The best free photo editor 2020
Tags: Android, Windows, Open Source, Linux

The right free photo editor will help transform your pictures — correcting colors, erasing blemishes and much more — so they’re ready to print or share online.

The best free photo editor is GIMP — a powerful and feature-packed open source program that’s the closest thing you’ll get to a free version of Photoshop. It offers more tools than some paid-for photo editors, supports layers, masks and plugins, and even lets you work with Photoshop PSD documents.

However, GIMP may be overkill for simple tasks like cropping or straightening a photo. That’s why we’ve rounded up a range of other excellent free photo editors, so you can pick exactly the right tool for the job and your level of experience.

If you need some resources for your projects, take a look at our guide to the best free stock photos.

The best photo editors overall

Adobe Photoshop If you’re serious about photo editing, or are thinking about turning your hobby into a job, you can’t beat industry standard software Adobe Photoshop. It’s certainly not free like the photo editors below, but it’s surprisingly good value with an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is a fabulous program that really does rival the best professional and enthusiast-level image-editing packages on the market. It easily takes the lead over previous Serif programs that we’ve seen for PC. Designed from the ground up, this is a fast, efficient and genuine Photoshop alternative. It’s also remarkable value, and will appeal to those who aren’t persuaded by Adobe’s subscription model.View Deal

Corel Paintshop Pro 2020 is a solid piece of software, which allows you to improve photographs and create complex composites with ease. It hasn’t got all the features that Photoshop enjoys, but then again, it doesn’t cost nearly as much, and the tools it does have, especially the ones in the most recent update are most impressive. We particularly liked the Refine Brush tool which made it incredibly easy to create complex selections.View Deal

The best free photo editors at a glance

1. GIMP

The best free photo editor for advanced image editing

Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux | Layers: Yes | Export formats: 40+

Advanced editing tools

Cross-platform support

No ads

Steep learning curve

GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the best 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.

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 official glossary. If that’s not enough, you can even install Photoshop plugins.

Read our full review: GIMP

2. Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019

Fuss-free photo editing with automatic optimization tools

Platform: Windows | Layers: No | Export formats: JPG, PNG, BMP, TIF

One-click optimization

Fine manual controls

Clean interface

Auto optimization is hit-and-miss

If you’ve got a lot of photos that you need to edit in a hurry, Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019 could be the tool for you. Its interface is clean and uncluttered, and utterly devoid of ads (although you’ll need to submit an email address before you can start using it).

Importing pictures is a breeze, and once they’ve been added to the pool, you can select several at once to rotate or mirror, saving you valuable time. You can also choose individual photos to enhance with the software’s one-click optimization tool. In our tests this worked particularly well on landscapes, but wasn’t always great for other subjects.

If you want to make manual color and exposure corrections, there are half a dozen sliders to let you do exactly that. It’s a shame you can’t also apply the same color changes to a whole set of pictures at once, but this is otherwise a brilliant free photo editor for making quick corrections.

For more advanced editing, check out Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7 — the premium version of the software with enhanced optimization tools.

Read our full review: Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019

(Image credit: Shutterstock; Canva; Unsplash)

3. Canva

Professional-level photo editing and templates in your browser

Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux (in browser); Android, iOS, iPadOS (mobile app) | Layers: No | Export formats: JPG, PNG, PDF

Great selection of templates

Includes free cloud storage

Mobile app available

No fine manual editing tools

Canva is a photo editor that runs in your web browser, and is ideal for turning your favorite snaps into cards, posters, invitations and social media posts. If you’re interested in maintaining a polished online presence, it’s the perfect tool for you.

Canva has two tiers, free and paid, but the free level is perfect for home users. Just sign up with your email address and you’ll get 1GB free cloud storage for your snaps and designs, 8,000 templates to use and edit, and two folders to keep your work organized.

You won’t find advanced tools like clone brushes and smart selectors here, but there’s a set of handy sliders for applying tints, vignette effects, sharpening, adjusting brightness, saturation and contrast, and much more. The text editing tools are intuitive, and there’s a great selection of backgrounds and other graphics to complete your designs.

Read our full review: Canva

4. Fotor

One-click enhancements to make your photos shine in seconds

Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux (in browser) | Layers: No | Export formats: JPG, PNG, PDF

Premium-level filters

Batch image processing

High-res export options

No plugin support

Fotor is a free photo editor that’s ideal for giving your pictures a boost quickly. 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 really 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 standout 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.

Read our full review: Fotor

5. Photo Pos Pro

Advanced photo editing tools packaged in a simple interface

Platform: Windows | Layers: Yes | Export formats: 15+

Smart interface

Beginner and advanced modes

Limited file export resolution

Not cross-platform

Photo Pos Pro 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.

It’s a shame that the free version of Photo Pos Pro only allows you to export at a maximum of 1,024 x 1,024 pixels. If you’re preparing images to share online this might not be a problem, but it limits the software’s usefulness if you want to print you work.

Read our full review: Photo Pos Pro

(Image credit: Shutterstock; Paint.NET)

6. Paint.NET

Looking a little dated, but still a dependable all-rounder

Platform: Windows | Layers: Yes | Export formats: 10+

Layers and filters

Plugin support

Fewer options than GIMP

For Windows only

More is not, believe it or not, always better. Paint.NET’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 tools like 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.

Read our full review: Paint.NET

7. PhotoScape

Raw image conversion, batch processing and much more

Platform: Windows | Layers: No | Export formats: JPG, PNG, TIF, BMP, GIF

Raw file conversion

Great selection of filters

Unusual interface

Bundled with Google Drive app

PhotoScape 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 pretty advanced, so it’s if good choice if you need to quickly level, sharpen or add mild filtering to pictures in a snap.

Read our full review: Photoscape

(Image credit: Shutterstock; Pixlr; Unsplash)

8. Pixlr X

A comprehensive browser-based photo editor for quick results

Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux (in browser) | Layers: No | Export formats: JPG, PNG

Uses HTML5 rather than Flash

Stylish design

Less powerful than Pixlr Editor

Max image size 3,840 pixels

Pixlr X is the successor to Pixlr Editor, which was one of our favorite free online photo editors for many years.

Pixlr X makes several improvements on its predecessor. For starters, it’s based on HTML5 rather than Flash, which means it can run in any modern browser. It’s also slick and well designed, with an interface that’s reminiscent of Photoshop Express, and a choice of dark or light color schemes.

With Pixlr X, you can make fine changes to colors and saturation, sharpen and blur images, apply vignette effects and frames, and combine multiple images. There’s also support for layers, which you won’t find in many free online photo editors, and an array of tools for painting and drawing. A great choice for even advanced tasks.

Read our full review: Pixlr X

9. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor

A convenient way to correct lighting and exposure problems

Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux (in browser) | Layers: No | Export formats: JPG only

Advanced filters

Stylish design

Requires Flash

Only supports JPG format

As its name suggests, Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a trimmed-down, browser-based version of the company’s world-leading photo editing software. Perhaps surprisingly, it features a more extensive toolkit than the downloadable Photoshop Express app, but it only supports images in JPG format that are below 16MB.

Again, this is a Flash-based tool, but Adobe provides handy mobile apps for all platforms so you won’t miss out if you’re using a smartphone or tablet.

This free online photo editor has all the panache you’d expect from Adobe, and although it doesn’t boast quite as many tools as some of its rivals, everything that’s there is polished to perfection. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a pleasure to use. Its only drawbacks are the limits on uploaded file size and types, and lack of support for layers.

Read our full review: Adobe Photoshop Express Editor

10. PiZap

A fun photo editor for preparing your pictures for social media

Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux (in browser) | Layers: No | Export formats: JPG, PNG

Provides stock images

Templates for social media

Some tools behind a paywall

Max resolution 1,310 x 737 pixels

Free online photo editor PiZap is available in both HTML5 and Flash editions, making it suitable for any device. You can choose to work with a photo from your hard drive, Facebook, Google Photos, Google Drive, Google Search, or a catalog of stock images. This is an impressive choice, though some of the stock images are only available to premium subscribers, and you’ll need to watch out for copyright issues if you use a pic straight from Google Images.

piZap’s editing interface has a dark, modern design that makes heavy use of sliders for quick adjustments — a system that works much better than tricky icons and drop-down menus if you’re using a touchscreen device.

When you’re done, you can share your creation on all the biggest social media networks, as well as piZap’s own servers, Dropbox and Google Drive. Alternatively, you can save it to your hard drive, send it via email, or grab an embed code. You can only export your work in high quality if you’ve opened your wallet for the premium editor, but for silly social sharing that’s unlikely to be a problem.

Read our full review: PiZap

Other free photo editors to consider

Ashampoo Photo Commander Free

A free alternative to Adobe Lightroom, this free software allows you to edit and organize your photos, with one-click filters for correcting batches of images.

IrfanView

Another potential replacement for Lightroom, IrfanView is a simple but effective tool for editing photos in batches, tagging and organizing them.

What to look for in a free photo editor

When you’re choosing a free photo editor, the first thing to consider is your level of confidence and experience. If you simply want to make a few adjustments (removing blemishes and improving colors, for example) then a simple online tool might be perfect, doing the job well without overwhelming you with options.

If, on the other hand, you’re interested in more advanced editing then you’ll want to focus on desktop software that offers tools such as layers and masks, giving you full control over the process.

Desktop software is also a good choice if you have several photos to edit, and some free photo editors can even edit photos in batches, which can save you an enormous amount of time.

It’s also worth considering what you’ll be using the exported photos for. Online photo editors can often only export images in JPG format, and only at relatively low resolutions. That might be fine for images you want to display online (and many such photo editors include tools for sending images directly to Facebook or Twitter) but if you want to print your work then you’ll be better off with a tool like GIMP or Paint.NET that will let you export in just about any format, in high resolutions.