The programs below can perform basic functions, such as letting you resize, crop, and correct exposure with ease, along with offering some semi-advanced tools as well. There are great options for both conventional desktop software and web-based solutions that don’t require installing any software. The best GIMP Mark Coppock/Digital Trends Often heralded as the best free alternative to Photoshop, (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is an open-source application that relies on a community of volunteer developers who maintain and improve the product. Available for MacOS, Windows, and Linux, you get a lot of professional-level editing and retouching tools — perfect for designers who can’t or won’t shell out hundreds of dollars to Adobe. Once you launch the program, you’ll find a dedicated window that displays the image, and separate windows to organize the toolbox and layers. When using a large display, or two displays, you have a nice, big workspace to play with your images. Icons in the toolbox represent actions such as the crop, lasso, paint and brush tools, and you can apply various effects to your photos.

Parallels for mac dual monitors windows 7. To help you select the best software, we tested six popular photo-editing programs, all either free or under $100: Apple Photos, Corel PaintShop Pro, GIMP, Google Photos, Adobe Photoshop Elements. The Best Photo Editing Software Programs. To find the best photo editing software, we pitted the best programs tech-giant Adobe has to offer (Photoshop, Lightroom, and Photo Elements) against three highly commended competitors to find out which one was user-friendly enough for beginners and powerful enough for professionals.

It may seem like Photoshop, but GIMP has its own look and feel. Making the jump from one to the other will take a little time, but you’ll save yourself a monthly subscription fee if you do. Download it now for: Three good alternatives Paint.NET This is a case where the apprentice becomes the master. Was created as a college undergraduate senior design project mentored by Microsoft and it continues to be maintained by alumni of the program. It was originally developed as a free replacement for Microsoft Paint, which comes as part of Windows. Paint.NET has surpassed in functionality and has some more advanced features as well. Paint.NET features an intuitive user interface that supports layers, an “unlimited undo” to back out of any mistake no matter how disastrous, various special effects, and other tools.

Where Microsoft Paint was able to do little more than resize images, Paint.NET is able to handle more advanced photo editing that you’d expect to be limited to Photoshop and other paid programs. Download it now for: Photoshop Express Mark Coppock/Digital Trends If the above options seem too derivative or you want more of that Adobe-experience without the associated price tag, is another option worth considering. Although pared down compared to the standard Photoshop, the Express variant does have a number of great options for editing photos with a much more gradual learning curve.