Long gone are the days where snapshots came back from the photo lab and disappeared into albums and shoe boxes. Now, digital photos are tweaked, adjusted, and remixed in ways their analog counterparts couldn't imagine.
Photo by NoiceCollusion.
Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite image editing tool. The votes have been tallied and now we're back with the top five contenders for the crown of Best Image Editor.
Affinity Photo has long been a top seller on the Mac App Store (although you can also buy direct from Serif), as it provides a really powerful selection of photo-editing tools for just under £50/$50. Pixlr Editor was once available as a downloadable desktop app for Windows and Mac, but earlier this year its developer announced that the free photo editor would be going online-only. Overall, GIMP is the best free photo editing software for Mac, and presents a good alternative to those users looking for a sophisticated tool that is free, and are capable of overcoming its complications. Fotor Photo Editor for Mac is also amongst the list of best free photo editing software for MAC. It can be used to edit photos on MAC, create collage, and perform batch actions. It can be used to edit photos on MAC, create collage, and perform batch actions. IPhoto: Since iLife comes free on every Mac, it makes our cut for a decent free basic photo editor. Of course iPhoto also boasts great photo organization in addition to the simple editing. Of course iPhoto also boasts great photo organization in addition to the simple editing.
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Best Image Editing Tool?
Once the venue of seasoned photographers with dark rooms and bins of chemicals, photo touch ups and …
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Picasa (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)
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Picasa is the kind of application that geeks love because it's so simple and effective and non-geeks love because they usually don't have the time or inclination to get bogged down in the more technical aspects of digital photography. If your tech un-savvy mom or dad emailed you tomorrow and said she or he needed an easy-to-use program for organizing and editing photos, you'd likely send them to download Picasa. The built in editor is more than robust enough for most casual users and includes basic color correction, cropping, and a variety of special effects—the majority of which manage to avoid being cheesy. Picasa isn't a tool for deep and detailed editing, but it's extremely easy to use for the kind of quick crop and correct editing most digital camera owners need.
GIMP (Windows/Mac/*nix, Free)
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GIMP has long been toted as the open-source competitor to Adobe Photoshop. Many people are quick to point out GIMP's shortcomings, claiming it isn't a true Photoshop replacement, but in the process they overlook what GIMP has accomplished. Without the extremely polished and commercially driven Photoshop to stand against, GIMP is almost entirely unrivaled in sophistication. Color correction, channel mixing, advanced cloning, paths, and layered compositions are all part of the GIMP package. There is very little the average Photoshop user does that can't be done in GIMP, and if you're not working for a company footing the bill for Photoshop, the free-as-in-beer price tag looks mighty fine.
Adobe Photoshop (Windows/Mac, $699)
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Photoshop has achieved such status in the design community and such widespread recognition by the general public that even non-designers recognize what someone is saying when they exclaim, 'That's photoshopped!' Many of the techniques and methods that are standard across photo editing software were pioneered in Photoshop, like layers, slices, and image correcting macros and filters. On its own Photoshop is a titan of photo editing power, but thanks to a nearly complete dominance in the graphic editing industry, there are entire companies devoted to creating plugins for it. When it comes to manipulating images, if you can't do it in Photoshop, there's a strong chance you won't be able to do it at all. Photo by HVarga.
Paint.net (Windows, Free)
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Paint.net was originally the senior project of some computer science students at Washington State University, taken on under the mentorship of Microsoft. The project exceeded expectations and has been in development now for 6 years. Over the years it has grown to include layer-based composition, blending, and support for plugins—the majority of which are designed by an active support community. The interface of Paint.net is easy to pick up, and an unlimited undo function makes correcting your learning-curve mishaps a snap—making Paint.net a favorite among Windows users looking for a no-nonsense (yet powerful) image editor.
Adobe Lightroom (Windows/Mac, $299)
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Lightroom is on the same branch of the editing family tree as Picasa: a hybrid of an organizational tool and a photo editor. Unlike its big brother Photoshop, Lightroom wasn't designed to be a detailed pixel-by-pixel editing tool. Lightroom focuses on being a digital darkroom for modern photographers, allowing them to quickly make the corrections necessary to their workflows. Lightroom excels at batch work and advanced color balance corrections; photographers can even tether their cameras to their computers with Lightroom integrating directly into their editing workflow. Photoshop might be the appropriate tool for giving a single image a deep and intense workover, but Lightroom is the tool you call on when you have a huge batch of images from a photoshoot that need to be cropped, corrected, and made print ready as soon as possible. Photo by M. Keefe.
Now that you've seen the top five contenders for best image editing application, it's time to log your vote to determine who goes home with the crown.
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Which Image Editor is Best?
( online surveys)
( online surveys)
Can't believe your favorite editor didn't make it to the top five? Wishing a copy of Adobe Photoshop would fall off the back of a truck for you? Sound off in the comments below with your photo editing opinions.
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There are dozens of free photo editors out there, so we've hand-picked the very best so you can make your pictures look amazing without paying a penny.
We've spent hours putting a huge range of photo editors to the test, and picked out the best ones for any level of skill and experience. From powerful software packed with features that give Photoshop a run for its money to simple tools that give your pictures a whole new look with a couple of clicks, there's something for everyone.
Many free photo editors only offer a very limited selection of tools unless you pay for a subscription, or place a watermark on exported images, but none of the tools here carry any such restrictions. Whichever one you choose, you can be sure that there are no hidden tricks to catch you out.
1. GIMP
The best free photo editor for advanced image editing
No ads or limitations
GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the best free photo editor around. It's packed with the kind of image-enhancing tools you'd find in premium software, and more are being added every day.
The photo editing toolkit is breathtaking, and features layers, masks, curves, and levels. You can eliminate flaws easily with the excellent clone stamp and healing tools, create custom brushes, apply perspective changes, and apply changes to isolated areas with smart selection tools.
GIMP is an open source free photo editor, and its community of users and developers have created a huge collection of plugins to extend its utility even further. Many of these come pre-installed, and you can download more from the official glossary. If that's not enough, you can even install Photoshop plugins.
2. Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019
Fuss-free photo editing with automatic optimization tools
Fine manual controls
If you've got a lot of photos that you need to edit in a hurry, Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019 could be the tool for you. Its interface is clean and uncluttered, and utterly devoid of ads (although you'll need to submit an email address before you can start using it).
Importing pictures is a breeze, and once they've been added to the pool, you can select several at once to rotate or mirror, saving you valuable time. You can also choose individual photos to enhance with the software's one-click optimization tool. In our tests this worked particularly well on landscapes, but wasn't always great for other subjects.
If you want to make manual color and exposure corrections, there are half a dozen sliders to let you do exactly that. It's a shame you can't also apply the same color changes to a whole set of pictures at once, but this is otherwise a brilliant free photo editor for making quick corrections.
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For more advanced editing, check out Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7 – the premium version of the software with enhanced optimization tools.
3. Canva
Professional-level photo editing and templates in your browser
Includes free cloud storage
Canva is a photo editor that runs in your web browser, and is ideal for turning your favorite snaps into cards, posters, invitations and social media posts. If you're interested in maintaining a polished online presence, it's the perfect tool for you.
Canva has two tiers, free and paid, but the free level is perfect for home users. Just sign up with your email address and you'll get 1GB free cloud storage for your snaps and designs, 8,000 templates to use and edit, and two folders to keep your work organized.
You won't find advanced tools like clone brushes and smart selectors here, but there's a set of handy sliders for applying tints, vignette effects, sharpening, adjusting brightness, saturation and contrast, and much more. The text editing tools are intuitive, and there's a great selection of backgrounds and other graphics to complete your designs.
4. Fotor
One-click enhancements to make your photos shine in seconds
Batch image processing
Fotor is a free photo editor that's ideal for giving your pictures a boost quickly. If there's specific area of retouching you need doing with, say, the clone brush or healing tool, you're out of luck. However, if your needs are simple, its stack of high-end filters really shine.
There's a foolproof tilt-shift tool, for example, and a raft of vintage and vibrant colour tweaks, all easily accessed through Fotor's clever menu system. You can manually alter your own curves and levels, too, but without the complexity of high-end tools.
Fotor's standout function, and one that's sorely lacking in many free photo editors, is its batch processing tool – feed it a pile of pics and it'll filter the lot of them in one go, perfect if you have a memory card full of holiday snaps and need to cover up the results of a dodgy camera or shaky hand.
5. Photo Pos Pro
Advanced photo editing tools packaged in a simple interface
Beginner and advanced modes
Photo Pos Pro isn't as well known as Paint.net and GIMP, but it's another top-quality free photo editor that's packed with advanced image-enhancing tools.
This free photo editor's interface is smarter and more accessible than GIMP's array of menus and toolbars, with everything arranged in a logical and consistent way. If it's still too intimidating, there's also an optional 'novice' layout that resembles Fotor's filter-based approach. The choice is yours.
The 'expert' layout offers both layers and layer masks for sophisticated editing, as well as tools for adjusting curves and levels manually. You can still access the one-click filters via the main menu, but the focus is much more on fine editing.
6. Paint.NET
Looking a little dated, but still a dependable all-rounder
Plugin support
More is not, believe it or not, always better. Paint.NET's simplicity is one of its main selling points; it's a quick, easy to operate free photo editor that's ideal for trivial tasks that don't necessarily justify the sheer power of tools like GIMP.
Don't let the name fool you, though. This isn't just a cheap copy of Microsoft's ultra-basic Paint – even if it was originally meant to replace it. It's a proper photo editor, just one that lands on the basic side of the curve.
Photo Editing Tool For Windows
Paint.NET’s interface will remind you of its namesake, but over the years, they’ve added advanced editing tools like layers, an undo history, a ton of filters, myriad community-created plugins, and a brilliant 3D rotate/zoom function that's handy for recomposing images.
7. PhotoScape
Raw image conversion, batch processing and much more
Great selection of filters
PhotoScape might look like a rather simple free photo editor, but take a look at its main menu and you'll find a wealth of features: raw conversion, photo splitting and merging, animated GIF creation, and even a rather odd (but useful) function with which you can print lined, graph or sheet music paper.
The meat, of course, is in the photo editing. PhotoScape's interface is among the most esoteric of all the apps we've looked at here, with tools grouped into pages in odd configurations. It certainly doesn't attempt to ape Photoshop, and includes fewer features.
We'd definitely point this towards the beginner, but that doesn't mean you can't get some solid results. PhotoScape's filters are pretty advanced, so it's if good choice if you need to quickly level, sharpen or add mild filtering to pictures in a snap.
8. Pixlr X
A comprehensive browser-based photo editor for quick results
Stylish design
Pixlr X is the successor to Pixlr Editor, which was one of our favorite free online photo editors for many years.
Pixlr X makes several improvements on its predecessor. For starters, it's based on HTML5 rather than Flash, which means it can run in any modern browser. It's also slick and well designed, with an interface that's reminiscent of Photoshop Express, and a choice of dark or light color schemes.
With Pixlr X, you can make fine changes to colors and saturation, sharpen and blur images, apply vignette effects and frames, and combine multiple images. There's also support for layers, which you won't find in many free online photo editors, and an array of tools for painting and drawing. A great choice for even advanced tasks.
9. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor
A convenient way to correct lighting and exposure problems
Stylish design
As its name suggests, Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a trimmed-down, browser-based version of the company's world-leading photo editing software. Perhaps surprisingly, it features a more extensive toolkit than the downloadable Photoshop Express app, but it only supports images in JPG format that are below 16MB.
Again, this is a Flash-based tool, but Adobe provides handy mobile apps for all platforms so you won’t miss out if you’re using a smartphone or tablet.
This free online photo editor has all the panache you’d expect from Adobe, and although it doesn’t boast quite as many tools as some of its rivals, everything that’s there is polished to perfection. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a pleasure to use. Its only drawbacks are the limits on uploaded file size and types, and lack of support for layers.
10. PiZap
A fun photo editor for preparing your pictures for social media
Templates for social media
Free online photo editor PiZap is available in both HTML5 and Flash editions, making it suitable for any device. You can choose to work with a photo from your hard drive, Facebook, Google Photos, Google Drive, Google Search, or a catalog of stock images. This is an impressive choice, though some of the stock images are only available to premium subscribers, and you'll need to watch out for copyright issues if you use a pic straight from Google Images.
piZap’s editing interface has a dark, modern design that makes heavy use of sliders for quick adjustments – a system that works much better than tricky icons and drop-down menus if you’re using a touchscreen device.
Free Photo Editor For Mac
When you’re done, you can share your creation on all the biggest social media networks, as well as piZap’s own servers, Dropbox and Google Drive. Alternatively, you can save it to your hard drive, send it via email, or grab an embed code. You can only export your work in high quality if you’ve opened your wallet for the premium editor, but for silly social sharing that’s unlikely to be a problem.
Best Photo Editing Tool For Pc
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