Photoshop is capable, sure, but it's also expensive. Fortunately, the best free photo-editing software allows for a range of versatility. PhotoScape is a fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos. To install PhotoScape 3.7 on your computer, click one of the Free.

Michael Muchmore The Best Photo Editing Software of 2018 Whether you shoot with a smartphone camera or a DSLR, you need software to get the most out of your photos. Here's what you need to know to pick the right program. Whether you merely shoot with your smartphone or you're a professional photographer with a studio, you need software to organize and edit your photos. We all know that camera technology is improving at a tremendous rate. Today's smartphones are more powerful than the point-and-shoots of just a few years ago. The same can be said for photo editing software. 'Photoshopping' pictures is no longer the province of art directors and professional photographers.

Whether you're shooting from an or a, if you really care how your photos look, you'll want to import them into your PC to organize them, pick the best ones, perfect them, and print or share them online. Here we present the best choices in photo editing software to suit every photographer, from the casual to the professional. Of course, novice shooters will want different software from those shooting with a $50,000 in a studio. We've included all levels of PC software here, however, and reading the linked reviews will make it clear which is for you. Below is a cheat sheet of which category each product fits into. Note that some products are suitable for both enthusiast and pros, and most products included fit into the sweet spot of enthusiast/prosumer level. Entry Level: Apple Photos, Microsoft Photos Enthusiast/Prosumer Level: Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Corel PaintShop Pro X9, CyberLink PhotoDirector, DxO Optics Pro 11, ACDSee Ultimate Professional Level: ACDSee Ultimate, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, DxO Optics Pro 11, Phase One Capture One Pro Nothing says that pros can't occasionally use an entry-level application or that a prosumer won't be running Photoshop, the most powerful image editor around.

The issue is that, in general, users at each of these levels will be most comfortable with the products that are intended for them. Note that in the table above, it's not a case of 'more checks mean the program is better.' Rather, it's designed to give you the quick overview of the products. A product with everything checked doesn't necessarily have the best implementation of those features, and one with fewer checks still may be very capable—whether you even need the checked feature depends on your photo workflow.

Free Photo Editing Options So you've graduated from smartphone photography tools like those offered by and Facebook. Does that mean you have to pay a ton for high-end software? Absolutely not. Up-to-date desktop operating systems include photo software at no extra cost.

Windows 10's Photos app may surprise some users with its capability. In a touch-friendly interface, it offers a good level of image correction, and it can automatically create editable albums based on photos' date and place groupings. Apple Photos does those things too, though its automatic albums aren't as editable. Both programs also sync with: iCloud for Apple and OneDrive for Microsoft. With Apple Photos, you can search based on detected object types, like 'tree' or 'cat' in the application, while Microsoft Photos offers this feature only for photos stored online in OneDrive. Apple Photos also can integrate with plugins like the excellent, appeasing power users who lament the company's discontinuation of the prosumer-level Aperture program. Ubuntu Linux users are also covered when it comes to free, included photo software: They can use the capable-enough Shotwell app.

And no discussion of free photo editing software would be complete without mentioning the venerable GIMP, which is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It offers a ton of photoshop-style plugins and editing capabilities, but very little in the way of creature comforts or usability. Other lightweight, low-cost options include and. Editing Your Photos Online.

In this roundup, we've only included installable computer software, but entry-level photo shooters may be adequately served by online photo-editing options. These are mostly free, and often are tied to online photo storage and sharing services. (with its integrated Aviary editor) and are the biggest names here, and both can spiff up your uploaded pictures and do a lot to help you organize them. They even approach the two entry-level installed programs here, but they lack many tools found in the pro and enthusiast products. The latest version of Lightroom CC includes a good deal of photo-editing capabilties in its included website, too. Image Editing for Enthusiasts and Prosumers Most of the products included in this roundup fall into this category, which includes people who genuinely love working with digital photographs. These are not free applications, and they require a few hundred megabytes of your disk space.

Several, such as Lightroom and CyberLink PhotoDirector, are strong when it comes to workflow—importing and organizing the photos from a DSLR. Such apps offer nondestructive editing, meaning the original photo files aren't touched. Instead, a database of edits you apply is maintained, and appears in photos that you export from the application. They also offer strong organization tools, including keyword tagging, color-coding, geo-tagging with maps, and in some cases face recognition to organize photos by what people appear in them. At the other end of workflow is output. Capable software like Lightroom Classic offers powerful printing options such as soft-proofing, which shows you whether the printer you use can produce the colors in your photo or not.

(Strangely, the new version of Lightroom CC—non-Classic—offers no printing capability at all.) Even Lightroom Classic (which you might think is above the social fray) includes directly sharing photos to social networks like Facebook and online photo hosts like Flickr and SmugMug. In fact, all really good software at this level offers strong printing and sharing, and some, like ACDSee Ultimate and Lightroom, offer their own online photo hosting. The programs at this enthusiast level and the professional level can import and edit raw files from your digital camera. These are files that include every bit of data from the camera's image sensor. Each camera manufacturer uses its own format and file extension for these. For example, Canon DSLRs use CR2 files and Nikon uses NEF.

( Raw here simply means what it sounds like, a file with the raw sensor data; it's not an acronym or file extension, so there's no reason to capitalize it.) Working with raw files provides some big advantages when it comes to correcting (often termed adjusting) photos. Since the photo you see on screen is just one interpretation of what's in the raw file, the software can dig into that data to recover more detail in a bright sky, or it can fully fix improperly rendered white balance. If you set your camera to shoot with JPGs, you're losing those capabilities. In my testing, Phase One Capture One was tops at producing the most detailed images from raw files. Enthusiasts want to do more than just import, organize and render their photos: They want to do fun stuff, too! Editors' Choice Adobe Photoshop Elements includes Guided Edits, which make special effects like motion blur or color splash (where only one color shows on an otherwise black-and-white photo) a simple step-by-step process. Content-aware tools in some of these products let you do things like move objects around while maintaining a consistent background, or remove objects entirely—say you want to remove a couple of strangers from a serene beach scene—and have the app fill in the background.

Note that these edits don't involve simple filters like you get in Instagram. Rather, they produce highly customized, one-off images. Another good example is CyberLink PhotoDirector's Multiple Exposure effect, which lets you create an image with ten versions of Johnny jumping that curb on his skateboard, for example. These products can also produce HDR effects and panoramas after you feed them multiple shots, and local edit brushes let you paint adjustments onto only specific areas of an image. Capture One and Lightroom have recently added even more precise tools for local selections in recent versions, such as the ability to select everything in a photo within a precise color range and to refine selection of difficult content such as a model's hair or trees on the horizon. Professional Photo Editing At the very top end of image editing is Photoshop, which really has no real rival.

Its layered editing, drawing, text, and 3D-imaging tools are the industry standard for a reason. Of course, pros need more than this one application, and many use workflow programs like Lightroom, AfterShot Pro, or Photo Mechanic for workflow functions like import and organization.

In addition to its workflow prowess, Lightroom offers mobile apps so that photographers on the run can get some work done before they even get back to their PC. Those who need tethered shooting may want Capture One, which is offers lots of tools for that along with its top-notch raw-file conversion. Photoshop offers all and more of the actual image editing capabilities in anything mentioned above, though it doesn't always make producing those effects as simple, and it doesn't offer nondestructive workflow, as Lightroom and some others do. Of course, some users with less-intensive needs can get all the Photoshop-type features they need from other products in this roundup, such as Corel PaintShop Pro. DxO OpticPro is another tool pros may want in their kit, because of its excellent lens-profile based corrections and unmatched DxO Prime noise reduction. Photoshop is also where you find Adobe's latest and greatest imaging technology, such as Content-Aware Crop, Camera Shake Reduction, and Perspective Warp. It includes the most tools for professionals in the imaging industry, such as Artboards, Design Spaces, and realistic brushes.

Some users have taken umbrage at Adobe's move to a subscription-only option for Photoshop, but at $9.99 per month, it hardly seems exorbitant for any serious image professional, and it includes a copy of Lightroom, online services like Adobe Stock, and multiple mobile apps. It definitely makes the app more affordable for prosumer users, too, when you consider that a full copy of Photoshop used to cost a cool $999. If you're an absolute beginner in digital photography, your first step is to make sure you've got good hardware to shoot with, otherwise you're sunk before you start. Consider our roundups of the and the for equipment that can fit any budget. Once you've got your hardware sorted, make sure to educate yourself with our and our, too.

That done, you'll be ready to shoot great pictures that you can make better with the software featured in this story. Click the links below for to read the full reviews.

Like most of us, you likely have dozens, if not hundreds of pictures stored on your phone or your camera's SD card. But are you making the most of them? Free Download Swastik Accounting Software Full Version. Most of them probably look okay, but with a free photo editor and a little time you can transform them into something amazing that you won’t be able to wait to share online, or even frame on your wall. Whether you're looking for a total Photoshop alternative that gives you fine control over every minuscule detail of your photos, or a basic Instagram-style free photo editor that offers a range of one-click filters, you’ll find something interesting here. If you're already happy with the general look of your photos and just want to tweak them a little before sharing them, a simple free photo editor that allows you to resize, crop and apply filters will be ideal. Many of these have social media sharing built in, removing the hassle of uploading your snaps manually later. They also have the benefit of being easier to use.

If you're planning to print your work, you'll be better off considering a more nuanced free photo editor that will give you the fine control you need to make your photos look perfect, even at high resolutions. Learning curve is a little steep (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the most powerful 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. GIMP’s interface will be instantly familiar if you have ever used Photoshop – especially if you select the single-window mode, which lays out all its toolbars and canvases in an Adobe-style layout. 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.

If that's not enough, you can even. This combination of power and flexibility make GIMP the best free photo editor you can download – whether you're using Windows, macOS or Linux. Less powerful than GIMP More is not, believe it or not, always better. '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 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. 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. It might not have every feature you can dream of, but if your machine is a little underpowered we can't think of a better free photo editor. Limited file export resolution 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.

Photo Pos Pro also includes a clone brush for erasing unwanted blemishes, and there's extra support for batch-editing and scripts to help you save time when refining a whole folder of photos. The free edition of Photo Pos Pro only has one drawback: files can only be saved at a maximum resolution of 1,024 x 2,014 pixels, which might be too small if you're planning to have them printed professionally. If you want to remove this restriction, is available for a license free of £24.50/US$24.90/AU$41.89. Unusual interface 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 functional and not at all beginner-like, so it's if good choice if you need to quickly level, sharpen or add mild filtering to pictures in a snap. No plugin support is more a photo enhancer than a full-fat manual editing tool. 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 that really do 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 most brilliant 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.

No longer in active development Google's unending determination to corner just about every market sometimes pays dividends for the pincher of pennies. Take its purchase of German developer Nik in 2012, for example – its photo editor plugin range retailed for US$500 at the time, and in early 2016 Google decided to do away with the price tag and release the powerful collection for free.

We suspect support and updates might be somewhat limited going forward, but this does enable you to bag seven quality photo-editing tools as-is: lens and film emulator Analog Efex; colour corrector Color Efex; monochrome converter Silver Efex; noise reducer Dfine; selective colour tweaker Viveza; and Sharpener and HDR Efex, which speak for themselves. These are perfect free plugins if you're already using Photoshop, and you can add them to compatible host applications when you install them, but they can also be run as standalone free photo editors if you hunt down their executable files. They won't appear in your list of Windows apps – you need to look in C: Program Files Google Nik Collection. To edit a photo, drag it onto the EXE file of your chosen editor.

It's a strange system, but it works! Can be a little slow The 'free' suffix offers some indication of what you're getting here: is a cut-down version of On1 Effects 10.5 proper, pulling out just a limited selection of its filters. But we're still happy to recommend it, mainly because of its methodology. Instead of being forced to apply an effect to a full image, you can use On1's Perfect Brush tool to smear that effect on the areas you're interested in enhancing, which is a great way to create a unique look.

Its quick mask and refine brush tools also make masking off areas of your image particularly easy, so you can make elements pop. Essentially this is an taster for the full version, but its diminished filter range – HDR, vignette, vintage, glow etc – is still useful and worth trying if you're after vibrant effects; you'll have to try another program for sharpening, blurring and noise reduction, so On1 Effects Free isn't great if you want to preserve the honesty of your photos.

Some filters are in-app purchases is a very different beast to the full version of Adobe’s mighty industry-standard image editor, but it’s useful for giving well-composed pictures the boost they need to become stunning. There are no advanced editing tools here, so you won’t be able to paint out blemishes, adjust lighting, or even crop your images. Instead, you’re given a selection of good-looking Instagram-style filters and a quick link so you can send the results directly to Facebook, or save them to your PC. Adobe Photoshop Express is simple, but the filters are excellent and more are available as in-app purchases if you want more choice.

• • • On a mobile device? Check out our list of the.