Comparison

highercam vs Acetate

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ€” with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

highercam

Features
Read full description

View the world through the higher lens. Spread the culture. Help people aim higher.

About

Acetate

Features
Read full description

The Digital Darkroom for Purists. Acetate bridges pure RAW capture and the soul of analog film โ€” now for stills and motion. Built for image-makers who understand that a frame is made, not taken. Every adjustment runs on-device: no cloud, no account, no tracking. PURE RAW CAPTURE Shoot Apple ProRAW (DNG) on every supported iPhone. Acetate bypasses standard processing and writes the sensor's uncompressed data straight to your library, preserving every stop of dynamic range for post. PRO SHOOTING MODES Full manual or assisted: Auto, Program (P), Shutter Priority (S), ISO Priority, Manual (M), Night, and Long Exposure to 30 seconds. Swap ultra-wide, wide, and telephoto with a tap, or flip to the front camera. Self-timer and burst on the hardware shutter. MOTION โ€” SHOOT CINE Video with the same discipline as stills. Full manual ISO, shutter, white balance, and focus. Up to 4K, high frame rates on supported devices, 10-bit Apple Log, ProRes 422, or HEVC. Cinematic stabilisation, Cine mode with shutter-angle control, broadcast timecode, and multi-source audio with a live meter. Bake a LUT into the file, or keep it monitor-only and grade later. THE VIDEO EDITOR Open any clip โ€” from your library or shared straight into Acetate. Trim with frame-accurate handles, scrub and step a frame at a time, apply any look or your own .cube LUT, push exposure and tone, hold to compare, and export at source quality. The same colour pipeline as the photo editor, frame by frame. FILM LOOKS Twenty 3D LUTs in two families: research-informed film-stock emulations (Soft 400, Warm 200, Slide 100, Mono, Noirโ€ฆ) and art-directed looks (Teal & Orange, Bleach Bypass, '90s Cinema, Golden Hourโ€ฆ). Press and hold to preview live. OPEN LUT Tap any filter and the editor sliders move to reflect the look โ€” see exactly what each LUT is doing and tweak from there. A tick mark shows the filter's value; reset snaps back, long-press clears to zero. Works for built-in films, looks, and imported .cube LUTs. BAKE YOUR OWN LUTs Save any edit as a portable .cube LUT and apply it to photos and videos with one tap โ€” or load it in the camera and shoot your own signature look. Import from Files, iCloud, or AirDrop, in the camera or the editor. Export to Lightroom, Premiere, or DaVinci. THE EDITOR Full-strength tools: three-way colour grading wheels with per-range luma, OkLab perceptual HSL, RGB curves, split toning, filmic highlight rolloff, dehaze, texture, edge-aware denoise, and selective masks โ€” radial, linear-gradient, and one-tap Subject / Person / Background / Sky via Apple's Vision framework. ON-DEVICE INTELLIGENCE Smart tools that run on your iPhone โ€” and explain themselves. Smart LUT writes a per-scene recipe, then drops it onto editable sliders so you see and adjust every move. Plus auto-enhance, auto-straighten, and one-tap Object Removal (A15 / M1 or newer). PRO TOOLS Live RGB and luminance histograms, a luma waveform, zebras, false-colour exposure, focus peaking, a manual-focus loupe, framing guides, and a haptic level indicator. Continuous Kelvin/tint white balance with lock, plus AE lock โ€” in photo and video, no drift mid-shot. PRIVACY FOCUSED Your photos and videos are yours. No account, no cloud, no analytics. Location is used strictly for EXIF geotagging on what you capture, and never leaves your device. Capture, edit, AI, and export all work offline. Don't just filter. Develop.

Screenshots

highercam3 screens
Acetate4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Acetate at every 6 days against highercam's every 2 months. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

highercam ships an update every 2 months, Acetate every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 5 level
highercam versus Acetate: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterhighercamAcetate
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 6 days โ€” better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS16.6 โ€” better17.2
Further details โ€” not scored
Size3 MB246 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPol MaireBMB ENTERPRISES LTD

In-app purchases

None

highercam

No in-app purchases

None

Acetate

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is highercam free?
highercam is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Acetate free?
Acetate is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do highercam or Acetate have ads?
Neither highercam nor Acetate shows ads.
Which is updated more often, highercam or Acetate?
highercam ships an update every 2 months, and Acetate every 6 days. Most recently, highercam was updated on October 8, 2026 and Acetate on September 29, 2026.

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