Top Photo Editors – Free vs Paid

Top Photo Editors – Free vs Paid

Editing photos before uploading on any eCommerce site or social media has become essential to attract viewers. You will find many tools or software that can help your editing. Some of them are free to use and some are quite expensive.

Also, you can go for a clipping path service provider who can give images a professional look by editing the background, adjusting the color, cropping, or anything necessary within your budget.

However, in this article I have alluded to some top photo editors – free vs paid. If you’re looking for top photo editors, you can go through the below and find out which one will be ideal for you.

Free Photo Editors

If you are an amateur and don’t want to spend money on any photo editing tools then you can try these free photo editors. These free photo editing tools that are mentioned below are great for practicing your editing skills.

GIMP

GNU Image Manipulation Program is known as GIMP in short. This is one of the most popular photo editors that is user friendly for any beginner or expert. This open-source photo editing tool is totally free of cost and has incredible color management features.

This editor can provide many tools for top-quality image manipulation and gives images an artistic look. GIMP can squash any bug immediately due to its open-source project developed by its developer community.

Pros

  • High usability
  • Free of cost
  • User interface customizable
  • Compatible with many operating systems

Cons

  • Not much recognized

Adobe Photoshop Express

If you want your photo editing software on desktop and mobile both then Adobe Photoshop Express is great for you. You can edit the images for free by using some cool features. Though it’s free, you can also use the paid version by spending $34.99 per year.

It has a full set of Photoshop effects, filters, stickers, borders, and photo editing tools including auto-masking. Anyone who captures photos on their mobile phone and wants to give it an extraordinary look can use this editor for posting images on their eCommerce sites and social media sites.

Pros

  • Many features for photo editing and retouching
  • Clear interface
  • Available social meme tools

Cons

  • Poor retouching options
  • Some features are unavailable without a Creative Cloud subscription

PicMonkey

PicMonkey is an online photo editing tool that can be freely used for editing and retouching photos. Design, Edit, and Collage are the three primary functions of this editor.

In the “Design” function, you can design on a blank canvas without uploading an image. In the “Edit” function, you can change color, resize, crop, and add text to the image. The “Collage” function lets you arrange several photos together in different manners. This photo editor is ideal for images for social media.

Pros

  • Flexible design features
  • Lots of design templates available
  • Can be used on Windows, macOS, and mobile devices

Cons

  • Only a 7-day free trial is available

Fotor

If you want both advanced and basic editing options for free then Fotor can give you that experience. It also has an online editing option so that you can edit from several devices while moving. For an eCommerce website, the images should look professional. Fotor gives you many options to edit in a short time for your sites.

Pros

  • Basic HDR tech
  • Classic content
  • Hundreds of exclusive photo effects
  • Quick photo editing option

Cons

  • Some premium options are available for the subscribers only

Pixlr

Pixlr has many options like photo editing, retouching, cropping, removing red-eye, editing background, whitening teeth, etc., and is one of the top photo editors that can be used for free. It has many borders, effects, and overlays and also a customizable user interface. You can use it to edit photos for your websites and social media.

Pros

  • Available advanced editing tools in Pixlr E
  • Supports layers
  • User-friendly for basic users

Cons

  • Has many advertisements in the free version

Paid Photo Editors

If you are willing to pay some bucks for a photo editing tool then there are many options available. The paid photo editors are better than the free ones indeed. Here, you’ll find some paid photo editors that may be suitable for editing any images for eCommerce sites and social media sites.

Photoshop Lightroom

If you want to keep your photos in one place, and edit, organize, and share them from any device, Photoshop Lightroom is your editor. It has huge functions for editing and managing photographs and can handle complex editing management too.

It’s an easy-to-use tool that can make advanced editing simple and beginner-friendly. It has great photo management capabilities that give the images look like a pro. It’ll cost you US$9.99 per month.

Pros

  • Syncs photos automatically to cloud storage
  • Clear and simple interface
  • Built-in RAW editing
  • Powerful raw filters

Cons

  • Limited sharing
  • Layer functionality unavailable
  • Costly
  • Mandatory uploading of images to cloud storage

Photoshop Elements

Non-professional users who want to edit photos like a professional but in an easy and simple way without compromising features can use Photoshop Elements undoubtedly. It has many creative and automated editing options including collage tools, auto creations, and sorting tools with step-by-step guidance.

You can get access to this amazing photo editor by spending only $99.99.

Pros

  • Great image-manipulation tools
  • Amazing image output options
  • Excellent user interface
  • Available advanced techniques

Cons

  • High loading time
  • Lens geometry profile unavailable
  • A minimum social sharing options
  • Unavailability of chromatic aberration correction option

Photoshop CC

If you’re creative-minded and want to show your creativity through photo editing, then Photoshop CC is right for you. It’s one of the best photo editors with a lot of functionality and designing tools.

You can get this amazing editor from Adobe’s wide collection only at US$20.99 per month.

Pros

  • Ideal for photo correction
  • A lot of design tools
  • Video editing option is available
  • All image formats are acceptable

Cons

  • Not a beginner-friendly interface
  • Unpolished updates before releasing

DxO PhotoLab

DxO PhotoLab provides powerful photo editing and correction tools as well as perfect for both camera profile correction and noise reduction. It can make your unusable images usable and possesses a SmartLighting tool that can remove chromatic aberration and fix lighting automatically.

This editor is ideal for professional users but an amateur can use it too. You can get it at DxO US by spending $129.00.

Pros

  • Great for noise reduction
  • Clear interface
  • Available haze remover
  • Excellent autocorrection
  • Geometry corrections
  • Incredible local adjustments

Cons

  • Workflow tools are limited

Corel PaintShop Pro

If you don’t have much budget then you can go for Corel PaintShop Pro. You can use it as an alternative to Photoshop. It has many advanced AI tools such as Background replacement, Portrait mode, Style transfer, etc.

It supports raw images and can edit your photos professionally just like Photoshop. You can get it from Amazon for only $59.99.

Pros

  • Budget-friendly
  • Powerful editing tools and effects
  • Automatic noise removal
  • Extensive tutorial

Cons

  • Slow operations in some cases
  • Unavailability of macOS version
  • Inconsistent interface

Finishing Line

A photo editor is necessary for every person whether his works are photo related or not. For eCommerce businessmen to a commoner, everyone uploads images on social media.

We count people who like the images or not. Also, if you don’t want to edit the images but want great images for your website, you can always go for a clipping path service provider.

Anyway, let me know which of these top photo editors – free vs paid is your favorite.

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