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Readers Respond: Tell us your favorite free photo editor for Windows and why you like it!

Responses: 71

By , About.com Guide

Photofiltre

I use Picasa, Flickr, Picnik and PhotoFiltre because they are free. I store all of my imported photos on Picasa, store changed photos and manipulations on Flickr, use Picnik for edits and effects, and most often upload to PhotoFiltre for color, distortions, textures and sizes because of the degrees of changes available. They are all programs easy enough to use without outside instructions for I am self-taught.
—showmedonna

XNView and Faststone

XNView. It is the only one of the free ones which allows TPTC comments. Faststone is also excellent.
—zedex99

Xnview

I've been using it for years now. Use it and see the truth. I've used all others but Xnview is the last thing for me. I just love its interface, simplicity and ease of use. It supports almost all image formats plus audio/video too. No fuss, just do it type software and result is THE BEST.
—Guest Nizar

Photofiltre

I've used Photofiltre for years, and even after grueling expeditions into the world of free and non-free image editors and even drawing programs, I've kept coming back to it. I did finally upgrade to the Studio (not free) version as my skills and needs increased, but that was only after years of using the plain version happily. Its interface is intuitive and easily scalable to a user's learning curve. A+, Photofiltre!
—Guest jaykishan

Gimp!

I've tried the likes of Photofiltre and others, but my personal favourite has to be Gimp.
—Guest emlang

Xtreme Photo Designer 6

Free download from MAGIX. Easy to use even for me :) . I don't know what you mean with "pixel level" editing but so far this software has done all I need.
—Guest mobody

There's a much better one

I have tried a number of photo editors. The best one is IrfanView. It is easy to learn and is better at preserving the quality of the edited pictures. ImageForge is good for some tasks as well, so I use IV and IF together.
—Guest krazykyngekorny

Photoscape

Photoscape is the best one I think because it has a lot of things you can do and it is easy for beginner.
—Guest djurick

photoscape----gimp

Photoscape is one of the of the easiest and loaded editors out there; has instant undo and redo. It has about all the filters. I have not found a lasso tool; so I use another great free editor for that, the gimp. Free and loaded, hard to beat.
—Guest Grinch

Picasa 3

Picasa is definitely my favorite. It can do everything I need. It has one big drawback, though. It duplicates photos like anything. All the photos I have have been duplicated many times. Sometimes as often as 3 files. It drove me nuts. When I got a new PC I did not download Picasa again. But I really miss it. Still looking for something similar and crying for my lost love (Picasa) everyday.
—Guest zinzani

KIZOA

This one is both really advanced and easy to use. The big plus is that once you have edited your photo, you can build amazing slideshows: it's all in the same interface!
—RoyAckerman

Paintstar

PaintStar is not going to blow the doors off your computer; nor is it ever going to compete against the likes of Photoshop. But if all you want is a easy to use photo~editing program with a very small ram footprint; then look no further. It does what it does, quickly and with a minimum of fuss. http://wang.zhenzhou.googlepages.com
—Guest Aqua Fyre

Photofiltre!

After checking out many free downloads for editing photos and making graphics I have concluded that the best free download for me is Photofiltre or Gimp. I highly recommend these. They're great for beginners (even I can use it, that's something) and I'm able to make great graphics and become popular for my layouts.
—Guest Random

The best is Paint dot net

Paint dot net has an astounding polar inversion distort. Plus, the final picture simply looks sharper when displayed on the internet. http://www.getpaint.net
—Guest greg vanderlaan

Gimp...

I use gimp, It is the best thing on windows except for photoshop, and the BEST photo editor that is free. :)
—Guest Joe

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