15 Free Photo Editors

GIMP is likely the most popular free photo editor program. It's full of professional features and provides a very friendly and flexible interface.

The toolbox, layers, and brushes panes of GIMP are separated from the main canvas so you can truly adjust how you want to work without losing any of the features you need access to.

Various input devices are supported, add-ons can be installed to extend GIMP's functionality, and file formats like TIFF, PSD, PNG, JPEG, and GIF are supported.

There are tutorials on the GIMP website if you need help along the way. You can learn about layer masks, asset folders, brushes, and more.

GIMP works with Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems.

Download GIMP

Similar to GIMP, Paint.NET provides the ability to move its window panes around to customize the interface to your liking. Paint.NET also provides plug-ins to support new file formats and add new effects.

Included are layers, effects, and a whole host of basic and advanced things like a clone stamp, pencil, text maker, and paintbrush tool.

Several image file formats like BMP, JPEG, TGA, and DDS are supported.

Paint.NET is for Windows computers only.

Download Paint.NET

Inkscape works with Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. This is a vector graphics editor, more akin to Illustrator, as opposed to a photo manipulation package, but still has a lot of useful features.

The interface can be a bit cluttered but that's only evidence of the vast number of tools it includes. Nearly all the tools you'll be using often are planted along both sides of Inkscape for easy access.

Circles, arcs, 3D boxes, ellipses, stars, spirals, and polygons can be created using Inkscape. You can also draw straight or freehand lines.

Tons of file types are supported both when opening and saving. Among many other useful features, you can work with layers, apply a huge number of filters to a picture, and use spell check along with the text tool.

Like most photo editing programs, Inkscape supports extensions.

Windows users can also download a portable version that's perfect for editing straight from a flash drive.

Download Inkscape

Adobe has the free Photoshop Express program that you can use as a Photoshop alternative if you don't want to pay for their full software. Of course, it is missing some of Photoshop's features, so it's not as functional, but it still does a lot.

When you first open the Photoshop Express image editor, you can load an image from your computer or take a new one directly from your webcam. Once a photo is open in Photoshop Express, the menus on the left make it really easy to access all the one-click options like filters, crop tools, image corrections, the red eye remover tool, and more.

This photo editor for Windows 10 also has borders, a spot healing brush for one-click touch-ups, effects like grain and fade, and a noise reducer. There's also a button you can click to quickly see the original photo for comparison with your edits.

Something really great about this image editor that you won't find in some similar programs is that with nearly every tool, you have full control over the intensity. This means you can slide a bar left or right to decrease or increase a tool's effect to get it just right.

Download Adobe Photoshop Express

Krita Desktop is really easy to work with and is certainly an advanced image editor. Like some of these other programs, you can work with layers in addition to many other tools located in a floating toolbox off to the side of the program.

There are plenty of other features available as well, such as brushes and blending modes, advanced selection, and masking tools, drawing aids, filters, symmetry tools, and effects.

One thing worth mentioning is that, with the press of the Tab key, you can maximize the canvas to fit your entire screen, getting rid of all the menus and tools so you can have a huge space for working without any distractions.

Krita Desktop works with Windows, Linux, Mac, and Windows-based tablets.

Download Kitra Desktop

This free photo editor from inPixio is designed for simplicity, but that doesn't mean it's void of helpful features. The program itself is easy to understand and navigate, and you can do everything from add frames and designs to crop, change the brightness, and more.

With the one-click presets and frames, a before and after view, and easy-to-access editing tools, you can finish editing in no time and even share your picture directly on Facebook or Flickr from the Share menu.

If you like how you've edited something and want to apply those same edits to another photo, it's as easy as making a custom preset.

Lots of image file types can be opened in this program, and if saving to your computer, you can pick from JPG, PNG, TIFF, JXR, and WDP. 

If you need help using this photo editor, you can refer to their online tutorials.

Some features are only available in the premium version; those are marked off in the program with a large "Premium" banner.

Download inPixio

EasyComic isn't as advanced as some of these other free photo editors, but that can be a good thing if you're not wanting a program overflowing with features you won't ever use or need. 

A handful of objects and effects are available such as speech bubbles, nature images, cartoon effects, and more that you can easily drag and drop onto the canvas along with your pictures.

Also available are line tools, rotate and resize functions, and the ability to create text and shapes. There is no brush or pencil tool like you'll see in many of the similar programs from this list.

Even though the program is simple to use and not heavy on features, it does support tabbed windows and simple layering so you can organize things better and move objects/pictures in front and behind of other ones.

Something else we like about the EasyComic free photo editor is that you'll get a description on how to use any of the tools if you hover your mouse over them, which is really helpful for beginners and not always an option in software like this.

Download EasyComic

Pixia has an outdated and unappealing interface, but the functions and tools aren't at all undesirable for a free photo editor.

Layers and layer masks are supported, as well as creating shapes, selecting objects, and common photo editing tasks like changing the color adjustment and tone balance, color filling, and selecting from different paint brushes.

All the standard image file formats can be opened with Pixia including those with Photoshop's PSD extension. Images can even be opened directly from the clipboard, a camera, or a scanner.

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Every tool that's opened with Photo Pos Pro launches in its own pane that can be moved freely around the screen, which is really nice and similar to some of the other advanced image editors in this list.

Layers are supported, and a nice feature with them is that instead of creating a new transparent or colored layer, you can even make one directly from an image file or style, such as a texture, pattern, or gradient.

Standard image and color manipulations can be performed on images as well as a number of effects. Photo Pos Pro can also add frames to images, among other things.

Download Photo Pos Pro

Artweaver manages to include tons of useful image editing tools in an easy to use program. It has a tabbed interface to avoid clutter, supports using pen tablets, and works with some of the most popular image file formats, such as JPEG and PSD.

Standard editing tools like a crop, text, paint bucket, and gradient tool, among others, are included, but Artweaver also lets you save and replay events, use brushes, create and work with layers, customize the layout of the palettes, and import images directly from a scanner or camera, among other things.

The screen mode can be changed from regular to fullscreen to have even more room to edit images.

Download Artweaver

PhotoScape has several sections at the top of the program where you can open different tools to perform different actions. Viewer, Editor, Combine and Animated GIF are just some of PhotoScape's sections.

The editing feature has dozens of frames to choose from, each with the option to round the corners and adjust the margin and frame line settings of the frame.

You can also add objects and text and crop an image freely or use one of several presets (e.g., 16:9, Legal Ratio, and US business card ratio).

Some more tools included in PhotoScape is a red-eye remover, clone stamp tool, spot remover, paintbrush, and, among others, an effect brush (like grayscale, blur, darken, and brighten).

With each tool you select, a description of what it does and how to use it is displayed to the right, which is very helpful and not usually a feature included in programs like this.

PhotoScape is available for Windows. The similar PhotoScape X is for Windows 10 and macOS.

Download PhotoScape

Another free photo editor similar to the others in this list is Photobie. One thing to note is that while there are plenty of common and basic features available, they seem a bit cluttered and difficult to find.

Some of the more prominent features in Photobie include a GIF creator, layer support, and the ability to create a 3D cube or globe using your image layers.

Also available are a handful of photo templates, which are pre-built pictures with transparent areas for inserting your own images. You can also create your own templates and use them in the future.

Download Photobie

PaintStar is very lightweight — the program opens quickly and condenses its settings nicely, and the download is only a few megabytes in size.

All the tools you need are in their own dedicated windows, which means the canvas is open for editing only, providing lots of free space to work.

Layers, custom brush settings, filters, a clone stamp tool, and lots of other basic features are supported in this image editor.

PaintStar lets you save your images in a number of popular, common formats, such as JPG, TIFF, PSD, PNG, GIF, and BMP.

Download PaintStar

CinePaint's interface is very mundane, colorless, and boring, but that doesn't mean the tools aren't useful because they are.

Layers are supported so you can overlay images on each other, change their blend mode, and edit their opacity. You also get a selection tool with CinePaint, among many other common tools.

The first thing you'll notice when you use CinePaint is that when you're opening a photo to edit, you're unable to preview it to know that you're selecting the correct one, which is too bad.

Download CinePaint