- Good Free Photo Editor For Mac
- Easy Online Photo Editor Free
- Good Free Photo Editors Online
- Free Photo Editor For Windows 10
Using a photo editor app can help you edit your photos with ease and allow you to create high-quality small size images to share on the web. Mainstage 3 4 4 0.
Here we will consider the list of the top 15 best free photo editing apps in 2020 to get a perfect job done:
Read on for the detailed analysis of each app.
Top 15 Best Free Photo Editor Apps
You're convinced that you want to get a photo editor software, but not sure where to start. There are many free online photo editor programs to choose from. We've narrowed down the best free photo editor that you can use without paying a hefty price.
Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a free photo editor. It is jam-packed with features that will allow you to make your images pop. You will be able to remove red-eye, resize images, make color corrections, and more.
- RawTherapee is a free photo editor for Windows and other platforms. It's designed as a RAW processor and provides state-of-the-art algorithms for demosaicing, color management, and color profiles. Although dedicated to powerful RAW processing, RawTherapee is optimized to deliver the best performance with the minimum system requirements.
- GIMP is widely considered the best free photo editor available on the market. The software includes a wide range of tools, ranging from basic actions to professional-quality features. Beginners will highly benefit from its selection and montage tools, cropping, color adjustment, and automatic image enhancement tools.
- RawTherapee is a free photo editor for Windows and other platforms. It's designed as a RAW processor and provides state-of-the-art algorithms for demosaicing, color management, and color profiles. Although dedicated to powerful RAW processing, RawTherapee is optimized to deliver the best performance with the minimum system requirements.
- The easy-to-use free photo editor puts scaling, sizing, filters, enhancements, and awesome text overlay options at your fingertips. Edit your photos then use the one-tap resize to format the images for use online (such as your social media posts, profile pics, banners, etc.) or in print (such as letters, posters, invitations, etc.).
1. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor
Best Photo Editing Software Overall
Although Photoshop can be a bit intimidating, its sister product Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is an altogether different animal. All the tools are readily accessible and easy to use.
Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a free photo editor. It is jam-packed with features that will allow you to make your images pop. You will be able to remove red-eye, resize images, make color corrections, and more.
It works right from your browser or mobile app. Editing photos is a snap with tools to balance color, resize, crop, change lighting, rotate, and more. The interface is appealing yet user-friendly. Our only gripes are that it was designed in Flash and not HTML5, and image formats can be somewhat limited.
👆 Special Features:
- Crop
- Rotate
- Remove Red and pet-eye
- Auto-Fix
- Text Tool
- Blemish Removal
- Corrections
- Customization
- Perspective Correction
- Pop-Color Tool
- Image Resize
- Watermark Images
- JPEG Quality Output
- Looks
- Borders
✅ PROS:
- Simple and complex customization
- Easy to use
- Compatible with other Adobe Products
- Gives you the edits you need to improve photos significantly
⛔️ CONS:
- Some features require creative cloud membership that has a fee
- The photo organizer tool is a separate app
2. Canva
Best Photo Editing App for Social Media
Canva is an easy to use photo editor app that allows users to create graphics and edit photos by merely dragging and dropping. It takes no time at all to build a design from scratch, and you don't have to be a pro to learn how to use this free photo editing software. It has tons of features that will help you create the ultimate design or touch up your pre-existing photos.
One of the best features of Canva is its extensive library of templates. Within minutes you can drop your photos into a preset layout and then style it using dozens of fonts, illustrations, graphics, colors, and design elements.
With Canva, you can create stunning pieces quickly that you can share, print, or export. This online photo editor also comes complete with built-in support using search, tabs, and articles to find help with any issue.
👆 Special Features:
- Photo Straightener
- Image Cropper
- The Ability to Add Text
- Speech Bubble Maker
- Transparency Tool
- Photo Enhancer
- Photo Blur
- Photo Vignette
- Design Grids
- Free Icons
- Photo Frames
- Web Wireframe
- Stickers
- Badges
- Add Texture
✅ PROS:
- Great for marketing photos on social media
- Make and design ebooks
- Excellent for web presentations
- Tons of great features for free
- Saves project history
⛔️ CONS:
- Unable to remove an image's background
- Needs to increase font size
3. Resizing.app
Best Photo Resizer
One of our favorites is an online image resizer, called Resizing.app. The company has a straightforward website and process to resize images online within seconds. One of the coolest features is the ability to export your newly sized image into a different format.
Resizing.app couldn't be easier to use. You simply drag and drop your images into the box on the home page. Then you select how you want to resize your image (by width, by height, custom size, by percentage, or by the largest side of the image). You can choose to compress your image for quality assurance and then just pick your new file format (jpg, png or webp). Once you hit the save button, your new image is saved to your computer. Voila' all done. No frills but also no hassles.
Unfortunately, this online service does not have any additional photo editing capabilities to go along with resizing. But hey! It's free, and we like free and simple.
If you resize your images and photos regularly, we highly recommend you to add the Resizing extension to your Google Chrome; it is also entirely free.
👆 Special Features:
- Resizing by width, by height, custom size, by percentage, and by the largest side of the image.
- Compress a photo
- Crop an image
- Convert an image to JPEG, PNG, WEBP
- Optimize a picture
✅ PROS:
- Free
- Easy to use
- Online
- Convert TIFF and HEIC files into JPEG, PNG or WEBP
- Has extention for Google Chrome
⛔️ CONS:
- Doesn't have any additional photo editing capabilities
4. inPixio
Another app we tested looking for the best free photo editor was inPixio. In reviews, inPixio earns high marks for usability, features, support, speed, and pricing. It has some fantastic tools to fix perspective (straighten buildings), image correction, dehaze, and you can even edit metadata right within the app to add headlines, captions, and copyright details.
inPixio also offers a free tool to remove the background from an image. It works pretty well if the photo has a clear color distinction between what you want to remove and what you want to keep. inPixio is fun to use, although it may not rank as the best free photo editor on the block, it is worth checking out.
To purchase the full program, you will need to select either the inPixio Photo Studio 10 for $49.99 or inPixio Photo Studio Professional version for $59.99. The price is for the full software you can install and use on your Mac or Windows PC.
Looking for one for your Mac? Read our review of the best mac photo editor.
👆 Special Features:
- Eraser
- Correction Patch
- Cloning stamp
- Cutter
- Retouching and Correction
- Perspective correction
- Film grain module
Good Free Photo Editor For Mac
✅ PROS:
- Tools for retouching photos, resizing, removing backgrounds, cropping, fixing sharpness, trimming, and adding filters.
- Share images within the app.
- Erase objects easily from photos.
- No ads.
- It doesn't 'push' you to upgrade.
- Special effects to enhance your images.
⛔️ CONS:
- The background removal tool doesn't always yield perfect results.
- Some users complain that it does not work as advertised.
- Puts watermarks on images with the free version.
- Cannot batch edit.
- Works by installing multiple modules.
5. Instasize
If you are in the market for the best free photo editing app, you will want to check out Instasize. The app was designed for social media and influencers who want to create eye-catching, creative photos, and videos for their social feeds. The software includes dozens of visually stunning filters, color editing tools, and you can even edit your videos with it.
Instasize has a broad fan base of more than 500,000 users. The plethora of editing tools also include photo retouching features, fonts, and text editing. The free version is limited, but if you are willing to pay $4.99/month, the Premium version is loaded with goodies.
👆 Special Features:
- Collage maker
- Naturally enhancing filters
- Advanced editing adjustments
- Borders
- Beauty tools: edit blemishes, whiten teeth, remove redness, etc.
- Social media formats
- Pro fonts and text editor
- Video editing
✅ PROS:
- Geared toward creating engaging content for social media.
- Dozens of useful features, including backgrounds, beauty enhancements, borders, and filters, to make content creation easy.
- Create collages in a snap.
- Automatic resizing for social media formats.
- Fast and easy to use.
⛔️ CONS:
- The free version is stripped down and includes ads.
- Some users complain about the ads and some glitches.
- Only works on mobile devices, no app for PC or Mac.
6. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
A well-known name in the photo game is Adobe, which makes dozens of photo enhancement and editing products. One such app is the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom app.
This product is a cloud-based product where you can upload batches of images and edit them together. It wouldn't be from Adobe without excellent photo editing tools built-in, and if you run into trouble, they have online tutorials to walk you through it all.
You can edit photos easily with all the expected features, share photos, take pictures from inside the app and sync them across all your devices. The Premium version cost is $9.99/month, which may be more than most users want to pay. If you want access to all the creative cloud apps, that figure balloons to $52.99/month.
👆 Special Features:
- Preset creation
- Split Toning
- Tone Curve
- Batch editing on desktop
- Camera
- Healing Brushes
- RAW Editing
- Cloud Storage
- Sync Presets & Profiles
✅ PROS:
- Runs on Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS.
- Easy to use, clean interface.
- Create albums to organize all your photos.
- Built-in presets to make editing easy.
⛔️ CONS:
- Costly to use cloud storage.
- May be too much for some users.
7. Fotor
Best Free Photo Editing App Online
Fotor is a photo editor software that allows you to utilize its photo editing suite to create top-notch photos. In just a few clicks you can adjust the color, size, lighting and more. It also has an HDR effect for your advanced editing needs.
The magic of Fotor is its extensive library of one-click filters to enhance and liven up any photo. Although Fotor is not as powerful as Photoshop and not as feature-rich as GIMP, it holds its own with a solid set of skills such as RAW file processing, borders, frames, color enhancement, and lighting adjustments.
If you like Fotor, there is also a Pro version you can purchase. However, it only works on the Windows platform. Read our review of the best windows photo editor.
👆 Special Features:
- Image Shape
- Fonts
- Stickers
- Align
- Drop Shadow
- Transparency
- CLone
- Color Picker
- Photo Collage
- Filters
- HDR
- Beauty Retouching
✅ PROS:
- Has web, mobile and desktop version
- Smart filters and effects
- Collage maker
- Raw file converter
- Has a social network
⛔️ CONS:
- Lots of ads
- Inability to edit photos at a deeper level
- Incompatible with creating images from scratch
8. VSCO
VSCO is another contender in our line-up of the best free picture editing apps. VSCO is a minimalistic app with a simple interface and powerful features. Its best feature is the vast library of filters to enhance your images and make them share-worthy.
You can do so within the VSCO social media channel. Yes, they have their own social network but you aren't limited to just that one. VSCO also offers some other photo editing tools such as adjusting color, balance, highlights, cropping, and spot healing. The free version is limited to only ten filters, which isn't very many compared to the 200+ you get with the paid version. A VSCO premium membership costs $19.99/year.
👆 Special Features:
- Filters
- Clarity
- Tint
- Fade
- X-Skew
- Y-Skew
- Skin Tone
- Highlights Tint
- Shadows Tint
✅ PROS:
- Includes its own social network to share images.
- Easy to use interface.
- Excellent editing tools with the paid version.
- Powerful camera features like ISO, exposure, white balance, and focus.
- Save images in RAW format.
- Video editing.
- Create montages easily.
- The ability to share from within the app.
⛔️ CONS:
- Requires a paid subscription for the best features.
- Only works on mobile devices, no app for PC or Mac.
- Not as good for social media image creation.
- Pushes upgrading.
- No option to take selfies with the app.
- No zoom features.
9. BeFunky
BeFunky is much more than just a free photo editor. With easy to use features, this photo editor app provides high-quality results whenever you use it to edit photos or make collages. You'll have fun using this software for years to come.
Using the myriad of free collage layouts and design elements, you can quickly create a new Facebook banner or other social media image. The program is an online photo editor but also supports a handy mobile app. Integrations allow you to save your masterpiece to Dropbox or Google Drive and share it on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. BeFunky's drag-and-drop functionality makes it a breeze to use.
👆 Special Features:
- Collage
- Crop
- Resize
- Digital Art
- Cartoonizer
- Enhance DLX
- Font Pairing
- Create Wallpapers for Your Device
- Edit and Replace Colors
- Batch Processing
✅ PROS:
- Complete control of your work
- Easier than most programs to use
- Privacy
- Editing tools have variety
⛔️ CONS:
- No eraser tool
- Additional content has a cost
10. Pixlr
You can't beat the convenience factor of a powerful photo editor that runs in your browser, and Pixlr delivers. Pixlr is a great way to have a convenient photo editor at your fingertips that is user-friendly and can provide the professional-looking images you imagined.
Pixlr is a Photoshop clone that offers a generous treasure trove of image-editing features along with the ability to import photos from Facebook. Pixlr has also been compared to GIMP in terms of functionality and user interface. Although it may be overkill for some, it's just the right balance of form and functionality for others.
👆 Special Features:
- Edit Photos Using Dropbox
- Layers
- Filters
- Adjustments
- Texts
- Fonts
- Magic Wand
- Lasso
- Brushes
- Eraser
- Object Transform
- Color Replace
- Digital Painting
- Image Retouching
- Digital Inking
- Photo Collage
- Effects
✅ PROS:
- Available on desktop and mobile
- Supports layers and masks
- Customize the interface
⛔️ CONS:
- Some ads
11. Snapseed for Android and iOS
Best Photo Editing App for Professional Photographers
Snapseed is a free online photo editor designed for the serious photographer who wants to enhance their photos professionally. Its primary focus is on providing filters that will change the effects. You can also share your creations with its export tool.
The software uses stacks/layers of edits so you can remove, arrange, or apply them at will. These stacks can be saved as a 'look,' meaning a style which you can then use to apply to other photos. Compared to other apps, Snapseed shines with an impressive array of filters, brushes, and nondestructive editing tools that will delight any serious photo editing buff.
👆 Special Features:
- Pre-Made Filters
- Looks
- Tools
- Export
✅ PROS:
- Nondestructive editing
- Selective edit brushes
- Photographic filters
⛔️ CONS:
- More suitable for experienced users
- No auto-save
12. PhotoScape
PhotoScape was designed for the beginner, but don't let that fool you; it is a powerhouse of features and functionality. Although the layout of PhotoScape is a bit clunky, the tools are solid, and along with retouching features, you can easily add filters to your images, create animated GIFs, batch edit photos, create slideshows and more using dozens of free templates.
The list of accolades is impressive for a free photo editor app. Audio trimmer windows.
PhotoScape gives you the ability to create stunning images with access to multiple tools. Enhancing your photos becomes more convenient, and you aren't disappointed by a system that doesn't deliver. It has your basic features and more advanced ones such as Batch Processing, Font pairing, and Digital Art.
👆 Special Features:
- Viewer
- Editor
- Batch Editor
- Page
- Combine
- Animated GIF
- Splitter
- Screen Capture
- Color Picker
- Rename
- Raw Converter
- Paper Print
- Face Search
✅ PROS:
- Plenty of Features
- Effects Preview
⛔️ CONS:
- Redundant Interface
13. Paint.NET
Paint.Net started as a built-in program on the Windows platform and evolved into its own standalone photo editing software with an innovative user interface that supports many features. This photo editor can be extended through plug-ins to give a wide variety to what the photo editor app can do.
While it provides a clean layout and powerful tools, this program is not for beginners. It boasts of a main working window with the tools corralled into their own movable windows. The program uses layers to keep everything organized. A design aficionado will be disappointed with the lack of some features, but for most users, it's a great solution.
👆 Special Features:
- Layers
- Unlimited Undo
- Special Effects
- Powerful Tools
- Unlimited History
✅ PROS:
- Innovative Interface
- Keyboard Shortcuts for Tools and Menu Items
- Font Previews
⛔️ CONS:
- Little Control Over Text
- Minimal Layer Effects
- Few Brush Options
14. GIMP
Best Open-source Photo Editor
GIMP is open-source software and a favorite among many graphic designers. GIMP has often been compared to Photoshop. While it shares many of the same features and functionality of the popular photo editing software, GIMP is free.
Some of the highlights are a plethora of brushes to choose from, filters, and even plugins to make the software more desirable. GIMP also supports animation. Because of all this, GIMP is by far our pick for the best free photo editor.
👆 Special Features:
- Color Correction
- Skin Retouching
- Eyes Brightening
- Customizable Interface
- Graphic Design Elements
- Original Artwork
- Photo Enhancement
- Inkscape
- Swatch booker
✅ PROS:
- Compatible With Many File Types
- Developer Support
- User-Friendly Interface
- Open Source Code
⛔️ CONS:
- Functionality
15. Photo Pos Pro
Photo Pos Pro is excellent for creating computer graphic designs and text that will pop. It is a powerful software that can be mastered by advanced and beginner photo editors. The system has a program that offers assistance for beginners who need step by step instructions.
With Photo Pos Pro, you get the best of both worlds, the choice of a beginner or expert interface. Photographers will love the support for RAW files, the many filters, and retouching tools. Both the novice and pro interfaces are a bit confusing and cluttered. It's a very personal preference when picking the best free photo editor for you.
👆 Special Features:
- Filters
- Layers
- Masks
- Curves
- Scripts
- Effects
- Brushes
- Frames and Collages
- Text Effects
- RAW Files Support
- Remove, Erase, and Replace Backgrounds
✅ PROS:
- Great For Any Level of Experience
- Superb Help and Tutorials
- Manual Editing and Automatic One-Click Editing Balance
Photoshop alternative ipad pro. ⛔️ CONS:
- Large Learning Curve
- Software Glitches
How to Choose The Best Free Photo Editor?
When it comes to choosing the best photo editor software, there are many things to take into account. The top features to look at are the file formats, organizing tools, photo sharing, and standard editing tools. These items are significant for those who're interested in doing photo editing whether it is for pleasure or career.
File Formats
File formats like jpg, gif, and png are essential to have if you're uploading your photos to the Internet. These formats allow you to compress the file size of the images to publish them on the web.
Organizing Tools
Having a free online photo editor should come with tools to help keep you organized. It is essential to have features that will keep track of your photos by using thumbnail previews, search, and naming schemes.
Standard Editing Tools
Having the basics is vital to being successful at photo editing and utilizing the photo editor software of your choice. Some of the typical tools you'll need are adjusting brightness and contrast in your photos, crop, resize, and rotating the images. They should be easy to catch onto and fast to use.
Searching for how to resize images without losing quality? Follow our step-by-step guide on how to do it at no time.
Photo Sharing
We all know how eager we get to post our work and personal photos online. With the right program, it will reduce the time it'll take to upload the image online. That will decrease the need to have a photo editor software that has blogging tools to get your photos posted.
If you want to edit your photos like a PRO, check out the following presets of ours. Alternatively, you can leave it to professionals; FixThePhoto is one of the best photo editing companies to assign your photo retouching tasks.
Finding the best free photo editor is what will set you apart with your photography whether it's a hobby or your career. Choose from these free online photo editor apps to enhance your photos with a few simple clicks. The best part about photo editor online software is that you don't have to break the bank with these free, high-quality programs and can do it from any device, because they are web-based.
Related Articles:
5 Free Image Resizer Apps for You in 2020
5 Tips on How to Optimize Images for Web
Launchberg editors pick and review products independently. We may earn affiliate commissions when you purchase an item via our links—it helps support our testing.
- February 10, 2020
- 32 min to read
Modern digital photography goes hand in hand with post-processing software. Although today the photo editing software market offers an unlimited number of options for photographers of all levels, most of the community sticks to tried-and-true Adobe Photoshop. It indeed is a universal app equipped with tools that a professional photographer would wish for, but it's time to make way for the new.
For the past decades, a lot of new and worthy photo editors entered the market bringing revolutionary technologies into the mundane editing process making even the most complex editing tasks doable for novices and streamlined for pros. Here we listed some of the best photo editing apps on the market including both old and new for photographers of different needs and skill levels.
1. Luminar 4
Completely revamped Luminar 4 is finally here to shake up the world of photo-editing software. Improved to be even more intuitive, Luminar 4 also brings a ton of brand-new AI editing tools designed to speed up the photo editing workflow.
- AI Sky Replacement automatically changes the sky and relights and recolors the entire photo to match the new sky.
- AI Skin Enhancer & Portrait Enhancer do all the retouching for you with just one click.
- AI Enhance automatically enhances your photo by making numerous adjustments of different complexity.
- AI Structure brings details up or down depending on your needs.
- Sunrays adds realistic sun rays to your photo that you're free to tweak as you please.
- Smart Contrast was improved to produce a more detailed and textured image.
Luminar 4 can not only be used as a stand-alone app but also as a plug-in for Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom to make the best of your tools.
✅ Pros:
- Non-destructive editing
- Intuitive interface
- Improved performance
- In-depth customization
- Available as a plug-in as well
✖️ Cons:
- Mediocre library functions
- Limited exporting options
2. Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom has been the app of choice for professional and amateur photographers alike for many years now. It offers a well-thought-out set of features for managing, organizing, processing, and exporting your photos. With the advanced library features, like labels, keywords, collections, and search filters, the app makes it easy for you to keep track of large numbers of photos. Lightroom comes with a good selection of RAW profiles to define colors in your photos for more precise editing. Tweak your photos to perfection with adjustment sliders, perspective and lens correction tools, retouching tools, filters, profiles, and presets to speed up your workflow.
✅ Pros:
- Built-in file management system
- Face detection and tagging
- Color and luminosity masking
- Plug-in support
✖️ Cons:
- Not the best choice for beginners
- A bit too taxing for Windows
- No auto-tagging
- Comparatively slow importing
❓
What photo editing software do you use and why? Let us know in the comments, we'd be very interested to know!
3. ACDSee PHOTO STUDIO ULTIMATE 2020
Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 is a one-stop photo management and post-processing tool for Windows. It comes with everything you need to handle your files, like categories, keywords, face detection, ratings, color labels, metadata, geolocation, and more. It's quite powerful when it comes to photo editing, too, offering a broad set of tools for a variety of different purposes. It allows you to process your RAW, JPEG and other types of files in a non-destructive way in Develop Mode and perfect them in Edit Mode by adjusting color and lighting, bringing out details, removing flaws, and adding final touches. The user interface is completely customizable to suit your preferences.
✅ Pros:
- Excellent built-in file management system
- Powerful post-processing features
- Fully customizable interface
✖️ Cons:
- Available only for Windows
- Too overwhelming for beginners
- Subscription-based online storage gallery
4. GIMP
GIMP is a free and open-source photo-editing tool that has been around for more than 20 years. It boasts a limitless number of state-of-the-art features that you wouldn't expect to see in a free photo-editing app. The interface has been recently updated to be easier to use, however it still can be quite confusing for novices. GIMP offers a broad set of tools suitable not only for basic but for advanced editing, too. Here you can enhance colors, adjust hue and saturation, fix composition, adjust sharpness, reduce graininess, remove unwanted objects, work with masks, layers, and more.
✅ Pros:
- 100% free
- Open access to the source code
- Has a broad selection of tools for different purposes
- Plug-in support
- Available for the main operating systems
✖️ Cons:
- Non-intuitive workflow
- Difficult to get the hang of
- Lack of HDR support
5. Aurora HDR
Aurora HDR is a powerful HDR tool that brings innovation and simplicity together. The most recent update introduced a new Quantum HDR engine with AI-powered tone mapping technology which allows for more intelligent photo merging to produce vivid yet natural-looking photos. Whether you're creating an HDR photo from bracketed shots or a single image, the app's neural network enhances the photo and makes sure that no halos or ghosting spoils the final result. The brand-new Smart HDR Structure feature boosts details and sharpness without creating undesired artifacts that can make a photo look unrealistic. With over 80 distinctive Looks, you can make your photo look stunning in just one click.
✅ Pros:
- One of the best HDR photo editors
- Swift performance
- Corrects badly taken single shots
- Doesn't create artifacts, halos, or noise
- Available as a stand-alone app and plug-in
- Plug-in support
✖️ Cons:
- None worth mentioning
6. Adobe Photoshop Elements
Developed for beginner and hobbyist photographers, Photoshop Elements' functions are naturally more limited than Photoshop's but it has all the essentials for achieving astonishing results. It offers three editing modes:
The Quick mode includes the simplest tools for straightening and cropping photos, removing unwanted objects, enhancing portraits, and applying filters.
The Guided mode uses step-by-step wizards to take you through more complex edits like removing objects, replacing the background, merging multiple photos, creating double exposures, and more.
The Expert mode gives you access to more complex Photoshop-like features including layers, masks, and filters.
✅ Pros:
- Excellent for entry-level photographers
- Simple and straightforward interface
- One-time purchase
- A bunch of Photoshop-like features simplified for nonprofessionals
- Dozens of clear guides
✖️ Cons:
- Too limited functionality
❓
Exposure X5 looks like a refined version of Lightroom that inherited only the features that photographers liked and used the most. Some of the most hated features were eliminated or improved. Thus, there's no time-consuming import process in Exposure X5 - you can get straight to editing by adding a folder with your photos in a few clicks. The interface is very well-organized and can be customized to suit your editing purposes. Besides non-destructive layer-based editing and cutting-edge tools that are crucial for the professional photo-manipulating process, Exposure X5 offers a mind-blowing collection of over 500 presets that you can customize to your liking.
✅ Pros:
- Beginner-friendly
- Well-organized and customizable interface
- No power-draining import process
- Non-destructive layer-based editing
- A broad selection of free presets
- No subscription
✖️ Cons:
- The interface design looks a bit outdated
- Lack of panorama and HDR tools
8. Capture One Pro
Capture One Pro is a full-fledged pro photo editor created for experienced photographers and serious hobbyists. Originally designed for tethered shooting, Capture One Pro is the fastest and most flexible tethering tool for photographers of all genres. It also offers top-notch RAW photo-editing functionality, smart photo organization tools, layer support, powerful adjustment tools, and plenty of other features you're looking for in professional-grade photo software.
✅ Pros:
- Exceptional rendering of RAW files
- Numerous adjustment tools for different needs;
- Layer-based editing
- Industry-leading tethering features
- Fast and smooth spot removal
- Annotations feature
✖️ Cons:
- Lack of third-party plug-in support;
- Lack of panorama and HDR tools
- Limited organization features;
- Absence of history panel
9. Affinity Photo
Even though Affinity Photo can't boast any organization or management tools, it's well-packed with all kinds of editing features for photographers of all levels. The workflow includes several Personas, or modes, focused on different editing stages. Develop Persona focuses on RAW file processing, Photo Persona is used for boosting your photos using layers, lighting and color adjustments, curves, LUTs, etc. Tone Mapping Persona is for HDR editing, Liquify Persona for bending photos, and Export Persona for exporting finished photos.
✅ Pros:
- Layer-based editing
- RAW editing tools
- Panorama, HDR, and focus stack merging tools
- No subscription
✖️ Cons:
- No lens-based corrections
- Lack of organization tools
- No ability to save custom workspaces
- Poor noise reduction
10. Pixlr
One of the most powerful online photo tools, Pixlr has become a popular choice when it comes to making quick photo corrections. Since it's a web app, it doesn't take up any room on your computer and is compatible with all operational systems. Pixlr features a clean and intuitive interface with many tools for cropping, selecting, transforming, removing objects, retouching and adjusting your photos using numerous sliders for brightness, contrast, vibrance, saturation, shadows, and more. It also offers a vast collection of filters and effects that will enhance your photos in a snap!
✅ Pros:
- Beginner-friendly
- Great for quick editing
- Online
- 100% free
- Has a clean interface
- Offers a nice collection of filters and effects
- Mobile version available
✖️ Cons:
- Limited functionality
- Advertising can be annoying
- Can be laggy sometimes
11. Paint.NET
Developed to replace the iconic Microsoft Paint, Paint.NET has grown into a full-featured yet simple photo-editing tool for WIndows. The app offers a user-friendly interface that's very easy to navigate. Paint.NET is packed with a nice set of tools for making your photos look beautiful in the most effortless way. Here you can play around with various adjustments, such as levels, curves, contrast, brightness, saturation, and more, selecting and removing objects, resize and crop your photos, and so much more!
✅ Pros:
- 100% free
- Unlimited history
- Layer-based editing
- Tons of creative filters and effects
- Suitable for beginner and intermediate users
- User-friendly interface
- Plug-in support
✖️ Cons:
- Only for Windows
- Interface design looks a bit outdated
- Limited functionality
❓
Do you agree with our opinion in this article? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
FAQ:
Q: Which one is the best photo editing software?
A: Luminar 4 is the best photo editing software because it offers the most powerful collection of features and tools for different editing needs.
Easy Online Photo Editor Free
GIMP is open-source software and a favorite among many graphic designers. GIMP has often been compared to Photoshop. While it shares many of the same features and functionality of the popular photo editing software, GIMP is free.
Some of the highlights are a plethora of brushes to choose from, filters, and even plugins to make the software more desirable. GIMP also supports animation. Because of all this, GIMP is by far our pick for the best free photo editor.
👆 Special Features:
- Color Correction
- Skin Retouching
- Eyes Brightening
- Customizable Interface
- Graphic Design Elements
- Original Artwork
- Photo Enhancement
- Inkscape
- Swatch booker
✅ PROS:
- Compatible With Many File Types
- Developer Support
- User-Friendly Interface
- Open Source Code
⛔️ CONS:
- Functionality
15. Photo Pos Pro
Photo Pos Pro is excellent for creating computer graphic designs and text that will pop. It is a powerful software that can be mastered by advanced and beginner photo editors. The system has a program that offers assistance for beginners who need step by step instructions.
With Photo Pos Pro, you get the best of both worlds, the choice of a beginner or expert interface. Photographers will love the support for RAW files, the many filters, and retouching tools. Both the novice and pro interfaces are a bit confusing and cluttered. It's a very personal preference when picking the best free photo editor for you.
👆 Special Features:
- Filters
- Layers
- Masks
- Curves
- Scripts
- Effects
- Brushes
- Frames and Collages
- Text Effects
- RAW Files Support
- Remove, Erase, and Replace Backgrounds
✅ PROS:
- Great For Any Level of Experience
- Superb Help and Tutorials
- Manual Editing and Automatic One-Click Editing Balance
Photoshop alternative ipad pro. ⛔️ CONS:
- Large Learning Curve
- Software Glitches
How to Choose The Best Free Photo Editor?
When it comes to choosing the best photo editor software, there are many things to take into account. The top features to look at are the file formats, organizing tools, photo sharing, and standard editing tools. These items are significant for those who're interested in doing photo editing whether it is for pleasure or career.
File Formats
File formats like jpg, gif, and png are essential to have if you're uploading your photos to the Internet. These formats allow you to compress the file size of the images to publish them on the web.
Organizing Tools
Having a free online photo editor should come with tools to help keep you organized. It is essential to have features that will keep track of your photos by using thumbnail previews, search, and naming schemes.
Standard Editing Tools
Having the basics is vital to being successful at photo editing and utilizing the photo editor software of your choice. Some of the typical tools you'll need are adjusting brightness and contrast in your photos, crop, resize, and rotating the images. They should be easy to catch onto and fast to use.
Searching for how to resize images without losing quality? Follow our step-by-step guide on how to do it at no time.
Photo Sharing
We all know how eager we get to post our work and personal photos online. With the right program, it will reduce the time it'll take to upload the image online. That will decrease the need to have a photo editor software that has blogging tools to get your photos posted.
If you want to edit your photos like a PRO, check out the following presets of ours. Alternatively, you can leave it to professionals; FixThePhoto is one of the best photo editing companies to assign your photo retouching tasks.
Finding the best free photo editor is what will set you apart with your photography whether it's a hobby or your career. Choose from these free online photo editor apps to enhance your photos with a few simple clicks. The best part about photo editor online software is that you don't have to break the bank with these free, high-quality programs and can do it from any device, because they are web-based.
Related Articles:
5 Free Image Resizer Apps for You in 2020
5 Tips on How to Optimize Images for Web
Launchberg editors pick and review products independently. We may earn affiliate commissions when you purchase an item via our links—it helps support our testing.
- February 10, 2020
- 32 min to read
Modern digital photography goes hand in hand with post-processing software. Although today the photo editing software market offers an unlimited number of options for photographers of all levels, most of the community sticks to tried-and-true Adobe Photoshop. It indeed is a universal app equipped with tools that a professional photographer would wish for, but it's time to make way for the new.
For the past decades, a lot of new and worthy photo editors entered the market bringing revolutionary technologies into the mundane editing process making even the most complex editing tasks doable for novices and streamlined for pros. Here we listed some of the best photo editing apps on the market including both old and new for photographers of different needs and skill levels.
1. Luminar 4
Completely revamped Luminar 4 is finally here to shake up the world of photo-editing software. Improved to be even more intuitive, Luminar 4 also brings a ton of brand-new AI editing tools designed to speed up the photo editing workflow.
- AI Sky Replacement automatically changes the sky and relights and recolors the entire photo to match the new sky.
- AI Skin Enhancer & Portrait Enhancer do all the retouching for you with just one click.
- AI Enhance automatically enhances your photo by making numerous adjustments of different complexity.
- AI Structure brings details up or down depending on your needs.
- Sunrays adds realistic sun rays to your photo that you're free to tweak as you please.
- Smart Contrast was improved to produce a more detailed and textured image.
Luminar 4 can not only be used as a stand-alone app but also as a plug-in for Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom to make the best of your tools.
✅ Pros:
- Non-destructive editing
- Intuitive interface
- Improved performance
- In-depth customization
- Available as a plug-in as well
✖️ Cons:
- Mediocre library functions
- Limited exporting options
2. Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom has been the app of choice for professional and amateur photographers alike for many years now. It offers a well-thought-out set of features for managing, organizing, processing, and exporting your photos. With the advanced library features, like labels, keywords, collections, and search filters, the app makes it easy for you to keep track of large numbers of photos. Lightroom comes with a good selection of RAW profiles to define colors in your photos for more precise editing. Tweak your photos to perfection with adjustment sliders, perspective and lens correction tools, retouching tools, filters, profiles, and presets to speed up your workflow.
✅ Pros:
- Built-in file management system
- Face detection and tagging
- Color and luminosity masking
- Plug-in support
✖️ Cons:
- Not the best choice for beginners
- A bit too taxing for Windows
- No auto-tagging
- Comparatively slow importing
❓
What photo editing software do you use and why? Let us know in the comments, we'd be very interested to know!
3. ACDSee PHOTO STUDIO ULTIMATE 2020
Photo Studio Ultimate 2020 is a one-stop photo management and post-processing tool for Windows. It comes with everything you need to handle your files, like categories, keywords, face detection, ratings, color labels, metadata, geolocation, and more. It's quite powerful when it comes to photo editing, too, offering a broad set of tools for a variety of different purposes. It allows you to process your RAW, JPEG and other types of files in a non-destructive way in Develop Mode and perfect them in Edit Mode by adjusting color and lighting, bringing out details, removing flaws, and adding final touches. The user interface is completely customizable to suit your preferences.
✅ Pros:
- Excellent built-in file management system
- Powerful post-processing features
- Fully customizable interface
✖️ Cons:
- Available only for Windows
- Too overwhelming for beginners
- Subscription-based online storage gallery
4. GIMP
GIMP is a free and open-source photo-editing tool that has been around for more than 20 years. It boasts a limitless number of state-of-the-art features that you wouldn't expect to see in a free photo-editing app. The interface has been recently updated to be easier to use, however it still can be quite confusing for novices. GIMP offers a broad set of tools suitable not only for basic but for advanced editing, too. Here you can enhance colors, adjust hue and saturation, fix composition, adjust sharpness, reduce graininess, remove unwanted objects, work with masks, layers, and more.
✅ Pros:
- 100% free
- Open access to the source code
- Has a broad selection of tools for different purposes
- Plug-in support
- Available for the main operating systems
✖️ Cons:
- Non-intuitive workflow
- Difficult to get the hang of
- Lack of HDR support
5. Aurora HDR
Aurora HDR is a powerful HDR tool that brings innovation and simplicity together. The most recent update introduced a new Quantum HDR engine with AI-powered tone mapping technology which allows for more intelligent photo merging to produce vivid yet natural-looking photos. Whether you're creating an HDR photo from bracketed shots or a single image, the app's neural network enhances the photo and makes sure that no halos or ghosting spoils the final result. The brand-new Smart HDR Structure feature boosts details and sharpness without creating undesired artifacts that can make a photo look unrealistic. With over 80 distinctive Looks, you can make your photo look stunning in just one click.
✅ Pros:
- One of the best HDR photo editors
- Swift performance
- Corrects badly taken single shots
- Doesn't create artifacts, halos, or noise
- Available as a stand-alone app and plug-in
- Plug-in support
✖️ Cons:
- None worth mentioning
6. Adobe Photoshop Elements
Developed for beginner and hobbyist photographers, Photoshop Elements' functions are naturally more limited than Photoshop's but it has all the essentials for achieving astonishing results. It offers three editing modes:
The Quick mode includes the simplest tools for straightening and cropping photos, removing unwanted objects, enhancing portraits, and applying filters.
The Guided mode uses step-by-step wizards to take you through more complex edits like removing objects, replacing the background, merging multiple photos, creating double exposures, and more.
The Expert mode gives you access to more complex Photoshop-like features including layers, masks, and filters.
✅ Pros:
- Excellent for entry-level photographers
- Simple and straightforward interface
- One-time purchase
- A bunch of Photoshop-like features simplified for nonprofessionals
- Dozens of clear guides
✖️ Cons:
- Too limited functionality
❓
Exposure X5 looks like a refined version of Lightroom that inherited only the features that photographers liked and used the most. Some of the most hated features were eliminated or improved. Thus, there's no time-consuming import process in Exposure X5 - you can get straight to editing by adding a folder with your photos in a few clicks. The interface is very well-organized and can be customized to suit your editing purposes. Besides non-destructive layer-based editing and cutting-edge tools that are crucial for the professional photo-manipulating process, Exposure X5 offers a mind-blowing collection of over 500 presets that you can customize to your liking.
✅ Pros:
- Beginner-friendly
- Well-organized and customizable interface
- No power-draining import process
- Non-destructive layer-based editing
- A broad selection of free presets
- No subscription
✖️ Cons:
- The interface design looks a bit outdated
- Lack of panorama and HDR tools
8. Capture One Pro
Capture One Pro is a full-fledged pro photo editor created for experienced photographers and serious hobbyists. Originally designed for tethered shooting, Capture One Pro is the fastest and most flexible tethering tool for photographers of all genres. It also offers top-notch RAW photo-editing functionality, smart photo organization tools, layer support, powerful adjustment tools, and plenty of other features you're looking for in professional-grade photo software.
✅ Pros:
- Exceptional rendering of RAW files
- Numerous adjustment tools for different needs;
- Layer-based editing
- Industry-leading tethering features
- Fast and smooth spot removal
- Annotations feature
✖️ Cons:
- Lack of third-party plug-in support;
- Lack of panorama and HDR tools
- Limited organization features;
- Absence of history panel
9. Affinity Photo
Even though Affinity Photo can't boast any organization or management tools, it's well-packed with all kinds of editing features for photographers of all levels. The workflow includes several Personas, or modes, focused on different editing stages. Develop Persona focuses on RAW file processing, Photo Persona is used for boosting your photos using layers, lighting and color adjustments, curves, LUTs, etc. Tone Mapping Persona is for HDR editing, Liquify Persona for bending photos, and Export Persona for exporting finished photos.
✅ Pros:
- Layer-based editing
- RAW editing tools
- Panorama, HDR, and focus stack merging tools
- No subscription
✖️ Cons:
- No lens-based corrections
- Lack of organization tools
- No ability to save custom workspaces
- Poor noise reduction
10. Pixlr
One of the most powerful online photo tools, Pixlr has become a popular choice when it comes to making quick photo corrections. Since it's a web app, it doesn't take up any room on your computer and is compatible with all operational systems. Pixlr features a clean and intuitive interface with many tools for cropping, selecting, transforming, removing objects, retouching and adjusting your photos using numerous sliders for brightness, contrast, vibrance, saturation, shadows, and more. It also offers a vast collection of filters and effects that will enhance your photos in a snap!
✅ Pros:
- Beginner-friendly
- Great for quick editing
- Online
- 100% free
- Has a clean interface
- Offers a nice collection of filters and effects
- Mobile version available
✖️ Cons:
- Limited functionality
- Advertising can be annoying
- Can be laggy sometimes
11. Paint.NET
Developed to replace the iconic Microsoft Paint, Paint.NET has grown into a full-featured yet simple photo-editing tool for WIndows. The app offers a user-friendly interface that's very easy to navigate. Paint.NET is packed with a nice set of tools for making your photos look beautiful in the most effortless way. Here you can play around with various adjustments, such as levels, curves, contrast, brightness, saturation, and more, selecting and removing objects, resize and crop your photos, and so much more!
✅ Pros:
- 100% free
- Unlimited history
- Layer-based editing
- Tons of creative filters and effects
- Suitable for beginner and intermediate users
- User-friendly interface
- Plug-in support
✖️ Cons:
- Only for Windows
- Interface design looks a bit outdated
- Limited functionality
❓
Do you agree with our opinion in this article? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
FAQ:
Q: Which one is the best photo editing software?
A: Luminar 4 is the best photo editing software because it offers the most powerful collection of features and tools for different editing needs.
Easy Online Photo Editor Free
Q: What is the easiest free photo editing software?
A: Paint.NET is the easiest free photo editing software, however, it has a very limited number of features suitable only for basic editing.
Q: Which photo editing software is the best for HDR photo editing?
A: Aurora HDR is the best HDR photo editing software with a broad set of tools for creating and correcting HDR images.
Q: How can I edit pictures on my computer for free?
A: GIMP free photo editor is the best way to edit pictures on your computer for free. It's well-packed with features and is suitable for beginners and pros alike.
Q: Which photo editing software can be used as a plug-in for Photoshop/ Lightroom?
A: Luminar 4 is the best Photoshop/ Lightroom plug-in that allows you to use its unique features in your go-to photo editor.
Whether you take photos for fun or business, it's not an easy task to find a photo editing software that can best fit your photo editing needs with so many different options on the market. We believe that it's easier to find something when you know what you're looking for, so we came up with three criteria that you should take into account when looking for your one and only photo app. So, we recommend you to make your choice based on the features you want your app to have, the platform you're going to use it on, and the price that you're ready (or not) to pay for it. This will help you to filter out the irrelevant options and narrow your choices down to a few most suitable ones.
FeaturesGood Free Photo Editors Online
We believe that all photo editing apps can be divided into several categories based on what they have to offer to users of different levels and needs. These categories are:
Free Photo Editor For Windows 10
- Photo editing software for beginners. If you're just starting out in photography or need to apply quick corrections to your photos once in a while, you should opt for a beginner-friendly photo editor like Paint.NET or Pixlr. Such editors usually have a clean and straightforward interface without too many tabs and icons, and a decent set of tools for applying basic corrections.
- Professional photo editing apps are designed for professional photographers and advanced hobbyists and give more control over photo processing and editing. Their use requires more specialized knowledge of photography and high photo-editing skill. Pro-grade photo editors like Adobe Lightroom or Capture One Pro often come with an in-build photo management system, provide support for RAW files, tethered shooting, and presets.
- Software for creating and editing vector graphics. As you probably know, there are two types of graphics: raster and vector. Raster graphics represent images as a pixel grid, while vector graphics use lines and curves. Vector software can't change pixels and thus is ineffective for photo correction. However, you can use vector software to add graphics to your photo such as text, shapes, lines. Many raster photo editors include a handful of vector tools, like GIMP or Photoshop.
- AI photo software uses AI-based technology that allows reducing manual photo editing to a minimum - even the most complex editing tasks such as retouching or removing objects can be done with just a few clicks. Such apps are a popular choice among beginners and pros alike as they substantially speed up the editing process without affecting the quality. Luminar 4 is one of a few decent AI photo editing tools on the market.
- Open source photo editing apps are apps for which the source code can be viewed and changed by any user, like GIMP. It means that any user can interact with the program code to correct bugs, improve the exciting features and add new ones. Open-source software is usually completely free and for this reason much beloved by users of different levels of expertise.
There is another thing you should take into account when looking for your perfect photo-editing app - the platform you're going to use it on. If you're a Mac or Windows user, you've got a wider choice of options unlike, for example, Chrome OS users, who have a much more limited choice. Let's take a closer look at what we have here.
- Windows is the most compatible with most of the photo software you're going to want to use. If you're a Windows user, you have a great number of options to choose from including most widely-used apps like GIMP, Luminar 4, Lightroom, Paint.NET, and more.
- As Mac is the second most popular operating system, you won't have any troubles finding a photo app compatible with it. Here you still have a vast number of options including Lightroom, Aurora HDR, Luminar 4, etc. The popular GIMP, however, isn't compatible with Mac.
- If you're a Chromebook user, your choice is limited to Google Play apps. Those, however, include a pretty good number of options, such as GIMP, Photoshop, Lightroom, and others. If you have strong programming skills, you could try installing external apps as well.
It doesn't matter what platform you're using if you choose to work in an online photo editor. It runs in a browser and doesn't need installing.
If you're looking for an app for your Android or iOS device, you should check what your app store has to offer. Some web and desktop apps, like Pixlr or Lightroom, however, have mobile versions.
PriceNo matter how good the software is, its price can be a real dealbreaker. Luckily, not all photo editing software is paid for. There are such apps as GIMP and Paint.NET that are completely free. Paid options include subscription-based (Photo Studio Ultimate 2020, Lightroom) and one-time-fee (Luminar 4, Photoshop Elements, Affinity Photo) software. Some paid apps though have free trial versions, so you can test an app for free for several days to see if it's worth the money.