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

Responses: 36

This form is for answers only, please use the discussion forum for your questions. Suggest Your Favorite

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

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

(Vista) Windows Photo Gallery

Having researched this area all day, I feel this article may be remiss in not stating the obvious:- with VISTA comes WPG built-in already (even in my Vista Home Basic) and though I despise anything from Microsoft I confess I'm mighty impressed by this tool - especially for editing/listing my EXIF info. (Editor's Note: Yes, Windows Photo Gallery is very good, but it is not a pixel-based editor, so it is listed in my top picks of digital photo software, found here: http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photopresentations/tp/photocatalog.htm)

—Guest Eagle_Kiwi

Stay Away from Serif PhotoPlus 9.0

Hate it! The interface is awkward & hard to use. A simple crop & save makes the file size much bigger than the original. And it will ONLY save in Serif PhotoPlus Picture format. Photos saved with Serif PhotoPlus 9.0 do not show thumbnail previews. Only the stupid purple eye logo. Don't get this editor. Not for any price. Not even for free. It's garbage.

—Guest Wes

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 Nicholas

PhotoFiltre and PhotoScape

I own a layout site so I'm required to make intensely intricate graphics. I used to own Photoshop CS2 then my computer broke and I lost the disk and verification number. But Photofiltre is amazing for blending and text that stands out, while Photoscape is easy to do any kind of editing you would like. I prefer Photoshop over both of them, but they are both excellent programs. GIMP is very difficult for me to understand.

—Guest Korkybabyy

You really should try Photofiltre

I've used Gimp, Picasa, Paint.NET, Paintshop and Photoshop Elements 2,4, & 7. I keep going back to Photofiltre and keep learning more ways to maximize my efforts. It is very fast, so I like it better than Elements for jobs that don't need layers.

—Guest Johnny