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7 Best Vintage Filter Apps for Retro Pictures

Sumia Rafique
Sumia Rafique Originally published Mar 17, 25, updated Mar 18, 25

Vintage-style photography never goes out of fashion! Whether you're aiming for a classic film look, dreamy 90s aesthetics, or the warm, grainy feel of old-school cameras, vintage filter apps can instantly transform your modern photos into timeless masterpieces.

If you are curious about picking an app that makes pictures look vintage, you've come to the right place. In this guide, we will introduce the best vintage filter apps that bring the magic of retro photography to your fingertips. Whether you love light leaks, grainy textures, faded tones, or Polaroid-style edits, these apps will help you create stunning, nostalgia-filled images. Let's dive in!

In this article
    1. Filmora – The Best Overall Vintage Filters and Effects App
    2. VSCO – Best for Authentic Retro Film Effects
    3. Snapseed – Best Free Vintage Photo Editor
    4. Instagram – Best for Social Media Integration
    5. Afterlight – Best for the 90s and Grainy Textures
    6. Prisma – Best for Artistic Vintage Styles
    7. Huji Cam – Best for Instant Film Effects

Essential Features for Vintage Filter Apps

The following retro aesthetic features define original vintage appearances:

  • Grain and Noise Effects – Adds old-film texture in photos and makes them look antique and nostalgic.
  • Sharpening Filters - Allows you to emphasize details and minimize image edges. Filmora contains robust sharpening tools and a gentle blurring feature.
  • Frame Rate Adjustments - Frames allow you to imitate old camcorder footage through low frame rate adjustments. Apps like Filmora offer Low FPS Retro 2, polaroid, and multiple other filters to achieve perfect frame rate adjustments.
  • Vignette & Light Leaks – Create a nostalgic feel with dark edges or soft light.
  • Shadow and Contrast Functions - Adjust black and highlight details alongside the overall vintage style appearance. Filmora allows full customization.

The available features in mobile editing apps help you obtain numerous vintage styles through flexible design. Let's see the in-depth review of those vintage filter apps.

Best 7 Apps with Vintage Filters

1. Filmora – The Best Overall Vintage Filters and Effects App

Filmora for Mobile Filmora for Mobile Filmora for Mobile Filmora for Mobile Filmora for Mobile

Edit Videos on Your Mobile Phone with 1-Click!hot

  • • Powerful Brand New AI Features.
  • • User-friendly video editing for beginners.
  • • Full-featured video editing for professionals.

4,085,556 people have downloaded it
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Filmora is a comprehensive photo and video editing software with a dedicated library of vintage filters, effects, and presets. It offers powerful tools that allow you to recreate classic film styles, making it an excellent choice for both beginners and professionals.

Key Features

  • High-quality vintage filters that replicate classic film aesthetics.
  • Advanced color grading tools for precise adjustments.
  • Layering options to create unique effects.
  • Regular updates with new filters and features.
  • Vintage & Retro Effects Library has effects like the 70s, old films, old videos, retro cinema overlays, retro film overlays, and many others.
  • Extensive Range of Vintage Filters like nostalgia, golden moments, stylish apocalyptic, sunset, retro wheel, vintage, vintage decay, and many more.
  • Vintage Presets like old film, polaroid, film stock, etc.
  • Manual editing options like adjustment of temperature, exposure, tint, sharpness, white level, black level, contrast, color correction, etc.
  • AI Image stylizer for getting AI-powered old paint model looks with one click.
  • AI Image to Video creation:  You can create any vintage image of a male, female, kid, or any object by giving text prompts.

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Intuitive and beginner-friendly interface.
  • Multiple high-quality filters.
  • Wide selection of retro and vintage effects.
  • Supports high-resolution exports for professional-quality images.
  • Multiple AI features to customize vintage images like AI Image Stylizer, Auto Enhance, AI Image to Video, and many others.
Cons
  • Some premium effects and filters require a subscription.

Steps to Apply a Vintage Filter in Filmora Mobile:

  1. Download and install Filmora Mobile, which is available on Android and iOS.

    Filmora for Mobile Filmora for Mobile Filmora for Mobile Filmora for Mobile Filmora for Mobile

    Edit Videos on Your Mobile Phone with 1-Click!hot

    • • Powerful Brand New AI Features.
    • • User-friendly video editing for beginners.
    • • Full-featured video editing for professionals.

    4,085,556 people have downloaded it
    logo trustpilot 5 stars 4.5/5 Excellent
  2. Import Your Photo or Video – Select the file you want to edit and click on the Effects option in the bottom bar.
    vintage filter filmora mobile
  3. Choose a Vintage Filter – Navigate to the Effects section in the below bar and pick from sepia, retro, or Polaroid styles.
    vintage effect filmora mobile app

    You can either type retro or vintage, and there will be a list of filters in front of you.

    apply vintage effect
  4. Enhance with Manual Adjustments – Modify brightness, contrast, grain, and fade for a more refined look.
    edit settings for better results

    Feel free to edit further to manually adjust sharpness, contrast shadows, exposure, and tint.

    edit settings to get best vintage effects
  5. Save and Share – Export your high-quality photo high-quality and share it on social media.

2. VSCO – Best for Authentic Retro Film Effects

VSCO vintage filter app

VSCO is one of the best-rated vintage filter apps for Android and iOS, with realistic filter sets like the film look. In this sense, it resembles traditional film cameras, making it preferred for nostalgic people.

Key Features

  • Sixty presets based on movies advertised by Kodak, Fujifilm, and Polaroid companies.
  • Some of the features include pro-level exposure controls, contrast, and grain tuning tools.
  • A community within the application for capturing and sharing new photos and their edits.

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Some offer true-to-life image filters in contrast to other Third Party Filter effects.
  • Robust editing suite with fine-tuning controls.
  • Active community for inspiration and feedback.
Cons
  • Almost all the filters are paid.

3. Snapseed – Best Free Vintage Photo Editor

snapseed free vintage photo app

Snapseed, which belongs to Google, is among the best free apps for vintage photo editing. Some of the features it has include powerful editing tools and effects, and it is free from subscription.

Key Features

  • 29+ editing tools, including vintage-style filters.
  • RAW image support for high-quality adjustments.
  • User-friendly interface with one-touch effects.

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • It is totally free with no charges included, no matter what type of content is being advertised.
  • It retains the input images undamaged and makes no changes to the input images during the editing process.
  • Regular updates with new tools and filters.
Cons
  • The number of filters in the app is lower than in some other apps, which likely focus more on vintage filters.
  • Some of the features have a certain level of complexity that makes it necessary to take time to understand how it works.

4. Instagram – Best for Social Media Integration

free vintage photo editor Instagram

Instagram is not only a social networking site but also possesses antique filters that can give pictures a twist of past looks within a minute.

Key Features

  • It comes with a number of old-school in-built filters, such as Hudson, X-pro II, and Lark.
  • Availability over the Internet: With the ‘GIF' button, it can be shared instantly on Instagram, Facebook and many others.
  • Basic editing tools for quick color and brightness adjustments.

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Completing applications that are compatible with the ease of sharing.
  • Regularly updated with new filters.
Cons
  • Limited advanced editing tools.
  • Some of the filters do not give a proper vintage effect.

5. Afterlight – Best for the 90s and Grainy Textures

afterlight vintage filter

Apart from that, there is a freshness of the Still; The Afterlight offers a combination of vintage filters, textures, and gradients, which makes it a preferable option with the 90s aesthetic photo filtrations.

Key Features

  • Extensive collection of filters and grainy textures.
  • Filter blending options for creating more elaborate and complex editing outcomes.
  • Intuitive UI with easy adjustments.

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Wide variety of filters that imitate the movie looks.
  • Advanced tools for fine-tuned adjustments.
Cons
  • Some features are paywalled.

6. Prisma – Best for Artistic Vintage Styles

prisma photo vintage filter app

Prisma then uses filters based on artificial intelligence to give the photos artistic touches of the vintage picture masterpiece.

Key Features

  • Realistic artistic filters with a retro feel.
  • The ability to make brightness, contrast, or saturation adjustments can be easily done here.
  • Suitable for beginners looking to achieve retro looks.

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Unique art-inspired filters.
  • High-quality outputs are suitable for printing.
  • Best for cartoon character editing
  • Suitable for professionals in the cartoon-making industry
Cons
  • Creates unrealistic looks more often
  • Cartoonize the pictures while editing

7. Huji Cam – Best for Instant Film Effects

instant vintage filter app

Huji Cam mimics the feature of a disposable analog camera with light leak and time stamp in a 1990's style.

Key Features

  • Disposable camera effect with random light leaks.
  • Authentic date stamp for retro vibes.
  • Simple interface for quick snapshots.

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Not having to put in obscene amounts of effort to achieve that ‘vintage' effect.
  • Free downloadable App and comes with choices to purchase additional features.
Cons
  • Limited editing tools.

Explore The Popular Vintage Filters in the Filmora App

If you want to add popular vintage filters to Filmora, here are some "before and after pictures" that we created using the Filmora mobile application for your inspiration.

  1. Black Noise – Adds grainy, high-contrast noise, mimicking old film textures and worn-out footage.
    black noise vintage filter
  2. Retro Vintage – Enhances warm tones, slightly fades colors, and softens details for a classic vintage look.
    retro vintage filter
  3. Strong Sharpness – Boosts contrast and edge definition, making details appear crisper while maintaining an aged aesthetic.
    strong sharpness vintage filter
  4. Low FPS Retro 2 – Reduces the frame rate, creating a choppy, old-school camcorder effect.
    Retro 2 vintage filter
  5. BA04 – Applies a subtle faded tint with desaturated colors, simulating the look of aged film stock.
    ba04 vintage filter

Creative Use: How to Convert Vintage Photos into Retro Videos?

How to Make Vintage and Retro Style Images and Videos in Filmora Mobile

  1. Go to the filmora app and click on AI Image to Video.
    image to video filmora for vintage style video
  2. Import the image that you have already created with a vintage look
  3. Give a prompt for converting it into retro style.
    retro style image to video
  4. Wait for a few seconds and let AI image video conversion take place.
    wait for a retro style image to video
  5. Get the retro style and amazing vintage video without any professional editing needed.
    image to video vintage filter app
  6. Save it to your gallery in just a click, or further refine it by clicking on the Edit option until you are satisfied.

Final Recommendation

The possibilities to create retro and vintage designs remain endless when starting an aesthetic project. You can examine various effects, including grain, sharpness, blur effects, and monochromatic filters, as well as contrast, shadow, and color changes.

Filmora provides the most versatile and high-quality vintage photo editing application, which is your preferred option. If you want a basic and free tool, Snapseed is an outstanding alternative to paid software.

The seven vintage filter apps described serve every one of you who wants to achieve retro style effortlessly.

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Sumia Rafique
Sumia Rafique Mar 18, 25
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