Comparison

ghPhoto vs LAB*

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

Head to head
About

ghPhoto

Features
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Pro manual control on the iPhone you already own. Set the shutter to 1/500, let ISO follow the light, lock focus on the eye, and watch the histogram confirm it before you press. ghPhoto is a manual camera and a darkroom in one app, for every iPhone since the XS. You buy it once. No subscription, every update included. Built by a photographer who wanted real camera controls on an iPhone and did not want to rent them. NEW FOR iOS 27 - Shutter priority and ISO priority, on every iPhone. Fix the shutter and the camera keeps steering ISO as the light changes; fix ISO and the shutter floats. Exposure compensation and bracketing keep working while either is automatic. - Apple's new neural RAW engine develops your DNGs with cleaner shadows and finer detail. Pick the engine in Settings and compare it with the classic one on your own frames. - People: face grouping across your library, with naming, merging and corrections. - Your library inside Messages: tap ghPhoto in any conversation and send a photo without leaving the thread. SHOOT LIKE A CAMERA - Shutter in real photographic stops, ISO, manual focus, white balance by temperature and tint - Every control has its own AUTO/M switch - Tap to focus and meter, long-press to lock AE/AF, drag anywhere to bias exposure, with a readout that stays until you clear it - Spot metering, three-frame bracketing in one hardware pass, self-timer and burst - Free zoom: pinch from 0.5x to 16x, fully automatic - Or the lens ladder: every physical lens at its native focal length plus every sensor-crop step, labelled in millimeters or magnification - Macro, portrait depth capture, and a viewfinder that resizes to your aspect ratio so what you see is what the file holds SEE THE EXPOSURE BEFORE YOU PRESS - Live luminance or RGB histogram you can drag anywhere on the frame - Zebra stripes at your own highlight threshold, in your own color - Focus peaking and a magnifying loupe for focusing by hand - A horizon level that reads correctly however you hold the phone REAL FILES - ProRAW or Bayer RAW, written as a full DNG - 48MP wherever your hardware offers it SHOOT THROUGH YOUR LOOK Build a grade in the editor, save it as a Look, then shoot through it: the viewfinder shows the world already graded, but the file it saves is untouched, with the Look attached as an editable recipe. FROM THE LOCK SCREEN Make ghPhoto your Camera Control camera, put it on the Action button, or add it to Control Center and the Lock Screen. It shoots from a locked phone with your real settings and imports the frames when you next open the app. A LIBRARY BUILT FOR A SHOOT - Private in-app library with albums, keywords and star ratings. Rate as you swipe, then filter to the keepers - Times shown in the zone where you shot, wherever you view them - Full capture metadata: lens, exposure, ISO, dimensions, location - Copy one photo's entire edit recipe and paste it across a whole selection - Share a processed HEIC, or export the original file, DNG included, to Photos or Files A NON-DESTRUCTIVE DARKROOM - Exposure, contrast, saturation, warmth, highlights, shadows, vignette, sharpness, noise reduction - Auto Enhance that brightens, lifts shadows and recovers highlights the way you would by hand, then leaves the sliders where it landed - Effects: grain, glow, negative, solarize, duotone, halftone, posterize, pixellate - Crop, straighten, rotate and flip - Re-aperture a portrait shot after the fact - Develop RAW flat or rendered, and the choice is part of your recipe - Press and hold to compare with the untouched original - Nothing ever overwrites an original FOURTEEN DAYS, NOTHING HELD BACK The trial includes every feature. When it ends, only the camera locks: viewing, editing, exporting and sharing stay free forever, no watermarks. Your photos are never held hostage. One purchase unlocks the camera for good. Requires iOS 18 or later (iPhone XS and newer). iOS 27 features light up when you update.

About

LAB*

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# LAB* — App Store Listing --- ## App Name LAB* RAW Photo Editor & Darkroom LAB* is a professional RAW photo editor for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Silicon Mac — built for photographers who care about quality, privacy, and speed, without subscriptions or paywalls. Edit RAW, ProRAW, and standard photos directly from your camera roll, SD card, USB drive, or cloud storage. Every edit happens entirely on your device. Nothing is ever uploaded, tracked, or shared. **RUNS ON ALL YOUR APPLE DEVICES** • iPhone — edit on the go • iPad — full-screen editing with touch precision • Mac with M1, M2, M3, or M4 chip — same app, same power, on your desktop **POWERFUL EDITING TOOLS** • Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Clarity • Highlights & Shadows with split toning — push warm or cool color into your tones independently • Whites, Blacks, Saturation, Vibrance, Warmth, Tint • Bloom, Halation, Fade, Grain, Vignette, Sharpness, Noise Reduction • Master tone curve + per-channel RGB curves • HSL color grading — adjust Hue, Saturation, and Luminance for 8 individual color ranges (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Purple, Magenta) **MASKING & LOCAL ADJUSTMENTS** • Radial masks — circular spotlight adjustments • Linear masks — graduated filter for skies and horizons • Luminance masks — target shadows, midtones, or highlights • Color masks — select and adjust specific colors • Subject & Background masks — AI-powered person detection • Depth masks — near/far selection using Portrait mode depth data • Stack multiple masks on one photo **CROP & GEOMETRY** • Free-form crop with all 4 corner handles • Fixed aspect ratios: 1:1, 4:3, 16:9 • Straighten with auto-zoom (no black corners ever) • Rotate 90° left or right • Vertical and horizontal keystone correction **LOOKS & COMMUNITY PRESETS** • Built-in looks: Vivid, Classic Warm, Cool Blue, B&W, Vintage Fade, Moody • Save your own custom presets • Share presets as .labpreset files via AirDrop or iMessage • Import presets from friends — tap to install instantly **WORKFLOW** • Open RAW files directly from SD cards and USB drives — no import needed • Before/after split view with draggable divider • Hold to compare original • Pinch to zoom and pan • Full undo/redo history • Batch edit — apply a preset to multiple photos at once • Export as HEIC or JPEG with quality and resize controls • Share directly via AirDrop, iMessage, Instagram, and more **100% PRIVATE** No account required. No analytics. No ads. No data collected — on any device. Everything stays on your device, always. Built with love for photographers, by a photographer. --- ## Category Primary: Photo & Video Secondary: Utilities ## Age Rating 4+ ## Pricing Free ## Privacy Policy URL https://spurious-delphinium-b23.notion.site/LAB-Privacy-Policy-3be54f36504a8096ba69e56523206c30 ## What's New (first release) Welcome to LAB* — a free, privacy-first RAW photo editor for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Silicon Mac. Edit RAW files straight from your SD card, use professional tools including masks, curves, and HSL, then share your presets with the community.

Screenshots

ghPhoto4 screens
LAB*4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: LAB* at none against ghPhoto's 1. LAB* also leads on device support (3 vs 1). ghPhoto's advantage is iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.5). On price and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. ghPhoto sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. LAB* asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard3 real differences Ā· 3 level
ghPhoto versus LAB*: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterghPhotoLAB*
PriceFreeFree
Update frequency—Every 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.0 — better26.5
Further details — not scored
Size74 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperGet Happy, LLCSchilliro Massimiliano

In-app purchases

1 purchases

ghPhoto

One-time1
  • ghPhoto Unlock$14.99
None

LAB*

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ghPhoto free?
ghPhoto is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is LAB* free?
LAB* is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do ghPhoto or LAB* have ads?
Neither ghPhoto nor LAB* shows ads.

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