There are many crowded categories in the App Store, but few so overflowing as Photo & Video. Make way for Camera Awesome, a slick iPhone app from online photo service SmugMug that “awesomizes” mobile images.

That verb doesn’t exist in the English language, but after using Camera Awesome, you’ll agree that it should. The free app one-ups paid competitors by packing powerful features inside a gorgeous UI and integrating with the sharing services people actually use – including SmugMug and rivals Instagram, Picasa, Flickr, and Photobucket.

At first glance, the UI sticks close to the built-in camera playbook, aside from two curious triangles. The one at bottom calls up enhancements like Image Stabilization, Burst mode, and Timers. Camera Awesome shoots video as well as photos, and allows individual control over focus and exposure. The second arrow at top is where Camera Awesome really shines. New photos can be instantly “awesomized” by selecting from free and paid presets; choose one of five Composition guides to help frame shots. “Zero-tap” sharing immediately posts everything you shoot to one or more services for the ultimate in cloud backup.

Existing images can also be opened and tweaked to your liking – the one-tap Awesomizer generally does a splendid job of making most any photo look great, but you can adjust just how “awesome” you want with the slider. A generous selection of filters are included free of charge, with a package of nine available via in-app purchase for 99 cents – or go whole hog for only $9.99, which buys all current filters, presets, textures and frames and any future offerings SmugMug might add.

The bottom line. We’ve downloaded plenty of third-party camera apps, but few stay on our iPhone for long. Camera Awesome has replaced our previous favorite (Camera+), and if they could add the ability to use the volume up button as a camera shutter, this would be the ultimate camera app.