You probably know GIMP already, but now if you have a USB memory device you can take it anywhere with you thanks to Portable GIMP.

The Portable GIMP is a special version of the well-known open source image editing software that has been specifically developed for portable memory devices. The whole installation program and its plug-ins have been packaged to fit your USB stick, so that you can work on your images no matter in which computer you are.

Portable GIMP includes all the graphic editing tools any serious designer or photo editor could ask for. It's true that it takes a while to master the program's interface – especially for those who are not used to multiple-window working environments – but once you get the hang of it Portable GIMP enables you to do pretty much anything you want with your images.

With Portable GIMP you'll have the original GIMP's resources and tools always at hand.

Download Portable GIMP 2.4.7 in Softonic

The Gimp is the open source reference in image manipulation. This free application will allow you to retouch, author and edit your photos thanks to a wide set of tools.

Let’s quickly go through what you can do with the Gimp. The painting function has the essential clone, airbrush or pencil tools and a powerful gradient and blend tool. You can also create and save your own brushes and patterns for later use. The program lets you manipulate your photos, adding layers, doing Bezier and polygonal selections or setting text. Load and save animations in a frame-as-layer format and batch process all your photos for quick editing. The multi-windowed interface can be moved around to fit your needs and resized according to your desktop space.

What’s more, the Gimp can be expanded with over 100 different plug-ins and extensions available on the Gimp’s website. These apply in majority for layer effects such as render, distort or blur and make a great addition to the ones already present in the program.

While the Gimp is user friendly, the installation process can result a bit hairy. Because the application works under the GTK Runtime Environment, you will have to install this kit to successfully launch the program. The process is fairly lengthy and some error messages tend to pop up, however if you persist, you will be able to install the Gimp properly on your PC

Despite this fairly hazardous installation process, the Gimp is a program we recommend. Whether you’re out of dough or are looking for a free alternative to Photoshop, the Gimp is excellent image manipulation software with all the tools you’d expect. The friendly interface and expandability make this a program of choice.

Download The GIMP 2.4.7 in Softonic

Due to lossy nature of the JPEG format each editing and subsequent recompression of JPEG images in generic image editors such as Photoshop results in progressive degradation of image quality.

Fortunately, in many cases there is a way to avoid the unnecessary recompression. If all you need is to quickly process a bunch of JPEG photos from the latest vacation - rotate, crop, remove red eye effect, imprint date or comment - you don't have to compromize the quality. Better JPEG is a batch JPEG editor capable of doing all this editing losslessly.

Main features:

• Lossless transformations - rotation, flip
• Lossless crop (free, fixed aspect, fixed size, predefined and user-defined aspects and sizes), composition guidelines (diagonals, golden mean, rule of thirds)
• Highly customizable lossless date/EXIF info/text insertion (position, font, size, color, background, language, format, etc.)
• Advanced lossless red eye removal (anti-aliasing, adjustable size, sensitivity, darkening)
• Copy/paste to external editor and back for local retouching without full recompression
• Batch image processing
• Multi-level undo/redo
• Metadata preservation
• Compression optimization

Download BetterJPEG 2.0.0.2 in Softonic

This logo design software will help you to design professional logo image for printing or the Web in minutes! Choose one of 100+ pre-made logo templates as a start point for your logo project or create a blank logo project and make your own logo from scratch.

AAA Logo has it's own vector-based logo objects library with more then 2000 customizable logo elements. Exactly the same technique to create logo images using pre-designed logo elements is used by almost all professional logo designers to create logos for their clients.

Download AAA Logo Software 2.10 in Softonic

There are a myriad of programs out there to manage your photos but some seem to do the job better than others.

IDimager Personal Edition is designed for those who deal with a huge quantity of photos on a daily basis and need something ultra powerful and organised. Normally, I only use Picasa to organise my photos because it's simply well integrated with the internet for uploading photos. However, this program comes with all the tools and basic features you need to get yourself organised with your photos. It can import images from a digital camera, browse, organize, catalog, control versions, archive, edit, e-mail, print, find and make slide shows. However, what really impressed me was the ability to publish images to the internet which is not always common in such programs. I wouldn't say it was as well done as with Picasa because it doesn't link to any kind account but it does prepare you very well for uploading by optimising photos into more manageable resolutions for speedy uploads.

This won't really impress professionals but amateur photographers could find that it helps them organise their collection.

Download IDimager Personal Edition 4.1.0.2 in Softonic

Photo Multiconverter is a handy application with which you can easily apply effects and filters to your photos, as well as save them into a wide range of formats.

The program features an easy three-step interface which makes the whole process really simple: choose your photos, apply any effects and finally save them into any of the multiple formats Photo Multiconverter supports.

As for the included filters and effects, you have quite a few to choose from. They're all classified into different categories and can be applied in batches on the same photo by simply enabling or disabling them on the filter list. Also, notice you can zoom in the photo with your wheel mouse while you're working on it in the second step of the process.

When you're done with the editing, move forward to the third step and save your photos. You'll be able to choose the target format, as well as rename the photo so as not to overwrite the original one or to create new versions of it.

Photo Multiconverter is a great choice for a quick, eye-catching retouch in your photos and also to convert them from one format to another.

Download Photo Multiconverter in Softonic

Amazing Photo Editor is powerful and easy to use image processing software used for image processing,viewing and converting. 33 different amazing effects are available within the program to help you transform your graphics and images.

Easy Gif Animation contained in Amazing Photo Editor helps you to create gif animation with photos. You can use it to edit GIF animation and every frame. Besides, it has an AVI and GIF animation converter that can convert AVI animation to GIF animation and convert GIF animation back.

Download Amazing Photo Editor 7.5 in Softonic

Enhancing photos is an essential part of any professional photographer's day and while this is no professional tool by a long stretch, it gives amateurs a chance to add enhance their photos in a professional manner.

Pos Free Photo Editor is a very simple, free and user friendly photo editor that allows you to easily view and enhance your photos. In terms of flexibility, it accepts just about any conceivable format so no conversions are required. There's very little to pick up or learn with the program - most of the learning is done on the job via trial and error with the handy preview function. The enhancements are mainly focused around changing the focus and altering the colours of your photos although you can't shift photos on their axis which is a bit annoying if you've taken a slightly badly angled photo.

What it's really useful for though is creating collages. You can add multiple images to the same sheet meaning you can print them all out on one page. This not only allows you to create some pretty impressive designs but it saves on printing out multiple images on expensive photos and then sticking them together.

Pos Free Photo Editor is a far cry from Photoshop but it's completely free and allows beginners to add simple enhancements and effects that are sure to improve your photos.

Download Pos Free Photo Editor 1.0 in Softonic

Photoshop is the World’s leader in digital imaging software. It has been the industry standard design application for years, and with each new iteration it pulls further ahead of its competitors thanks to its huge user base and professional experience.

When digital photography was in its infancy and image editing wasn’t high on many agendas, Photoshop didn’t stand out much from the alternatives such as Paint Shop Pro. More recently, however, the Adobe team has taken the ascendancy, and since version 7, Photoshop has been all about fulfilling users’ requests and prayers for a top quality graphics package. CS3 can be regarded as version 10 and adds more to the mix for photographers, designers, and video editors.

Having nailed the interface in previous versions, CS3 keeps to the same winning formula, meaning that anyone who has used Photoshop before will immediately feel comfortable. Changes come in the form of Adobe Bridge, a replacement for the file browser, more photography filters and the star of the show, the “Vanishing Point”. This filter lets you edit, clone, and retouch images while keeping the perspective; great!

Without going in to too much detail, Photoshop is a program for professionals and as such has a steep learning curve. Anyone who is willing to devote the required time to learn the basics will definitely be rewarded with a much higher degree of control over their images and will also find it easy to tap in to all the great resources throughout the web, be it in the form of tutorials or plug-ins, that will extend the functionality further. The flexibility of the program lets you customize the interface, the brushes, the fill patterns, tool presets, filters, and practically anything else you may find within the software.

With all the power that you get, it’s testament to the Photoshop team that it runs so smoothly on any modern PC, although if you start getting heavy with layers or high resolutions, there will be a noticeable hit to your system’s resources. As you become more accustomed to the operation of the program, you will pick up more efficient habits such as the multitude of keyboard shortcuts. Each one is customizable, and there are key combos for every operation to save you from time spent trawling through menus and toolbars.

Adobe’s Photoshop CS3 is another giant leap forward for digital imaging software and it remains a long way ahead of the chasing pack. It may overwhelm beginners with the sheer quantity of tools and options, but ultimately it will reward anyone that doesn’t mind putting in the ground work to learn the basics. Highly recommended for everyone with time, money and an interest in imaging, particularly photographers and designers.

Download Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended in Softonic

It's really unbelievable to find free software applications as amazing as Photoscape. But as they say, truth is stranger than fiction. Here you have a really excellent photo editing tool that includes just about everything you need to view, optimize, edit, print and have fun with your photos, all for free.

Photoscape strikes us from the very beginning with an uncommon interface design from which you can choose what you want to do: view pictures, optimize those that didn't come out so well, print several photos on a single page collage-style or perhaps add any of the dozens of filters and special effects included in the program. Other extra tools featured in Photoscape are a file renamer, a color picker, a screen capture tool and even a RAW converter.

We really have nothing negative to say about Photoscape. Just download it, test it, love it and keep it forever. It's free!

Download Photoscape 3.1 in Softonic

Ambereh is a basic drawing application with the advantage of having the possibility of sharing your work while chatting with your co-workers and applying changes that everybody can see.

It's surely not Photoshop, nor even a bad copy of it, but that's not its purpose. It is not a professional photo editor but a tool to share ideas on logos, for example, or simply a kind of dashboard for creative having to work from different locations. Define a local port and connect to a computer in the relative menu at the top of the program's page and start to work on a drawing with other people.

The application can only work with bitmaps and this is really a big limitation considering that this format is not so widely used anymore. The features are just the basic ones you can find in all the other drawing editors such as anti-aliased brush, custom bitmap brushes, opacity control, smudge and blur. Furthermore this program is free and open source.

Ambreh's simplicity makes it an interesting tool for brain-storming sessions with your colleagues as you can make changes to an image that everybody can see live and chat at the same time.

Download Ambereh 1.0 in Softonic

This easy photo editor, despite its scary name, lets you apply a quick retouch to your images in just a few simple steps.

Phantasmagoria is developed in Java, which makes it compatible with all platforms and operating systems. It works in a very simple way: load the picture and select the task you want to do, focusing either on photo improvement or special effects.

As for the first group, Phantasmagoria only features color correction, contrast equalizing and red-eye removal tools, whereas the special effects category includes a wide variety of filters with which you can give your photos a totally different look in a very easy way.

That said, Phantasmagoria has also some flaws, such as the impossibility to preview effects before applying them (not even if you modify some values, which is especially annoying). Also, there's no "undo" option but only a "revert" button that brings the picture back to its original state.

Phantasmagoria features a large variety of effects for a quick photo retouch but unfortunately lacks some basic options (like being able to preview changes or undo options.

Download Phantasmagoria 1.0 in Softonic

NeoPaint is a full featured artist's studio for Windows that's easy-to-learn, powerful and affordable! It's simple enough for beginners yet packed with powerful features and advanced tools. NeoPaint makes it easy for business and home users to touch up photographs and create great looking graphics for desktop publishing, presentations and the Internet!

Some of NeoPaint's many powerful features include:

• Support for many popular image formats
• Integrated support for scanners and digital cameras
• Multiple undo levels
• Dozens of special effects and textures
• Photo retouch and color correction tools
• Red-eye removal
• Picture Browser with file management tools
• Built-in NeoGrab Screen Capture

NeoPaint also includes some exciting natural media tools including charcoal, crayon, chalk, ink, watercolor, oil paint and more. In addition, the program includes powerful built-in Animation Tools for creating and editing animated GIF files, and a built-in Icon Editor for creating and editing Windows icons and cursors.

Download NeoPaint 4.7 in Softonic

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is any photographer's dream application come true.

The application allows both professional and advanced photographers to import, store, organize, edit and export thousands of pictures from one uncluttered interface. You can create sets and collections to store your pictures and add tags to every individual photo. The time line view at the bottom is a great way to quickly browse through pictures.

Editing tools are located on the right of the interface. The Quick Develop section works wonders to adjust things like white balance, exposure or vibrance quickly. For advanced editing you'll have to go to the 'Develop' section though. This is where you'll be able to correct details, camera calibration, split toning and more. Lightroom lets you create virtual copies so you can edit elements without affecting the original.

Adobe's photo management tool also includes a section to create your own slideshow, including transitions and overlays. Although it creates nice slideshows it felt a bit counterintuitive. We also liked how in-depth the print settings were, letting you adjust things like margins or print resolution very precisely. The last section allows you to optimize your photos for the web and create a flash gallery and a postcard viewer among others.

Ligthroom truly is a top of the range photo management tool. Serious photographers will find it makes working with thousands of images much easier.

Thanks to an excellent structure, advanced editing tools and features to print, publish to web and create a slideshow, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom truly is one of the best photo management programs out there.

Download Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 Beta in Softonic

If you're looking for a basic imaging tool that does everything you need with minimum fuss then Image is your tool.

The program includes a multitude of effects and a simple editor that includes a mix of tools and retouching options. You can do everything from simple tasks such as adjusting color, brightness and resolution to adding fairly simple layers and filters. The range of formats it supports is wide and ranging although it's true that it doesn't support every single imaging option.

The program also features options to apply image transparency, alpha channel support and an unlimited set of undo and redo commands and steps. In addition to all this, it can process multiple images at the same time via batch processing. It doesn't really offer much in the way of advanced editing such as vectorising or rendering of complex images but at the same time, it's not really designed with high end users in mind.

As a simple processing app that support a wide range of formats and no fuss editing, Image is an excellent choice.

Download Image 1.0.0.1 in Softonic

Image Analyzer is a simple but surprisingly effective utility for the advanced analysis, editing, and optimization of images.

It supports many many formats and it's remarkably easy to use for an imaging software of such sophistication, not to mention it's completely free. In particular, it's very good with handling formats of all conceivable types including support for the new standard JPG 2000 image compression format. Professional designers will probably find the interface way too limited however but for novices its absolutely perfect because it really does not require any prior knowledge. In terms of image editing, the program features options for resizing, cropping and image rotation among several others. There's also simple adjustments like levels of brightness, contrast and saturation available. Other key features include automatic brightness, contrast, gamma and saturation adjustment, a Retinex filter for reducing shadows and increasing local contrast and the all important red eye remover. It also supports most types of scanner, cameras and printers although not all.

A deceptively simple program that is rich in features and powerful enough for those beginners that need a bit more image processing power.

Download Image Analyzer 1.29 in Softonic

Photo Pos Pro is a complete photo editor that meets all your needs regarding photo editing, image optimization and special effects.

While the program's interface still needs some improvement in design and usability, the number of tools and features included in the program is impressive. With Photo Pos Pro you'll be able to not only edit photos and optimize your pictures but also add special filters and effects to them in order to create true pieces of art. Besides editing images, you can also create new graphic compositions from scratch and use Photo Pos Pro to design logos, banners, websites and anything you want.

Photo Pos Pro works with layers, masks, gradients and textures, and supports a wide range of scanners and digital cameras, as well as the most popular graphic formats. The program's interface enables you to open several documents at the same time and undo and redo actions as many times as you need to.

In spite of not having the best interface in the world, Photo Pos Pro is a complete photo editor that can help you edit and optimize your pictures, and add some special effects as well.

Download Photo Pos Pro 1.60 in Softonic

When sharing pictures or publishing them online, it can sometimes be useful to be able to 'sign' them indelibly. A watermark is essentially a way to sign content without interfering with the user experience. PhotoAlpha allows you to do that, by adding a watermark to your pictures that cannot be deleted without altering the picture in itself.

The program is really basic and the interface is not as intuitive as such a simple program should be. Nevertheless, the software allows you to quickly add some text to your pictures and choose the opacity by selecting the 'static text' menu. It's interesting that in the 'watermark menu' you can also choose to use a picture or an icon as a watermark so that you can have a specific logo that identifies your photo collections

PhotoAlpha is simple, easy-to-use application which can add text and logo watermarks to your photos but it doesn't stand out for its features and usability.

Download Photo Alpha 1.0 in Softonic

Who says you absolutely need Photoshop when editing images? PhotoLine is just another example that solid alternatives photo editing tools do exist.

The application loads very fast compared to Photoshop, and offers a very similar interface, with most of your tools placed on the left. You'll get access to a wide range of layers, effects and filters from the menu bar and various viewing modes. The program also lets you easily create HDR images and offers full masking support.

Photoline includes a web tab, from which you can create animations, buttons or images. In 'web export' you'll be able to add last second touches and actions such as converting to grey or brightening shadows.

A solid image editor needs to be able to save to many formats, which PhotoLine does. You can choose from over 20 different types including Macintosh icon and AVI.

To be honest though, we'd have to say that PhotoLine compares best with Photoshop Elements, simply because it doesn't have as many features as the complete Photoshop.

In all though, PhotoLine remains an excellent image editing application with many tools and effects to get the most out of your pictures.

Download PhotoLine 14.11 in Softonic

So you’re back from vacation, you’ve downloaded all your photos to your PC, but you’re not convinced by the quality of the images. What you need is to retouch them, adjusting colour balance, eliminating red eyes, setting sharpness and removing noise. While it won’t equal a great picture at first try, at least it'll get you rid of all the imperfections. Corel Paint Shop Pro (PSP) is a hands-on and complete photo editor that intermediate users will take to their liking.

We instantly fell in love with PSP’s easy-to-handle interface. Select the tool panels you need and drag and drop them into the main window. The best way to work with PSP is via the left hand panel, a descriptive menu of all the actions you can undertake, like printing, retouching, collage, or adding text and graphics. Clicking on one option will give you access to a sub-menu with more choices. You can always go back to the main menu by clicking on the house icon. If you have multiple images opened you’ll be able to access them in no time thanks to the tab-browsing feature. The only element that we didn’t like was the image browsing pane at the bottom of the interface, which we found to be pretty cluttered.

Corel is aware that the majority of users have nor the time or the experience to retouch their photos in depth. For these users, there are the “one step photo fix” and “one step noise removal” buttons, to edit your photos in one click. Paint Shop Pro offers numerous editing variations like Illumination, 3D, Texture and Edge effects. Just like Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro works with layers, making it easy to have a history of all the changes you have made to your photo. Although PSP offers fewer effects and editing tools than Adobe’s stellar creation, we believe there are enough options to keep the photo enthusiast well occupied. We appreciated the extra features like photo collage, to create an original mash-up of your favourite pictures, or web share to upload your images to an online photo album. You can also easily create a custom card thanks to the text editor.

The only real drawback to Corel Paint Shop Pro is the lengthy installation process and having to create a Corel account to install the program. However once you get past that step, you’ll be happy to know that the application starts up fairly quickly and does not overuse memory. Beginners will find the help file to be very complete and simple to use.

Paint Shop Pro is an excellent photo editor offering the whole range of tools and effects that you would expect, and a bit more. A well structured interface and clear cut options make it a good choice for beginners.

Download Paint Shop Pro X2 in Softonic