Full of features

Photoscape includes just about everything you need to view, optimize, edit, print and have fun with your photos. In fact, it's so complete that many would call it a free Photoshop alternative. Sure, it's not quite up to the level of Photoshop, but it's truly a great alternative to Adobe's big shot - and it makes photo editing a lot more fun!

Easy to use

From the program's main window 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.

Smart interface

One of the first striking elements in Photoscape is its uncommon interface design. The application is very striking and in many ways it's easier on the eye than Photoshop.

Conclusion

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

Download Photoscape 3.6.3 in Softonic

If you've ever wished you could spice up some of your photography or digital artwork, you'll want to take a look at a paint program to do it.

PaintTool SAI is one of your options, and it's a good one in many respects. The program has a simple interface that's easy to navigate. PaintTool SAI also contains the basic tools you'd expect to find in a paint program, such as airbrushes, a paintbrush, watercolors, pencils and an eraser. In addition, PaintTool SAI has more advanced features, like layers, that can really add depth and neat effects to your graphics.

While PaintTool SAI's interface is simple to navigate, learning all of the paint program's features will take some time, as with almost any graphics editing program out there. The simple interface is also quite plain, which might put off potential users who would prefer a little more panache in their paint program.

Overall, PaintTool SAI is a competent tool that lets you edit and enhance photographs and other graphic images.

Download PaintTool SAI 1.1.0 in Softonic

You’ll find a complete set of tools in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite: CorelDRAW, an intuitive vector-based illustration tool; Corel PHOTO-PAINT, a powerful image editor for all sorts of graphics; Corel PowerTRACE, a bitmap-to-vector converter; Corel CAPTURE, a simple, one-click screen capturing tool; and finally Corel CONNECT, a file browser especially designed to help you manage all your media in the Corel suite, the computer or the local network.

All the apps in the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite are designed with ease of use in mind. Not only do they feature clear, intuitive interfaces, but they are also thoroughly documented. Though created for professionals, advanced amateurs can also benefit from CorelDRAW Graphics Suite and all its features: clean workspace, customizable menus, and lots of filters and effects.

The only thing we missed in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite was better integration between all the apps included in the suite.

These days professional designers and photographers seem to choose Adobe products over Corel ones. But CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is undoubtedly a great pack of designing and editing tools that’s well worth a try.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is a excellent collection of apps for professional design, vector illustration and page layout.

Download CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 in Softonic

GIMP has been around for over two decades and development has been stable over the years. The newest update for GIMP gives a slew of new features and a glimpse into the future for this incredible open source image editor.

Features

All the features of GIMP are still present. You can create your own images with tools for airbrushing, penciling, cloning, and creating gradients. Power users can create their own brushes and patterns to use later. GIMP also allows users to manipulate images imported into the program. You can crop, add text, resize, and create nested layers. There is even a way to animate your creations.

New additions

GIMP has now been updated with many user interface tweaks to make the application accessible to newbies. The biggest interface addition is the ability to edit in a single-window. GIMP versions of the past drew criticism for their confusing interfaces, but the developers are addressing many of these issues in this newest version. While single-window mode is great, it is also disappointing that there is no way to view multiple projects side by side.

Other updated features include easier text editing, nested layer groups, and a shift to using the Generic Graphics Library (GEGL), which is a more sophisticated image processing framework. GEGL was introduced a couple of years back in a developer version and has now made its way into the sable, consumer version. GIMP developers hope to move entirely to GEGL by version 2.10. One of the major advantages of GIMP using GEGL is the ability for non-destructive editing and high bit-depth images.

GIMP now only saves to its own XCF format to retain layers and other file manipulation information. Users can still choose to save in formats like JPEG and PNG but will have to "export" the project instead of saving. This follows in the footsteps of Adobe Photoshop.

The latest GIMP is better than ever. Its developers are taking the user experience into serious consideration and are speeding up development for this already great photo editor.

Download GIMP 2.8.4 in Softonic

There are a lot of desktop painting programs out there available to download. Some even come as standard when you buy a new Windows PC.

PowerPaint's developers post that PowerPaint is "the best tool to replace Windows Paint." By all accounts, it certainly boasts more features than its stripped down counterpart. Even in the "Image" drop-down menu alone, you can turn your drawing or photograph gray, halftone, invert the blacks and whites within the picture, adjust the brightness and contrast and much more. PowerPaint also comes with a bunch of pre-made basic shapes, lines, arrows, stars and banners. These are just simple examples of clipart, but it's certainly convenient to have them already installed.

In addition, PowerPaint has different types of texture brushes to add special effects to your images. You can fill in the background with a specific color and even insert an additional photograph into the image you're already working with.

It's no substitute for the more powerful programs like Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop, but PowerPaint is a pretty handy and free image editing alternative.

Download PowerPaint 2.50 in Softonic

Just like the original program, Photoscape Portable is an excellent photo editing tool that includes just about everything you need to view, optimize, edit, print, and have fun with your photos. Its free and runs from your USB stick without having to install anything, and without leaving any trace.

Photoscape Portable catches the eye from the outset with its unusual interface design, where a round-shaped menu gives you access to all the tools included in the program. You may want to browse photos, 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 Portable are a file renamer, a color picker, a screen capture tool, a RAW converter and even a tool to create animated GIFs.

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

Download PhotoScape Portable 3.5 in Softonic

What is Lightroom?

If you're not familiar with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, it's a photo processing app that's designed to be used by professional photographers for the post-production of batches of photos, and it's often used in conjunction with Adobe's seminal app, Photoshop.

The new interface

This latest version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom looks great. It's divided into seven sections - Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print and Web- which let you easily flit between different stages of management, processing and presentation. There's also some awesomely configurable options, running from how the app looks to how it acts, before and after processing. There's only one thing - the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom interface is vast, and to get the most from it, you'll need a large screen.

Photo management

The upside to using a dedicated photo processing app is the ease with which Adobe Photoshop Lightroom allows you to see, categorize and manage your photos. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is no exception, with a great import features and options, and, new to this version, location-based organization. You'll find the tools to manage this function under Map.

Photo processing

In version 4 of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe's self-stated aim has been to "extract more detail from highlights and shadows, make a wider range of targeted adjustments, and easily share your images and video clips on social media and photo sharing sites". It certainly provides some interesting options to do this, including highlight and shadow recovery, white balance features and local noise/moire tools. This is in addition to all the usual editing tools, which are present and easy to apply.

Presentation options

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom really excels when it comes to presenting your photos and passing them on. You can email directly from this new version, as well as sharing with a variety of social networks and photo sharing sites. The Book feature is also new, allowing you to create a variety of beautiful photo books from templates. This complements Adobe Photoshop Lightroom's Slideshow option, giving you even more scope for creating en eye-catching and imaginative end product.

Video management

In this version, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom really ramps up video support, further increasing its versatility. This means that you can make even more complex edits to video clips, as well as easier video publishing.

Conclusion

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 is an exceedingly promising piece of software. It can look complicated - and even overcrowded - on first glance, but once you become more familiar with app, you'll see everything adds up to offering you one of the most comprehensive photo processing apps around.

Download Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.4 in Softonic

Paint Shop Pro X3 makes it easy to create professional-looking photos. You can import, edit and share your images—all in one place. The new organizer helps you sort, rate and tag your photographs faster than ever.

You can make quick fixes in the enhanced Express Lab or use more advanced photo-editing
tools such as the new Smart Carver. Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo also allows you to publish directly to the web, create photo books and projects, or simply backup photos to disc.

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo is divided into a set of tools: RAW Lab, which manually adjust groups of RAW photos during the loading process; Express Lab to quickly fix common photo flaws; Advanced tools, which allows you to edit with advanced features such as Smart Carver, Vibrancy etc. Meanwhile, Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo's Integrated Projects allow you to create photo books, HD slideshows, cards etc., and finally Photo sharing for email, print or send directly to Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo is a comprehensive and powerful photo editing suite.

Download Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X3 13.0 in Softonic

Looking just like it fits into the Windows 8 Metro interface, Fresh Paint is an aesthetically pleasing painting app that's easy enough for children to use, but provides enough features to please older users.

One of the things that makes Fresh Paint so unique is just how realistic the painting experience is. The paint in Fresh Paint actually acts like it would if you had a palette and easel in your own home. You can blend and mix colors to get specific shades of your choosing, plus choose from a lot of different editing options to ensure your idea is properly translated onto your digital canvas.

Unfortunately, Fresh Paint has some stability issues, where it sometimes crashed upon startup. This can really add frustration to an otherwise pretty graphically amazing experience. Some basic editing tools are also missing, which will hopefully be updated in the next version of the app.

Apart from occasional crashes, Fresh Paint is a welcome addition to the Windows 8 Metro family of apps, and provides users with a realistic painting experience.

Download Fresh Paint for Windows 8 1.0.12233.3 in Softonic

The program's interface is cluttered with icons and buttons - which makes a bit confusing to use at first sight - but 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 1.88 in Softonic

Note that GIMP Extensions will overwrite any other extension selected that you may have already installed. Most of the extensions in GIMP Extensions are mainly from GIMP Plugin Registry. GIMP Extensions provides a useful collection of extensions for GIMP such as Plug-ins, Scripts, Brushes etc that add more power to one of the most powerful free design tools on Mac.

GIMP Extensions is a must have for anyone that uses GIMP regularly.

Download GIMP Extensions 2.9 in Softonic

This app helps you create unique logos for your company, no matter what professional area you're in: arts and entertainment, business and finance, construction, food and beverage, legal, real estate, technology, travel, etc.

Logo Design Studio Pro includes more than 5,000 logo templates to get you started. You can use them for inspiration, adapt them to your corporate image or simply replace the sample texts with your company's name. For the more artistically gifted, Logo Design Studio Pro also lets you create logos from scratch, starting with a blank canvas.

Despite the huge number of templates included and its ease of use, I have to say I was a bit disappointed with Logo Design Studio Pro. The logo editor is simpler than I expected – not to mention the fact that the program displays an error message every time you close it.

Logo Design Studio Pro is a simple-to-use utility to create all sorts of logos, though it falls short of expectations.

Download Logo Design Studio Pro 3.5.2.0 in Softonic

Maybe this generous selection of editing tools is responsible for PaintShop Photo Pro's lengthy installation process.

It has so many different windows, palettes and toolbars that it feels a bit overwhelming. Our advice here is to spend as much time as necessary customizing it to your needs and, of course, trying out all the program’s buttons and menus.

We especially liked the Express Lab, a special tool to quickly fix common image glitches.