Prequel: Photo & Video Editor

The filter names tell you what kind of app this is: DISCO, VHS, MIAMI, PRISM. Prequel exists to give photos and short videos a particular retro, slightly overexposed social media look with a single tap, and it makes no pretence of being a precision editor.

The free tier is generous on effects, with more than 800 of them alongside video templates, fonts, music, stickers and intro animations. D3D is the one novelty, turning a flat photo into a drifting 3D-style image. A Gold subscription adds the deeper effect library and more adjustment controls.

Most sessions last a couple of minutes. Import a photo or clip, swipe through the effect categories until one lands, nudge the intensity, maybe drop a text caption in one of the thirty-odd fonts, and export. For video, the one-tap templates handle cuts and timing so you supply the footage and little else. People who use it daily tend to settle on two or three house styles and apply them to everything, which is the point: a consistent feed with minimal effort.

A specific aesthetic travels through social media, and when people see it on someone's posts they go looking for the app that produced it. Prequel's named filters are recognisable enough to be searched for by name. The other draw is the D3D motion effect, which gives a still photo movement that stands out in a scrolling feed.

Five screenshots are shown, and for a filter-led Photography app they will almost certainly be before-and-after examples heavy on the warm, grainy, light-leak styles the filter names promise. The interface itself is likely dark to let the imagery pop, as is standard in this category, though the listing doesn't describe it. Bold capitalised filter names are part of the branding.