making it easier to see, there are more things to tap to get what I want and it’s difficult to see the outcome because it gets in the way.

Maybe in the next update can it be so you can choose the layout because this new one isn’t the best.

by 🦋Angel🦋

Why was the layout and Polarr itself redesigned? It was perfectly fine before where you could just scroll your fingers across and measure up to 100 or down to -100, simple yet useful and refreshing to make my pictures pop. Now it’s just plain and looks like you, no intention to offend or accuse, made it appear to look like the Darkroom app layout. It’s also glitchy my photos go blank when editing and only reappears when I click the before picture and never shows the picture I was in the midst of editing. In my opinion, the new things you’ve added are okay it would’ve been fine in the original layout and just as pleasing without the aesthetic to “just get it edited it doesn’t matter what it looks like so we made it all black” change. It’s also confusing, you hit adjust and flicker some changes and hit the check button and you’re like “huh? I have to edit all on the same tab?” it’s confusing having to remember I have to edit all of them on one tab itself that’s just sitting in a line above the adjusters instead of being able to hold down the adjusters and change it to what pleases you. Other than that it’s great.

by @gyfueroa

i’ve been using this app for over a year now and it’s always served me well. i’d been putting off writing a review for this app for a good amount of time now though because this app itself is a great app, i just thought my problem would’ve been mentioned by other users and been fixed by now, but my problem still exists. Polarr itself is very easy to use and has TONS of features to use for pretty much every type of photo. my problem is that after editing and exporting maybe 6 photos at a time (individually instead of with the batch export feature), when i try to open another picture this app either freezes and crashes or very tightly crops the photo (usually when there is a face in the picture). i don’t think it has to do with the hardware this app is being running on. this has been happening to me for a few months now on my ipad pro and even recently on a new iphone.

by P.mousse Esq.

For the actually editing, I would give this 5 stars. I also appreciate their useful tutorials and the many thoughtful touches that went into Polarr design (although the UI is rather confusing at first, once you figure out the guiding organization, it makes sense). The cloning/healing feature is the only one I really did not like in terms of how it's implemented. Way too fidgety; no apparent way to deal with larger areas. Other apps do a much better job.

The two-hour trial of the pro version has almost persuaded me to scrounge up the $20, though it also introduced some concerns. Using more than one shape caused stability problems. It seems you can't use different colors for added shapes. Liquify didn't perform as well as I hoped, either.

All in all, though, the actual photo-editing results were superior to what I've been able to achieve in the numerous other apps I've tried.

by BAR112

Just revisited this app after several years--some great improvements! Love the brush and the auto-selection features, especially. However, I've been begging for years: Please change it back to landscape mode!! (Or make an iPad-exclusive version). Do you know how inconvenient it is to edit photos on a big iPad Pro with attached keyboard turned sideways? Try it, developers--it's ridiculous! This is supposedly a professional editing app, not juvenile Instagram filters. Also, I do not appreciate the social junk attached (I just ignore it). This also knocks it down a notch from being a professional program. Other than those two gripes, it's great! I purchased this app a long time ago; I'm both pleased and disappointed with the directions it has taken over the years.

by Ohitstheresaa

I have used this app for years now. I love the way I can creatively express myself with ease. Being able to share and create filters, and use others filters is such a great idea! If you can't make a filter that fits your picture correctly, there are thousands of creators who have created filters that will fit! Not to mention, you can easily take inspiration from other creator's filters to help create your own filters. There are so many options that there is no need to completely copy a filter. Even changing one thing may have a drastic difference. I love this app and will not be leaving it anytime soon, if I ever leave at all!

by Nicos8

I’m so happy to see that I am not the only one who is completely infuriated with the new update. Why would you completely change an entire app so that even experienced users are dumbfounded. I can’t for the life af me figure out the set up for the new way that overlays work, I cant even seem to apply an image in the style of a gradient like was able to do before. From 5 stars to 1, if could I’d give it none. You were a top rated app, why would you make such a move, that was dumber than dumb, at least have the courtesy to roll it out slowly. Not all at once. I had not known how much more useful Polarr was over my previous go to until the last few months. But once I really played around with it, it soon became my newest go to. I wish I had never updated. Also why is there not an easier way to delete my custom overlays, y’all didn’t bother to reconcile that situation. Who ever made this decision should be fired, or given a second chance to fix this mess that now takes up room on my phone. If something is not done soon, I will be requesting an entire refund 🤦🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️ this is not Polarr I paid for. Idk what this is.

by Sweetninje

Polar photo editing app is awesome! Without even feting into the paid
version you get a ton of amazing
options, filters, effects and tools! Believe me , these are not limited to the Instagram or Facebook or editing photoshop copycats! Polar is professional grade in quality, user interface, appearance and detail.
Appreciated the prompts and helper which you can hide if you don’t need or dislike . I found It tremendously helpful. It’s not the easiest app, so I wouldn’t necessarily suggest it to someone not accustomed to some version of photo shop or another editing apps, but with with the helper option you can figure it out and deliver pro -level edited photographs.
I am probably going to bite the bullet and purchase the pro version . It’s that good!

by Lana Ressie

I’ve tried and tested many editing apps, and since I don’t use the premium version, many of them weren’t good. The other apps were just so bad, the picture ended up looking overly saturated and super cheesy. The only way you could have edited well on those apps are if you used the premium feature, and they were expensive! After testing many apps and almost giving up, I found this app. The editing actually looks natural and pretty and the functions and tools are really easy to use. Ultimately, my pictures ended up looks beautiful! The only request or frustration I have with Polarr is that there is no home screen so the only pages you have is the photo you are editing, which bothers me a little. But in terms of the editing quality, Polarr is perfect for me!

by YellowYell0w

Polarr is so good. I’m still pretty new to it but from what I’ve seen it’s better then any other editing app I’ve used before. My favorite aspect is how user friendly it is! With other apps I’ve tried they were hard to understand and confusing but with this app it was easy to figure out and understand! Another aspect are the styles. I love how easy they are to share and use! It can make it to where it can change it from one color completely to another which is very hard to do on other apps. My last point id like to talk about is their discord server. I recently joined/got invited to it so I haven’t been able to chat much but from what I’ve seen it’s absolutely amazing! I never see discord servers of it to have such active and helpful staff! In all id say this app has to be my favorite editing app and I’m excited to see what I can learn in the future to come <33

by Jinafire Demew

I’ve been using this app since late 2016, and for the most part it’s been pretty great, with a few bugs in between and issues with the quality, but the problems were fixed quite quickly. I purchased this app Pro’s selective adjustments in around 2017 and it worked fine, but recently with the new this app SO many new issues have risen. The first time I updated it to the new this app, it would not let me save any of my selective adjustments. Gradient, color masks, none of them would save. Sometimes it would crash, other times it wouldn’t even save as the filter I had filtered it as, but instead another filter I had previously made?? Recently, a few issues have been fixed but new problems have started. Everything including gradient and radial all work with my purchases but when I add the color scale to a color mask, it doesn’t save. The color mask is still there, but the actual color scale is zero. Please fix these issues, or bring back the old this app and work on the new one on the side. So many new issues that me and quite a few of my friends who have been using it for a long time are giving up on it.

by HollyDay

Polarr is SUCH A MESS. After multiple updates, developers still didn't get it right! Icons jumping or overlapping over each other, so one has to close Polarr , lose all edits, and re-open app and start from scratch. Photos automatically downgraded in quality and colouring on opening. Filters no longer adjustable. Face Tools randomly auto-changing things in the wrong way. Tool adjustment bars going in the opposite direction of what you're pushing it towards. Photos saving in much lower resolution, despite setting it to "Best" setting. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I wish I'd never updated about 5 updates ago! A perfectly great app has turned into amateur rubbish. Bugs squashed? What a joke! What are you doing over there? With so many negative reviews, you have to know this is just really bad. Time to find a new app that actually works because Polarr has gone bye bye.

by UnKnown Comic Hey

I already paid for this if I am not mistaken right after I got it when it came out or was on Polarr Store. This is possibly another app that charges a one time fee for lifetime use of a pro version the goes to a subscription based service. If you are like me and have a bunch of hobbies and what not then use several to 30 or 50 apps to work and research or just view, it doesn’t take much to get a few hundred plus apps. It’s hard to keep up with who is change what when so you trust them to do the right thing and not cheat you. I am getting cheated left and right. I know I have paid for upgrades for Polarr for sure. I remember doing everything/pro version. I hit restore purchases and nothing. I will change my review to reflect Polarr performance when they fix it. I am not paying for something I already bought.

by Jewel_and_stone

I really enjoyed using Polarr, it’s actually become my go-to editing app along side one other. I don’t even use the Pro features and my pics look awesome. But now I can’t even save my non-pro image without an ad coming up for me to either “Upgrade” or “Try Pro Features”. To get out of the ad (because there is no “X” button) I click “Upgrade” and it takes me to a page with options and prices. I can then click “X” out of that, but when I try to save my picture again it tells me I’m using Pro features and I cannot save the image without upgrading. It was a little annoying at first but now I legit cannot save ANYTHING. And I haven’t used a single Pro feature!! I’m so annoyed and irritated. I just want to use Polarr the way it’s supposed to be used, but the “Upgrade” ad keeps messing it up!

by IMjunipa

I bumbled across Polarr in an earlier inception a few years ago and have watched it slowly, steadily improve, and noticed that the developers are constantly working on making upgrades then communicating those outright. This reason alone shows me a successful company behind the app. That being said, I am very happy with many of the filters and find each are well organized into categories making it easy to work with my landscape photos, however, I agree with another user’s feedback about the healing tool. I wish it was a little bit more precise and could offer more options such as where the healing section is copying from, radius, etc.
On occasion I will run into a glitch where I have to shut down the program and restart in order to continue functioning. This often happens when I am using several filters. Overall I’m very happy and I would recommend this app Pro for anyone who wants to enhance their photos.

Keep up the good work guys, I’m happy to have this in my app folder, and to be able to contribute my thoughts and experiences. I believe you read each and every comment and are endeavoring to respond when necessary.

by Lipbitestyles

I have been using Polarr for a little over a year and everything has been perfect so far but recently I’ve started to notice a slight change or bug if you will. I click on Polarr and everything is fine when I edit a photo, I am a pro member, but when I click out and then back into that same photo, suddenly it’s super cropped to the point where there is barely anything to see. And it also will not let me save any filters I have created. Other times when I click into a photo I desire to edit, the screen goes black (sometimes it becomes white) and I have to restart Polarr . Please fix this bug and I will continue to use Polarr because it has become very frustrating. I rarely write reviews..

by Aleena Marie

The features in Polarr are pretty great, actually- everything is in one place which is very practical. My only major annoyance is that you only get one free export a day without upgrading. The cost to upgrade is fairly reasonable, especially for what Polarr is- but I’d like it if we could export more than one picture a day with the free version. Even if it were like 3 a day, or maybe unlimited exports but without the option of choosing if it is saved as a png/jpeg/the quality etc. Other than that, you can get around just fine without upgrading and not feel terribly frustrated. It’s nice that Polarr doesn’t accost you demanding you upgrade every time you open it. Over all a pretty capable and easy to navigate photo editor.

by MEMBERS_ONLY

I really do love Polarr. I’ve been using it for quite some time now and i have to say it’s super easy to use and it’s honestly so different from other editing apps like VSCO or Afterlight, etc. However i find that when saving my edit to my camera role, it lowers the quality of the photo, which is very disappointing since the edit looks so amazing prior to saving it. It’s like i get a final result I’m happy with and when i save it and check the photo just saved, the quality is not as good as shown on Polarr itself. Because of this i started to use other editing apps, none of which allow me to create edits just like Polarr does. So please fix this as i really want to have good quality photos!!

by Lost In The Feed

I am a bit of a photo editing app junkie, and had originally downloaded Polarr amid several others. I got so caught up in the other apps I didn’t spend much time and took it off my device. I noticed it on my cloud the other day, downloaded it and found exactly what I was looking for. Not only does it have the color modifying tools I was looking for (on most apps it is a paid feature) the filters are wonderful. I found the exact filter I was looking for to use on my Instagram, but I almost went with one of the filters in the Japanese photo set. It took a bit to figure out the navigation (and how to add tools to your tool bar) but I am so glad I took the time. I am not devoted to a single app, but this is now become one of my top three editors.

by Sarah - House Of Wend

I have been looking for a pro level photo editing program to use for all the photos I take as a travel blogger. I just was reluctant to jump on he lightroom bandwagon. After reading a ton of positive reviews about this app from photographers, I decided to give it a try. Within minutes I was hooked! It is such a powerful tool and the fact that you can use it across multiple platforms is HUGE! I initially had some trouble unlocking the pro features on my laptop that I paid for in the phone app. But within minutes of writing to support I got a response and within 24 hours they had fixed the kink. Can’t beat that! I’m so thrilled with Polarr and excited to master all of its amazing features!!!

by MDtheAfroCat@DA

Great app that i’ve been using for ever a year now as my go too editor for pictures. The tools are easy to use and they all work well. Definitely worth the $20 for the pro features. The only problem i’ve had is working with the color mask on areas with large amounts of red, where I use exposure changes to make the effected area easier to see. All in all though it’s a powerful photo editor that will make anyone happy. Only feature it really needs to be perfect is a quick way to pull in other pictures to use as masks instead of using the watermark tool over and over again...which i’ve done before.

by PhilWil

I can go on as on about Polarr. I’m so glad I took a chance and paid for it. It does everything I want it to do and more. Truly worth it. So much so that when I create my Teachable class for phone photographers I am going to have a special section just for this app.

If you are a influencer, want to go more professional, you want to edit your photos to a higher level, get Polarr.

Polarr isn’t for the regular person who is cool with the edits most people would want. This is for those who want way more than the regular. They want the best. This is like photoshop for your phone.