14 Free Photo Editing Software Tools to Unleash Your Creativity
Article
by
Adeel Qayum
Customers remember the images they see online. How do you make yours enticing enough to draw their attention? By optimizing them through the best free photo editing software.
Photo editing software is how you take your store’s visuals to the next level. The software comes in handy when preparing photos for your product pages or choosing images for eBooks and blog posts. The best photo editor helps you remove unwanted elements from photos, pull attention to crucial components, and even adjust essential elements like brightness, contrast, or color.
Unfortunately, many of the top-rated photo editors can be quite expensive. If you’re just getting started with your visual content strategy, you might not have the cash to invest in something like Photoshop or Lightroom.
That’s why we’ve created a list of free image editing software, perfect for beginners.
Product Photos pulling your marketing down? Learn about angles, lighting, editing, and more in our Product Photography course.
The following options for the top free image editor were chosen for their usability, affordability, and functionality. These photo editing tools offer the perfect combination of simplicity and versatility for all of your image content. Most of these free tools will work in your browser, but some come with their own smartphone and desktop apps.
Designed primarily for social media image editing, Taler is great for making your brand stand out on social channels. You can search through a host of professionally designed templates and create content already perfectly sized for platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Taler offers customizable fonts and text designs, uploads for brand colors and logos, and curated templates, so you don’t have to start your designs from scratch. Because it’s built by Shopify, it’s unsurprising that the app also includes designs for online stores or businesses.
Features include:
Customizable templates for social media
Excellent drag-and-drop editor
Text tools for resizing and enhancing your message
More than 17,000 high-res images
Free emojis, stickers, and shapes
Powerful range of overlays and filters
Works on: iOS and Android
Best for: for: Creating stunning designs for online store and social media
Fotor is a free browser-based photo editor where users can create designs, make collages, and edit photos without downloading any complex software. The interface is streamlined and easy to use, with a range of tools for things like Instagram campaigns and product images.
Fotor makes it easy to apply photo editing techniques like filters and remove unwanted distortion from your content. You can banish red eyes, add custom borders, and even include text in any photo. There’s even access to a host of custom photo effects you can’t get on other tools.
Features include:
One-click batch processing, resizing, and formatting
100+ photo effects, 300+ custom stickers, and 30+ frames
Adjustments for contrast, saturation, white balance, and more
One of the better-known free image editing software options, Canva is a simple and effective solution that’s great for all kinds of content creation. Like Taler, Canva has a huge selection of templates to choose from, pre-sized for social media. There are drag-and-drop customization options, tons of stock photos and vectors, and pre-made illustrations.
You can edit your photos using pre-made filters and access things like brightness adjustments, contrast, saturation, and vignettes. There is a premium version available for additional editing options, too.
Features include:
Huge range of stock images, stickers, and vectors
Drag-and-drop customizable text
Filters and effects for your photos
Image cropping for social media
Pre-made templates for all kinds of online content
Works on: Web, iOS, Android
Best for: Creating branded images for online channels
Most individuals know about Adobe Photoshop. While the full-sized premium software might be too expensive for some people, the Express version of Photoshop is ideal for editing photos for free. Available for your smartphone and computer, this free image editor offers things like red-eye fixing, cropping, and collage creation.
You can edit and transform photos in various ways, getting rid of the noise or trying out filters before posting on social media. Plus, there’s even a “Discover” feed where you can gain inspiration.
Features include:
Quick fix tools like blemish healing and perspective adjustments
Recently updated for 2021, Pixlr is an amazing online photo editor that helps you create better images in your browser. There are AI-powered tools to help you create more professional edits, as well as a variety of design templates, pre-made filters, and collages. You can even quickly remove the background from your images.
Pixlr is great if you want to spice up your next marketing campaigns with artsy images, thanks to a huge range of filters and one-click effects. It’s also very easy to use for beginners.
Features include:
Robust one-click editing tools for saturation and sharpening
Tutorials for beginners
Free vector graphics editing
Selection of free stock photos
Pre-made templates and filters
Works on: Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android
Best for: Making quick tweaks to colors and saturation
Built to empower tomorrow’s Instagram influencers, Instasize is one of the most popular apps for quick and affordable photo editing. There’s a simple interface that allows you to navigate through photo filters, one-click clarity editing, exposure management tools, and more.
Though this tool started as a service specifically for Instagram, it’s now suitable for use with a wide range of visual social media channels like Snapchat and TikTok. You can even resize your photos in seconds to suit any social channel.
Features include:
Full set of editing tools for saturation, color, and contrast
Video and photo cropping for Instagram and other platforms
Plenty of unique filters and photo borders
Collage making with templates included
Tons of font and text options
Works on: iOS and Android
Best for: Creating shareable images for Instagram and Snapchat
Perhaps the best free alternative to Photoshop on the market, GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Processor, is a state-of-the-art editing system built for professionals. Though a bit more complicated than some of the best free photo editor options mentioned, GIMP is a highly flexible and versatile product.
You can customize your editing experience by adding unique filters, brushes and even changing your interface design. There’s also plenty of support for saving images in different file formats.
Features include:
Custom interface to make the experience as simple as possible
Quick and simple digital retouching features
Distortion and imperfection management
Plenty of file format options
Convenient set of brushes and filters available to download
Created just for iOS users, Apple Photos is more than just a library for photo storage; it’s also a free picture editor. All you need to do is upload your photos into the editor through your iCloud or camera roll, and you can access various simple editing options, like filters, retouching, and even contrast or brightness controls.
You can even edit videos with Apple Photos, making it great for creating 360-degree product shots for your website or sales pages.
Features include:
RAW image editing
Easy photo management and storage
Intelligent photo search suggestions
Quick photo enhancements with saturation and brightness
Movavi is a simple and effective solution for anyone in search of the best free photo editing software. You can use this service either on Mac or Windows and enjoy a range of simple photo editing tools, like custom cropping, flip and rotate images, horizon straightening, and more.
Inserting images and stickers into an existing photo is easy for those who want to create collage-style images. There’s also an advanced version of this software available for PC users alone.
Ranked among the best free photo editor software options around, Photo Pos Pro is a simple but effective service with plenty of beginner-friendly editing features. You can overlay objects onto simple backgrounds, apply color corrections, remove unwanted content from images, and more.
The user-friendly interface makes this a great product for business owners and entrepreneurs who don’t have much experience working with digital images. There are even knowledgebase articles to help you get started.
Features include:
Support for various file formats
Custom interface for editors
Color correction and filtering
Easy pre-built effects
One-click resizing, rotation, resolution changes, and more
Created to make quick online editing simple, Polarr is a browser-based solution for adding filters to photos, changing picture sizes, and more. When you first access the website, you’ll learn how to use things like filters and one-click fixes to your advantage.
Though not as advanced as some alternative editing products, Polarr provides you with various options for image editing, including contrast changes, highlights, brightness updates, and aspect ratio-based cropping. You can even change the color temperature and tint.
Features include:
Support for various format options, including JPEG, TIFF, and PNG
Quality setting options
Various filters and color temperatures to choose from
Quick spot removal and fixing options
Cropping and aspect-ratio control
Batch processing
Works on: Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android
Best for: Customizing images with selective masks, objects, and overlays
A free online photo editor intended for basic enhancements to your everyday images, BeFunky helps with things like color creations, filters, and photo retouching. If you want to change the background color in a product image or update a social media post design, BeFunky is a great choice.
For those keen to create things like postures, brochures, and other sales assets, there’s a built-in Graphic Designer feature that allows you to build custom templates. You can turn photos into art with unique filters, crop and resize images, and batch processes as well.
Don’t let the simplistic interface fool you; PhotoPad is a sophisticated free photo editing software solution with tons of great capabilities. You can crop, resize, and rotate your pictures, add color filters and warping, or even implement clipart in an image. There are also a host of retouching tools for automatically fixing noise and distortion.
PhotoPad by NCH Software also features various advanced extras like captioning, drawing tools, pre-made borders, collage options, and painting effects. You can also change aspect ratios and load a host of different file formats.
Features include:
Photo effects and filters
Collage and mosaic creations
Conversion into multiple file formats
Pre-made frames, borders, clipart, and captions
Upload directly to social media
Merge multiple exposures
Works on: Web
Best for: Beginner’s keen to make simple design changes
PhotoScape X promises everything you need to edit and customize photos in one easy-to-use app. The software includes GIF creation, photo combining, color picking, screen capture, and even collage creation. You can cut components out of photos, remove the background, or adjust the brightness and saturation levels.
Because there are so many features to explore, PhotoScape comes with access to a range of video and written tutorials to get you started. This also means that the software does have a higher learning curve than some free options, however.
Features include:
Pre-made filters and effects
Cut out and background removal
GIF creation
Screen capture
RAW image management
Combine photos and create collages
Batch editing
Works on: Mac and Windows
Best for: Unique image creation and background removal
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Summary: The Best Free Photo Editing Software for 2021
Photo editing tools can make even the plainest images look stunning.
There are so many things that you might want to change or add to the photos taken with your camera, including saturation, hue, background, and text. The best free photo editing software programs are designed to make your life easy. With just a few clicks, you can transform your photos into artwork or brandable assets to use on marketing channels.
But not all photo editing software is made equal. There’s software that costs a good sum of money and contains all the editing features you could ask for. On the flip side, there’s free photo editing software that boasts a decent set of editing options and doesn’t cost a penny. For beginners and those just starting in business, the latter type works best. Free photo editors can help you develop a brand image, convey a story, and showcase products in an appealing way online.
Summary: the best free photo editing softwares in 2021
Which free image editor is your favorite? Do you edit your photos before publishing them on your website or social media pages? Let us know in the comments section below.
