With hundreds of free apps available for iPad, it can be a chore trying to weed out the generic ones and end up with just the unique and the useful. Many photography apps do the exact same things: crop, resize, tweak colors, brighten, increase contrast, convert to black and white and maybe add sepia tones. If you don’t want to install twenty apps that do virtually the same thing, get started on a unique collection with the short list below. All of these apps are free to download from the iTunes store.

Apps For Inspiration

Explore Flickr

Just as the name says, the Explore Flickr app for iPad gives you access to the enormous archive of photography on Flickr. Other aspects include:

• Provides a selection of the most-viewed photos on the site each day
• Tag-searchable if you purchase the upgrade

When it comes down to inspiration, sometimes even random photography helps get your ideas flowing about color, angle and camera settings — as long as it’s good photography.

LIFE for iPad

If Flickr isn’t professional enough for you, or is just too random, try this impressive app on for size. LIFE for iPad is an app that gives you access to LIFE Magazine’s legendary photography collection in gorgeous high resolution! Features include:

• Photos are selectable by location in the map feature
• View historical photography as well as contemporary work
• Millions of professional photos at your fingertips

This app is inspiring and diverse. The only con is that ads will sometimes pop up, but there’s a button to skip them.

Apps For Editing

PhotoPad by ZAGG

PhotoPad by ZAGG is an impressive app with rich features for photo-editing. If you get only one photo-editing app, make it this one. Features include:

• Rotate
• Resize
• Crop
• Color select
• Color swap
• Threshold
• Posterize
• Draw
• Sketch
• Paint bucket
• Contrast
• Saturation
• Red eye tool
• Chromacity
• Tint
• The list goes on…

PhotoPad is user-friendly, sporting large touch-friendly buttons and clearly-marked options such as “history and “save”. There is no upgrade option – you get all features right away.

Photo Layout Finger Design

Once you’ve edited your photos to look nice and crisp, it’s time to do something artistic with them. How about a collage? Photo Layout Finger Design lets you do the following:

• Drag and drop photos from your collection into a workspace
• Rotate photos
• Move photos
• Resize photos
• Arrange photos into a collage
• Export a collage as an image file

Use the resulting collages for albums and greeting cards that are truly one-of-a-kind. Photo Layout Finger Design would be a great way to show friends and family travel photos without sending a bunch of individual files.

Apps are Waiting out There

These are just a glimpse of the many impressive and resourceful apps out there for the iPad-savvy photographer. Often apps are intended for one specific use. If you want to meld photos into a panorama, for example, there’s an app for that. If you want to age a face in a photograph, there’s an app for that. Because they have such narrow audiences, one-use apps weren’t included in this article.

Do you have a favorite iPad photography app? Feel free to share in a comment!

Jennifer Moline writes for the PsPrint Design & Printing Blog and has been covering small-business and freelance news for a number of years.PsPrint is an online cheap printing company which you can follow on Twitter @PsPrint