Sometimes when building a campaign you have to use photos from the company's website: product images, team photos, and other illustrations. There's nothing hard about spending 15 seconds to download an image from a site. The only problem is that the image loses a lot of quality, and once it's placed in the email, it looks pretty rough.
You can solve this problem in two ways: ask the client for the original files (which, with 99% probability, they won't have) or improve the quality yourself. The second way is easier, especially since you can upgrade an image even from your phone.
In this article, we share the best apps for improving photo quality and explain why it's important to use high-quality images for email campaigns in the first place.
Top 6 apps for Android and iOS
Remini
One of the best smartphone apps for improving photo quality. In it, you can restore compressed photos and images with defects, sharpen them, and improve their color rendition. Processing one photo takes about 30 seconds, since the process is automatic — you just need to choose the photo, and the app does the rest. You won't have to pick settings and adjust each image yourself.
Remini runs on advanced artificial intelligence that's good at recognizing people's faces and small details in a photo. Thanks to its "sensitivity", the app removes noise and blur, performs color correction, and sharpens every element. You can upload even the dullest picture, and it will turn it into an image suitable for a campaign or other purposes.
The app is free, but has in-app purchases for those who want to expand its functionality. However, the basic tools are enough to work with a photo.
Pros:
- Free download.
- Fast correction.
- Convenient "before/after" slider for evaluating the result.
- Automatic processing.
Cons:
- No manual settings — if you don't like the automatic processing, you won't be able to adjust it yourself.
MintAI
Also built on artificial intelligence capable of performing a deep analysis of an image and figuring out how to improve it as much as possible. The app helps you process blurry and pixelated photos, making them look natural — it won't be obvious that the photo went through a "restoration" process. The AI recognizes people in photos very well and applies special processing to them that doesn't turn faces into a doll-like face.
In addition to advanced correction, the app lets you give an image a particular style: comic, painting, and others. You can also use MintAI to "colorize" black-and-white photos. You probably won't need these settings to improve a photo for a campaign, but you never know. Client requests can be surprising.
The app is free and lets you use all the standard tools with no extra charge.
Pros:
- Free download.
- High-quality recognition of people, even multiple people at once.
- Fast correction.
- Automatic processing.
- Convenient "before/after" slider for evaluating the result.
- Additional photo styles.
Cons:
- No manual settings — if you don't like the automatic processing, you won't be able to adjust it yourself.
- May freeze and fail to show the original in the "before" window.
Photo Quality Enhancer
An app with an unoriginal name but a solid level of processing. Its main strength is an expanded feature set. Beyond basic settings for improving images, the app lets you add text to a photo, set focus on specific details, adjust a person's figure, and retouch faces.
You can upgrade photos either automatically or manually, making the settings more customized. Handy if you're working with a complex file where you need to adjust every element of the shot.
Pros:
- Free download.
- Fast correction.
- Automatic and manual processing.
- Additional photo effects.
Cons:
- Interface in English.
Bigjpg
A very simple photo-processing app. It literally has two buttons: add a picture and improve it. There's no manual adjustment or extra features. All the app does is automatically improve image quality using a neural network. It works pretty well, but the free version has limits: you can only increase quality by 4x. For 4x and 16x upscaling, you need a higher paid plan.
The app can process both photos and artwork.
Pros:
- Free download.
- Fast correction.
- Manual adjustment of individual parameters.
- Simple interface.
- Has an improvement history.
Cons:
Limited quality upscaling.
Enhance Blurry Photos with AI
The app does exactly what its name says. It removes noise and increases sharpness. You can also adjust exposure, contrast, and light. All of this happens automatically. Processing one photo takes no more than 30 seconds.
When working with the app, it's important for the photo to have good lighting and a clearly visible face. Otherwise the result won't be as good.
Pros:
- Free download.
- Fast correction.
- Removes noise and increases sharpness at the same time.
Cons:
- The original needs good lighting and a visible face.
- Available on Android only.
Download links: Android.
PicMa
With this app, you can retouch selfies and regular photos, "colorize" black-and-white images, "repair" images with defects, add emotions to a person, and remove unwanted elements. The app is good at recognizing people's faces and small details in a photo. The improvement happens automatically, but to start the process you have to watch an ad. You can only remove ads by purchasing a Pro subscription. But if you don't plan to use the app every day, the ads probably won't bother you much.
Pros:
- Free download.
- Fast correction.
- Expanded functionality.
- Convenient interface.
Cons:
- A lot of ads without a paid subscription.
Why it's important to use good-quality images for your campaigns
- A beautiful look on users' devices. It's a shame if you've put together a great campaign, but because of poor image quality, the user didn't see how great your email actually was. It's especially disappointing if that image carried the campaign's main message.
- Increased conversion. An email looks more polished when it has good illustrations. They draw the reader in and motivate them more strongly to take the intended action. Blurry, noisy images, on the other hand, push subscribers away and discourage them from opening emails from your brand in the future.
- Increased sales. The higher the quality of a product image, the more likely a user is to become interested in it and click the button to learn more.
In an email, people always look at the visuals first, and only then read the text. That's why it's important for all images to be top quality — whether it's a product photo, a banner, or any other picture. They should all be sharp, without noise or defects.