9 Best Photo Animation Apps that Bring Images to Life

But, no one will be surprised by ordinary static photo content. People with a modern way of thinking want more bread and circuses. You can easily breathe dynamic life into your immovable images, adding movement and filter effects. Apps for animating pictures can achieve this in just a couple of minutes. To make the sea waves move, add dynamics to the movement of a motorcycle among the sand dunes, or maybe turn a waterfall into a stormy flow of water. These programs can do everything! In this review, we have collected the best of them. Let’s look at each of these apps in detail. 

1. Vimage 3D: Creating Realistic Illusions

2. YouCam Perfect: Nice Choice for Effective Selfie

3. Motionleap: Editing 3D Photos in Real-Time Mode

4. Movepic: The Best Solution for Beginners 

5. PhotoDirector: Bring Your Images to Live With Wide Range Tools

6. PixaMotion: All-in-one Photo Editor

7. Photo Bender: Funny Facial Animation

8. Lumyer: The Best App to Animate Pictures Effects

9. Deep Nostalgia: The Unique Way to Bring Vintage Photos to Life

1. Vimage 3D: Creating Realistic Illusions

This one of the best photo animation apps will help you to open your creativity thanks to the ability to create realistic 3D illusions without much effort. It has a lot of filters, stickers, animation effects, and sounds that you’ll use for realizing your ideas. You can make your hair, water, clouds, or other objects move. It looks like in real life, right?

Also read: Best Photo Editing Software for Mac

The app to animate photos is available for free download on Android and iPhone. But if you want to get access to a full library of effects, remove the watermark, and export the image in resolutions up to 2560p, you need to select the Premium version. 

2. YouCam Perfect: Nice Choice for Effective Selfie 

Do you adore taking selfie photos, but you haven’t any ideas? Such a free photo animation app as YouCam Perfect is your source of inspiration. It has animated effects, stickers, and wraparounds in the following categories: 

• sparkle;
• sport;
• summer; 
• love.

Thanks to Al technology, you can overlay falling autumn leaves, snow, or spring flowers. If you want to diversify your daily photos with casual jeans, a cup of coffee, a book, or other everyday details, add animated effects and stickers. Do you have a photo where you bathe in hugs and kisses to your partner? Emphasize the brightness of your relationship with sparkle. 

This animated picture app also has some features that you will like 100%. You can adjust the speed and length of the animation. Also, you have the ability to export a ready-made project as GIF or video, which Instagram likes. 

You can free download YouCam Perfect app from Play Store (for Android) or App Store (for iPhone). But keep in mind that this version has some restrictions. You can’t use more animations. And you have the ability to export only two photos per day. You need to upgrade to the paid version to unlock more opportunities in this animate photos app. 

3. Motionleap: Editing 3D Photos in Real-Time Mode 

Do you wish to animate your 3D photos right while shooting and then turn them into short, looping, and animated videos? Motionleap is for you. This app has some tools and an intuitive user interface which will help you to realize all of your projects. For example, you can give the 3D picture more movement with the help of special arrows and also add filters and animation effects. 

This animate pictures app stands out for the ability to change the background, choose the animation motion, and speed controls. Freezing parts of the photo is one more interesting function of the program. It allows you to create a specific atmosphere within the image, overlaying a particular filter on the top of your picture. 

Download this program from the play store or app store to enjoy its unique features of it. But you have to face the fact that you’ll save your animated photos in video format. So, you need to pay for the Pro version to get more options for saving.

4. Movepic: The Best Solution for Beginners

If you’re only doing your first steps in animation, this animated photo app is nicely suitable for you through a clear interface and a standard tools set. It includes directional animation, camera motion, speed controls, and other features. Also, this app allows making basic changes in your image before adding animation with editing tools, for example, cropping it to get an optimal option for your social network: original, 16:9, or 1:1. 

The animation picture app Movepic is an ideal solution for adding movements to people or objects that you have fixed in the photo. What else is simple about this program? This is an animation process itself. You just need to draw the path of movement to make a part of the space. 

The animated pictures app has everything for you to start discovering creative facets in yourself. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with a wide gallery of topic effects, which will help you to create amazing pictures. This app to animate photos is designed in such a way that easily recognizes the sky, water, mountains, and other elements in the picture. And then suggest a number of filters that harmoniously fit into these landscapes, giving them a fantastic atmosphere. For example, you have a photo of night Iceland, where there are no northern lights. You can overlay this photo effect right from the app. 

The only thing is that processed content is stored as a video file and not the usual GIF. And along with the animation, you’ll get a watermark overlay that can be removed in the paid version. In general, this picture animation app is great for Android and iPhone users. 

5. PhotoDirector: Bring Your Images to Live With Wide Range Tools

Are you a creative person? This program is created for you! It has a huge range of functions and 1000+animated effects templates, which will help you to look at the photo from the creative side. What you can do here:

• overlay hearts, butterflies, and other animated elements;
• add lively wrap-around photo effects;
• replace the sky and remove objects;
• play with light with the help of light rays, bokeh, sparkle effects, and other animated light tools;
• liven up retro photos using the dispersion effect. 

The feature of this animated pics app is that you can export animated photos in MP4 or GIF format without a watermark. And it’s in the free version! To use this possibility, download the program on your smartphone or iPhone. 

6. PixaMotion: All-in-one Photo Editor

If you have some experience in creating short-loop animations, an app that animates photos as PixaMotion is created for this very purpose. You can use tools to animate your photo, add moving elements from the gallery, and also overlay funny audio. What attracts the attention of creative people is a few different animated modes:

• choosing the animation option: make the whole photo moving or only parts of it;
• the direction of movement of animated elements;
• pinning some parts of a picture to make them still. 

PixaMotion has a modern design that is similar to the interface of full-fledged editors. So, working here is one pleasure. This animate images app, like PhotoDirector, will delight you with the ability to save the processed content as GIF or video without watermarks. It fits both android and iOS. 

7. Photo Bender: Funny Facial Animation

This program is perfectly customized to distort any element of your photo on Android. The photo animator app is unique in that it allows one to animate a face. You can paint it like a cartoon character, as well as stretch and bend it to make a funny grimace, create an eye wink, or smile. 

When you have played enough with your face and are satisfied with the result, you can export your animated masterpiece as GIF, JPEG, PNG, or MP4 even in the free version.  

8. Lumyer: The Best App to Animate Pictures Effects

Do you want to animate your photo but in such a way that it looks more natural so that no one guesses? Lumyer is created for this very purpose. The app has more than 200 high-quality filters and effects to make amazing realistic scenes. You can add natural sparkle, Christmas animation, and other changes. 

This free app to animate photos allows you to save already implemented ideas as GIFs and to share them on social networks. It’s available for both Android and iOS. 

9. Deep Nostalgia: The Unique Way to Bring Vintage Photos to Life

And finally, let’s consider the sensational program which turns your photos from the family archive into moving, life-like pictures. All the process reminds of magic. You take an old photo of your grandmother, yourself as a child, or even your favorite Hollywood star and apply a special technology to the face that makes it seem alive. You see that the person from the photo blinks, turns his head, smiles, and looks away as in real life. How does it work? Let’s find out!

The animated picture app of Deep Nostalgia uses several drivers. Each of them is a video that consists of a fixed sequence of real human movements and gestures. They naturally integrate into the faces shown in the photo, allowing you to create realistic mini-videos and share them on social networks from your iPhone. 

How to Animate a Picture on iPhone & Android Easily

If you have never used apps that animate pictures, it will be useful for you to learn the following algorithm of actions: 

1. Download the app. You can do it from Google Play for Android or from App Store for iPhone. 
2. Choose the photo you want to liven up and then go to the animation tools. 
3. In the animation section you make all the main acts: easily create interesting scenes with the help of animation elements, change the speed of the movement, overlay music, and others.
4. When you turn your photo into a moving picture, save it to your gadget or share it with your friends on social networks. 

Knowing these steps will help you navigate through any animated picture app easier and faster. 

Some Final Words 

With the advent of artificial intelligence, the impossible has become possible. Turn a static waterfall into a moving one? Add falling leaves for the autumn atmosphere? Or give vintage photos a new life by reviving facial expressions? It’s entirely possible to achieve these effects even from the screen of your smartphone or iPhone thanks to powerful animate still photos apps. And if you are more used to working with Windows or Mac, you can familiarize yourself with Luminar Neo. This program also brings vivid notes to your photos.