When Snapchat first came on the scene a decade ago, it’s fair to say it had a lot of attention – both positive and negative.
All it did at that point was allow users to send individual photos which would cease to exist after an allocated amount of time. It seemed prime for unsolicited activity and everyone just assumed it was a fad that would pass by quickly.
However, ten years later and it’s still going strong mainly thanks to its development and constant updates, with an enormous user base worldwide.
This has helped to take Snapchat from a very basic app to one that now incorporates direct messaging, video messaging, live calls, fun filters and games.
What happens, though, when one app finds a decent recipe for success? Other similar apps to Snapchat appear, and there are plenty of other face filter apps worth checking out too.
In this article, we are going to look at some of the other apps out there which are similar to Snapchat from a filters perspective. Let’s get into it.
Filter apps like Snapchat – The best ones out there today
While Instagram existed before Snapchat came on to the scene, it wasn’t until after the latter was launched that it started to dabble with its now incredibly popular story feature.
However, that doesn’t mean that filters weren’t part of Instagram prior to this, far from it in fact, with filters being available to use on Instagram from day one.
To use filters on a main Instagram post, you firstly need to select the image that you want to share by hitting the plus icon on the top right hand side of the screen and then select ‘post’ from the drop down menu.
Once you’ve selected the photo you wish to share you will then be moved on to a screen which allows you to flick through various different filters which will enhance your image one way or the other.
Many of these filters are superb and can give a completely different vibe/feel to your images.
Where Instagram has evolved on the filter front, is its use of them on their stories feature. It’s fair to say they completely nabbed the idea of stories from Snapchat, but it’s also reasonable to say they have taken it to a whole new level.
To access the filters on the stories section of Instagram, select the plus icon again but this time select ‘stories’ and then the camera button to take a live picture.
Before taking the live picture you are free to check out the various live filter options available to you which are created both by Instagram and other users.
You can search for specific filters if you know their names or flick through some of the most popular ones.
Alternatively, you can take your live picture without a filter and then add a filter to it after the fact, much in the same way that you can for main Instagram posts.
Funveo
Funveo is an app centred solely around image filters.
The filters available on here are mostly for comedic purposes, but there are also ‘touch up’ effects which can enhance your selfies from a quality point of view if that is something you are interested in doing.
When you first open up Funveo, you need to grant them permission to your phone’s camera and microphones to gain access to all of its features.
From there you will see the app open up a live picture of you, as if you’re about to take a selfie. It is then simply up to you to flick through all the available to filters to see which one you like best.
To gain access to all 1000 filters ad-free, you will need to subscribe to Funveo Plus for £22.99 a month. In our opinion, this is incredibly steep and not worth getting for what is essentially a bit of fun.
However, for the sake of a seven day free trial, you may as well make the most of all the VIP filters and the ad-free experience for a week at least.
One cool part of Funveo are its AR games. Playing these games are fun and interactive and can be accessed via the home screen by flicking through the filters.
You can then share these games with your friends and family by sending them videos of you doing them either via the app, if they also have it, or via SMS.
Re-face
Re-face is a face filtering app that takes the game to a whole new level, and though the traditional messaging features may be lacking, its camera filters are on point.
It focuses solely on the face swap element of image filtering (where you swap your face on to someone else’s) but instead of doing it with a family member or friend on the same photo, it puts your face on to a celebrities’ body.
Not only that, but it works with gifs and videos as well as images. In fact, the main selling point of re-face is the video element of it.
When you load the app up, you can select which photos you want to add to your bank of potential face swaps.
These are the images that will be “swapped” with a celebrities on any videos, images and gifs that are available on the app.
It is advised that you take a new selfie using their in-app camera function rather than use an existing photo just so that you can ensure the dimensions of your photo are spot on.
Once you’ve done this, you are then free to browse through all available media, swap your face into them and check out the results.
If there is a specific character that you would like to see yourself as such as batman then go to the search bar and type in ‘batman’ and the app will display all media involving batman that are eligible for a face swap.
Alternatively, you are free to browse through the most popular videos, photos and gifs and add your to face to them too. Either way, this is one of the best face filter apps that you can download.
Conclusion
To conclude, there are numerous apps out there now which offer superb filtering options. With re-face we are seeing the lengths the technology can now go to, while with Instagram and Funveo we are seeing the classic use of filters for fun and festivity.
It would be wrong, however, to wrap this post up without acknowledging the fact that Snapchat really was the first platform to make filters mainstream, at least in the way that the majority of us use them now.
