With the holidays coming up we all want to take those snaps of memories that we want to last a lifetime.

Here are some of the best photography apps for you to download and use on your cell phone or tablet and make your photos look like they were taken by a professional.

Holiday pictures can help bring back amazing memories for years to come, whether your snaps include wildlife, spectacular sunsets or amazing landscapes. These days, you don’t even need a super duper camera to take great holiday pictures – simply grab your phone and choose from these great holiday photography apps to take you from a Joe and turn you into a pro!

1. GPS Kit and GPS Kit HD

If you really get off the beaten path, so much so that you lose signal, then this is probably one of the best photography apps for you. You can track your routes so you can find the same spot again and again, and monitor your friends, so you don’t get split up. GPS Kit also boasts the most basemap options of any iOS app. It’s great for finding those hidden vantage points for the perfect landscape shot.

2. Photoshop Lightroom CC for mobile

Adobe makes a number of photo apps, but if you’re serious about photo editing on your device, you only need one: Photoshop Lightroom CC for mobile. It's a free app that gives you a powerful yet simple solution for capturing, editing and sharing your photos.

You can shoot raw photos (on compatible phones), or transfer from your camera onto your device, and easily organize and tweak them, then automatically upload them to the cloud, so they don’t take up space on your device. It has preset to keep your edits quick and simple, but you can also go deeper and fine-tune images to perfection.

Signing up to a Creative Cloud account – including the Lightroom CC plan adds the ability to work across phone, tablet, and desktop with instant synchronization.

3. VSCO CAM

If you scroll through Instagram and admire those moody, raw-looking shots of exotic landscapes and majestic mountains, you’ll love VSCO Cam. More experienced photographers will benefit from in-camera settings such as shutter speed and white balance, while even novices will get the hang of the app’s editing software. Alter your exposure, contrast, ISO and more, and experiment with the range of vintage-inspired filters for serious cool-credentials. Available on iOS and Android.

4. MuseCam

Massively popular on the App Store (and with a 4.6-star rating, to boot), MuseCam is a fantastic all-round photo app. It gives you the all-important manual camera control (with compatible iPhones): custom exposure with independent control of shutter, ISO, white balance and focus.

The built-in photo editor lets you take even more control of your images, and with film-inspired presets plus professional grade tools, it's a great tool to help you move from novice snapping to great photography. The app is free to download, but there are various

packs to purchase in-app for the photo editor.

5. PhotoPills

With the award-winning landscape photography app PhotoPills, you can plan your shot, monitor the spot over a period of time, check natural lighting changes, and share any details or plans with others.

6. Snapseed

Anyone who is wary of photo editing apps can put their minds at ease with Snapseed, a winner of not one, but two awards! Snapseed bagged ‘iPad App of the Year 2011’ from Apple and ‘2012 Best Mobile Photo App’ from the Technical Image Press Association, thanks to its exhaustive editing capabilities. From exposure and contrast to saturation and cropping, you can fine-tune every little detail. Available on iOS and Android.

7. PicLab

Use the photo editor to create trendy infographic images with this photo app quickly. PicLab is a nifty app for creating those inspiring images that you get all over the internet these days. You know, the ones featuring a photo – probably with at least one retro filter applied – with a helpful aphorism layered over the top in an attractive, friendly typeface. Yeah, those – like the silly AI-generated ones we've featured, but better. PicLab HD makes them an absolute doddle to create, enabling you to either snap a photo or grab one from your photo library, then go to town on it.

As well as adding typography – lots of fonts and full control over size, positioning, opacity, rotation, and colour – you can also layer illustrations, ornamentation and other design elements on top of your image.

PicLab features full layer-based editing and also packs plenty of tools for making your original photo look its best, with loads of lighting and film effects to choose from as well as preset photo filters and adjustment tools for fine-tuning the brightness, contrast, exposure, saturation, and the blur level of your photos.

8. LExp—Long Exposure Calcs

Long exposures are a super popular photography style, especially for stargazers. LExp offers to be the one-stop app to help you take that perfect long exposure shot. This landscape photography app helps you pick the perfect graduated ND filter, stack multiple ND filters, track the stars and moon, and a lot more.

9. Facetune

Embarrassed about your laughter lines? Feeling blue about those blemishes? Fear not, Facetune is here! Grab a photo from your Camera Roll and start your makeover; you can remove unwanted freckles, blemished skin or hide bags under the eyes with Smooth; reshape that wonky nose or misshapen jawline with, er, Reshape; and make subtle tweaks of colour using Tone.

The results of this photo editor are truly impressive. You can share results over Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr – if you dare.

10. DMD Panorama

Sometimes a foreign landscape is just too breathtaking, and just a snapshot of it won’t do. This is where DMD Panorama comes in, an app that takes high definition, panoramic pictures with an easy-to-use interface. Simply tap ‘create’, hold your phone vertically, and create your panorama, snap by snap. Perfect for travellers adventuring across the rugged landscapes of the Kruger or the majestic Drakensberg mountains. Available on iOS and Android.