Retrograf vs Ancient Light
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Retrograf
Transform your photos and videos with authentic '90s analog film and VHS aesthetics. Apply a variety of filters, adjust key visual elements, and add unique overlay effects to achieve a vintage look.
- 24 film style presets
- Light leaks, film scratches, fades
- Vintage color palettes
- Exposure, contrast, temperature adjustments
- Vignette and chromatic aberration
- Customizable overlay effects
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Inspired by analog film cameras and VHS videos from the '90s, Retrograf reproduces retro touches to your photos + videos. โ Filter Presets Light leaks, film scratches, fades and vintage color palettes are the basic elements for transport your photos and videos back to another era. Retrograf offers 24 fantastic film style presets that combine these elements appropriately. โ Adjustment Tools You can alter the exposure, contrast, temperature, tint, and clarity, enhance shadows and highlights, add vignette and chromatic aberration, and much more. โ Overlay Effects You can create your own look by combining the overlays provided. Overlays include light leaks, film scratches and grainy textures.
Ancient Light
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Ancient Light transforms your iPhone into a camera of the nineteenth century. Twelve authentic historic photographic processes - each faithfully simulated through the physics of tone, silver chemistry, grain, paper, emulsion, and light. Not filters. Processes. -- THE TWELVE PROCESSES -- Daguerreotype (1839) - The first successful photograph. A mirror-like silver surface with luminous shadow detail and seven scanned frame choices, plus No Frame. Tintype (1853) - The photograph of the working class. Robust, immediate, metallic, with regular or square format options and optional worn plate borders. Albumen (1850s) - Warm egg-white paper prints mounted as cabinet cards, with soft sepia-brown toning, aged cream stock, rounded corners, and a ruled inner border. Sepia - The warm brown tone of silver sulphide that preserved Victorian portraits through a century and a half. Cyanotype (1842) - Sir John Herschel's iron-based process. Deep Prussian blue. The print that gave photography the word "blueprint." Anthotype (1839) - Made from crushed plant pigments. Delicate, fugitive, botanical. The most poetic photographic process ever devised. Platinum (1873) - The process of fine art portraiture. Cool, shadow-rich, with a tonal range silver could never match. Autochrome (1907) - The Lumiere brothers' starch-grain colour process. Dreamy, pointillist, the first practical colour photography. Emulsion - A damaged instant-emulsion look with faded color, warm highlights, scorched edges, amber leaks, scratches, and oxidized surface wear. Bromoil (1907) - Oil-based ink on bleached gelatin. Painterly and stippled, with inky shadows and pale milky highlights. Lippmann (1891) - Gabriel Lippmann's Nobel Prize-winning interferential process. Warm amber ageing, long-exposure softness, and glass plate scratches from a century of handling. Infrared (1930s) - Light beyond the visible spectrum. Luminous white foliage, darkened skies, ethereal skin tones. The spectral world captured on heat-sensitive emulsion. -- WHAT ANCIENT LIGHT CAN DO -- * All four optical lenses - ultrawide (0.5x), wide (1x), 2x, and telephoto (5x) - selectable from the viewfinder * Shoot once, save many - save multiple historic versions from a single capture * On iPhone Pro: saves both a filtered JPEG and the original 48MP ProRAW DNG as a paired asset * Emulsion process with faded instant-film color, warmer highlights, lighter grain, and scanned edge damage * Albumen cabinet-card output with warm paper tone, aged stock texture, rounded card corners, and ruled border * Infrared process with glowing foliage, dark skies, and spectral black-and-white tonality * Tintype options - choose regular or square format, with period borders or no borders * Seven Daguerreotype frame styles plus No Frame, selectable directly from the viewfinder * Higher-resolution Daguerreotype frame output, scaled to the photo instead of the source frame artwork * Adjustments apply to the photograph while preserving Daguerreotype frame artwork * Full adjustment suite - exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, black point, saturation, vibrance, warmth, sharpness, and vignette * Auto enhancement with one tap * Precision crop tool with inset handles and rule-of-thirds grid * Landscape side-panel layout keeps the image large while all controls stay accessible * Photographer credit field - your name travels with every saved file in the IPTC metadata * Process, frame, and Tintype options stored between sessions * iPhone and iPad, all orientations * No subscription. No ads. No account required. Ancient Light is a single purchase. Everything in it is yours.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Ancient Light at every 5 days against Retrograf's every 2 weeks. Ancient Light also leads on chart position (#195 vs unranked) and price ($0.99 vs $2.99). On ads, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Retrograf costs $2.99 and Ancient Light $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Retrograf ships an update every 2 weeks, Ancient Light every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Retrograf | Ancient Light |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | $0.99 โ better |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | โ |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 5 days โ better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | โ |
| Best chart rank | โ | #195 โ better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad โ better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 16.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 43 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Seohyeon Lee | Greg Anderson |
In-app purchases
Retrograf
No in-app purchases
Ancient Light
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Retrograf free?
Is Ancient Light free?
Do Retrograf or Ancient Light have ads?
Which is updated more often, Retrograf or Ancient Light?
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