Best Free Image Editing Software for Creative Photographers

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are regarded by most photographers as the best image editing software tools available. Unfortunately, they can cost hundreds of dollars to buy, and it takes hours of study and training to get the best from them. There are many free alternatives to Photoshop, and it’s possible to edit and enhance your photographs without great investment in time or money. The following are some of the best free image editing software tools currently available.

Gimp.

Gimp is packed with great features and is free to download. It offers many of the image editing tools available in Photoshop, and is one of the most powerful image editors available. Gimp is great for portrait photographers, and offers simple tools to remove red eye from pictures and to whiten teeth and remove skin blemishes from your subjects. There are many great tutorials online for Gimp, and it’s worth checking out before investing in any other image editing software.

Pixlr.

Pixlr is an incredibly powerful online image editor, and it’s becoming increasingly popular with photographers. There are three versions available ranging from ‘Playful’ to ‘Advanced’ and each has its uses. The Playful version offers a great range of effects, overlays and borders, and it’s an easy way to create some fantastic images. The level of control is quite basic, but it allows anyone to transform pictures into works of art with just a few clicks. The Advanced version looks very similar to Photoshop and gives the photographer access to a range of tools and effects. Pixlr Express is available as an app for mobile phones, and offers hundreds of effects to enhance your photos.

WebInPaint.

WebInPaint is a highly sophisticated image editing tool, and offers tools which only the very latest versions of Photoshop have made available. WebInPaint is particularly effective for removing unwanted elements from a photograph, such as power lines in a landscape pictures. This kind of image editing can take hours in traditional image editing software, but WebInPaint allows you to make the changes in minutes. As well as offering traditional image editing tools, WebInPaint allows you to stitch photographs together to create panoramas.

PhotoScape.

Free to download and very easy to use, PhotoScape is packed with great features and is a close rival to Photoshop Elements. The editing functions offer a range of tools including a clone stamp and paint brushes. The batch editing functions make editing a series of photographs very quick and efficient. Unlike some of the other free image editing tools available, PhotoScape offers the ability to convert RAW files to JPEG files, and this puts it ahead of others for the serious photographer. PhotoScape is a great mix of traditional image editing tools and the more easy to use apps which have appeared in the past year. Using this software allows you to create unique and interesting pictures with limited technical ability.

Photoshop and the traditional image editing software tools will remain the preference of professional photographers, but there are many great fee alternatives available.

Written by: Kaizen Marketing