Adobe Photoshop is any serious photographer or graphic designer’s application of choice but you’ll have to cough up quite a lot of bills to get it. Another solution is to use Photofiltre, a lesser known and more basic yet free and solid image editing application.

Photofiltre is a relatively small application and, unlike Photoshop, will install and launch very quickly. The interface, loaded with all the features and options, can be confusing at first glance, but after a short time,, you should be comfortable with it. The right side is composed of the shape and drawing tools and an optimizable color palette. The top bar has all the essential image editing and modification options. Photofiltre sadly doesn’t let you customize the interface and choose your favorite tools however.

Among all the image modification tools, we particularly liked the quick contrast/hue and saturation buttons because you can check out the effects and immediately and easily correct the image if you’re not satisfied with its quality. If you trust Photofiltre, you can also let it adjust these parameters automatically.

Like any self-respecting image editing application, Photofiltre includes the most widely used filters to transform your image, but if you need to make really significant changes, you’ll find yourself limited. Furthermore, unlike Photoshop, Photofiltre doesn’t include layers, making it more challenging to work on different elements of the image separately.

Like the excellent free image viewer Irfanview, Photofiltre covers the majority of image formats and can batch process and convert images rapidly. Photofiltre has five different zoom options yet we found them to be more or less similar. The magnifier is probably less precise than the drop down percentage pane, and the auto zoom adjusts the image’s size according to Photofiltre’s window size.

The image explorer is located at the bottom of the screen, and if you set it according to your image file you’ll be able to quickly preview all your pictures. However, if you work with multiple image files, it can quickly become confusing, as you’ll have to open up an explorer tree pane every time to look for your pictures.

While Photofiltre is miles away from the professional oriented Adobe Photoshop it’s an excellent free alternative. The program contains all the essential tools and options to edit and optimize pictures. It loads up very quickly and changes can be instantly previewed. Novice photographers or graphic designers can use it to cut their teeth on image editing before going on to more complex applications.

Download PhotoFiltre 6.3.1 in Softonic

Although it is the PhotoFiltre successor and looks like it, this Studio version is much more powerful than the older one. Layer support is not the only evolution. A new display engine has been developed in order to handle real-time merging and alpha channel support. I have kept the same User Interface, because I think it's a more natural way to upgrade the software. Experienced users will be surprised to learn how much additional features they will get with the layer support.

Download PhotoFiltre Studio 8.1.1 in Softonic

PIXresizer is a free image resizer PIXresizer to easily create web and e-mail friendly versions of your images with reduced file sizes. The reduced files are saved in a different folder, so your original images are not altered at all.

PIXresizer offers several different resizing methods to choose from and can automatically recognize image sizes to calculate the best fit. In addition, it can convert between image formats (JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG and TIFF), rotate images, convert to grayscale and resize multiple images in batch mode.

A great companion for webmasters and digital photographers.

Download PIXresizer 2.0.2 in Softonic

Photo! Editor, previously known as Photo Toolkit, is a basic retouching tool with which you can fix and optimize your digital images in a couple of clicks.

The most outstanding feature of this photo editing tool is its seamless integration with Windows Explorer, which means it adds a whole new command group to the image file context menus. These commands enable you to launch the program's main tools straight away, without having to open the program itself before.

As for the tools included in Photo! Editor, like I said it's a pretty basic program, that is, this is no free Photoshop. That said, the truth is that Photo! Editor works perfectly fine for small retouching tasks such as optimizing colors, removing red eye effect or even cleaning someone's skin from spots, smooth wrinkles and other slight imperfections. Other tools included are a resampling/cropping utility, some really cool light effects and a caricature tool to apply a hilarious morphing effect to your photos.

The only drawback I found in Photo! Editor is that there's no way to browse the folder's contents using thumbnails. This means that if your photo file names are not descriptive enough, you'll have to click on them one by one just to find out which picture they correspond to.

Photo! Editor is the perfect choice for those who are looking for a simple, lightweight and easy-to-use photo editing tool to fix their digital images.

Download Photo! Editor 1.0 Beta in Softonic

Zoner Photo Studio includes all the tools you need to make the most of your digital photo collection.

This comprehensive suite covers every necessary step in photo managing, from extracting pictures from your digital camera to sharing them online. You can view the whole photo directory in thumbnails and double-click on any of them when you want to see if in full screen. Plus, if any of your photos needs optimization, you can also use Zoner for that, as it features tools to balance color, correct gamma values, resize images or even remove that undesirable red-eye effect.

Besides acquiring and optimizing, what I liked most about Zoner Photo Studio was the wide variety of publishing options the program includes for photos. From using your favorite shot as a desktop wallpaper to creating a DVD slideshow to enjoy your pics on TV, there are a bunch of really interesting possibilities, such as creating a web gallery, a customized calendar, a panoramic photo or even a 3D image, to name a few.

To be honest, the only drawback to Zoner Photo Studio is its clunky interface, although fortunately it can somewhat be fixed with skins. The real problem is that there are so many windows, sub-windows, panels and menus (especially when creating photo albums) that it feels confusing and overwhelming, to say the least.

Zoner Photo Studio gives you everything you need to view, optimize, share and enjoy your digital photos.

Download Zoner Photo Studio 9 in Softonic

If you’ve ever dreamed of mingling with movie stars, rubbing elbows with world leaders or having your face immortalized on the side of a mountain, ArcSoft Funhouse® can make it happen. This totally fun, simple software program lets you create hilarious ‘fantasy’ pictures featuring the faces of you and your friends. The program comes packed with over 150 cool background templates to get you started and includes tools for creating your own custom templates from scanned magazine covers or downloaded celebrity snapshots.

Download ArcSoft Funhouse 1.0 in Softonic

Photo Collage is a full featured, easy-to-use application with which you can create beautiful photo compositions in no time. No technical skills required!

The program contains just about anything you need you create the collage – that is, everything except images themselves. The featured material includes background images, frames, clipart, borders and masks, all of them is such a large and colorful variety that you'll find it hard to choose just one. Besides, the program is extraordinarily easy to use: simply drag and drop the different elements of your collage on the interface, resize and rearrange them any way you want with your mouse and you're pretty much done. It's like scrapbooking, but without scissors and glue.

The only drawback I found to this great app is the fact that some frames don’t blend with the background properly, meaning they show a white border around the frame instead of being transparent. Also, I'd like to be able to save my work in other formats (HTML, EXE) rather than just as an image file, but at least I have a few graphic formats to choose from.

Photo Collage enables you to create amazing collages with your digital pictures, but only save them as image files.

Download iFoxSoft Photo Collage 2.01 in Softonic

I'm only an amateur photographer who takes photos in JPG format with a simple compact camera, but I know professional photographers sometimes prefer to work with the RAW format, which allows further processing.

Being a more professional-oriented format, RAW images require special software applications like Capture One Pro. This complete photo viewer and editor lets you manage your RAW images with ease. It features an interface divided into three different sections (system directory tree, folder contents preview and image preview) and also includes a complete analysis of each selected photo.

With Capture One Pro you'll be able to tweak exposure, white balance, focus and other values in your RAW images and then save them in other formats (the program also works as a RAW converter). Each time you apply a change to the image you'll be able to preview the result in real time.

Capture One Pro is by no means a standard photo editor for standard users. It's a special software tool that's been specifically designed for advanced photographers, which means you may find it a bit difficult to use. Also, bear in mind that Capture One Pro is not compatible with all RAW formats, so you better check if your camera is supported before using the program.

With Camera One Pro you can view, tweak, edit and convert your RAW files in a professional working environment.

Download Capture One Pro 3.7.8 in Softonic

In these times days when most of us have digital photos coming out of our eyeballs, it can sometimes be difficult to know exactly what to do with all your snaps. Luckily, there are several programs kicking around that allow you to put your pictures to use in a creative way in order to impress your friends and family. Although it’s no Photoshop, CollageMaker provides a relatively simple way in which to bring your photos together and produce eye-catching collages.

The application proves to be pretty simple to use, even if you haven’t used any kind of graphics editor in the past, thanks to a clearly laid-out toolbar with distinctive icons. The selection of features at your disposal isn’t exactly ground-breaking, but the speed at which you can apply effects such as Colorize, Grayscale and Negative, has to be admired.

For the basic user, there’s enough power in here to design a decent enough looking presentation in just a few minutes, especially with the inclusion of text effects and a nifty Stamp tool. However, if you’re yearning for a program that allows you to create professional image compositions then you’ll be disappointed by the lack of advanced tools, such as layers and cloning. On top of this, simple omissions like the lack of a recently-opened file history and a decent help file only serve to lessen the kudos of the editor.

Download CollageMaker 2.0.5 in Softonic

Wire Pilot is photo retouching software especially designed for the removal of annoying wires in photos. The software allows you to remove wires, posts, antennas and other unwanted linear objects from a photo. It enables you to do so with far more ease and accuracy than using Photoshop or other image manipulation software.

Wire Pilot is very simple to use. You simply place the cursor on the line you want to remove and using the mouse wheel or cursor keys, set the cursor size and position on the line you are about to remove. You so this until the background color within the cursor circle matches the one of the object as much as possible. Simply use the mouse button to remove the line and then repeat this procedure along the corrected object.

Note that if you prefer to use this software within your favourite graphics program such as Photoshop or Elements, you can do so as a plug-in. This is a handy piece of software that makes life a lot easier than using traditional photo apps although it can still end up removing things that you don't want it to.

Download Wire Pilot 2.0.1 in Softonic

Dynamic Photo HDR is based on a still relatively new technology but it's an important one and one that's getting more and more focus from developers.

According to the developer, this is an ideal tool for those who have taken a photos but the image that they get is not the one that they imagined. The software can adjust photos so that any imperfections, distortions and focus problems are smoothed out as easily possible. It features very powerful Auto-Aligning, Manual and Auto-Assist Aligning of images with something called "Pin Warping" that can correct all various types of misalignment, including camera roll, pitch or yaw. Ever had a ghost type object appear on your photos? Dynamic Photo HDR can completely eliminate ghosting of moving objects. In addition, it features a series of tone mapping procedures that can create a whole range of images - from smooth photographic tone mapping to very dramatic images.

This is still very much a developing technology but it has the potential to improve your photos in a dramatic new way. Take it for a test drive and see for yourself.

Download Dynamic-Photo HDR 3.1 in Softonic

Some things will always be funny. Like dancing animals, splitting pants, toilet humor and, of course, your boss’s head on a chick’s body. Thus the birth of FaceOnBody. FaceOnBody is the only software in the universe designed specifically to put any face on any body. With any Windows-based system, you can transport the faces of your friends, classmates and co-workers to the most glamorous, sexy, seedy, hilarious places you can imagine. All you need is your digital photos and a little imagination.

FaceOnBody lets you take your digital photographs to a whole new level. FaceOnBody is the easiest way to transform all those digital photos of friends and family into truly hilarious images. FaceOnBody is super smart yet super simple to use. In just six simple steps, you can create your own FaceOnBody pictures.

Download FaceOnBody 2.4 in Softonic

ArcSoft Collage Creator® is a digital scrapbooking application that turns ordinary digital pictures and text into personalized works of art. The program includes everything one needs to turn regular digital photos and text into great-looking scrapbook pages suitable for printing, adding to a scrapbook, sharing with friends or hanging on the wall. And because it’s all done with your computer, each masterpiece can printed over and over again.

Download ArcSoft Collage Creator 1.0 in Softonic

Comic Life is a really fun application with which you can create comics out of your photos and images.

What I enjoyed most from the application is how easy it is to work with. With this type of program, you're looking to play around and Comic Life feels just like that. You can quickly drag and drop your images onto the interface, arrange them in order onto a page, drag bubbles and then enter your text.

Comic Life offers many shapes, forms and text lettering with styles reminiscent of the best cartoons and comics. All can be extensively customized to your taste from the style attributes tab on the right. I also quite liked the choice of filters, with which you can give a different aspect to your photos, like turning them into a scene from Sin City. If you don't want to get carried away into editing, Comic Life also features loads of page templates and themes that you can start off with.

Importing pictures onto the screen is easy, as you'll only need to drag and drop them from your desktop or pick straight from the preview pane in the application. Even more, you can use your webcam or DV camera to take snaps and post them immediately into your comic strip.

The only little downside to this app is that it sometimes uses up a little too much RAM.

Very intuitive and loaded with features, Comic Life is a great way to have fun with your pictures. It has all the bubbles, styles and fonts you'd expect to make good looking comics. Highly recommended.

Download Comic Life 1.3.4 in Softonic

Photo Graffiti can quickly and easily create comic greetings and celebration cards out of your digital images and photos. Hundreds of cartoonish graffiti clipart and text bubbles are available for you to make fun of your pictured friends. The result can be as funny as your imagination allows! When done, simply send your creations by e-mail directly from the program in the right size and file-format.

Take a look at what this program features for you:

• Original graffiti clipart
• Easy multi layer editing
• E-mail support
• Bubbles, signs and banners
• Seasonal themes

Download Photo Graffiti 1.01 in Softonic

Learn how to make your pictures look their best, organize them so you'll always find the right shot, and share them with friends and family.Whether you’re a beginner or skilled photographer, see how you can improve your pictures using the simple, powerful creative tools in Digital Image Suite Anniversary Edition.

Organize your photos

Organizing and finding photos is quicker and easier with improved file management and viewing – organize photos by date, by size, 5-star rating and more.

Editing and effects

Learn more about powerful tools for editing and enhancing your pictures, like panoramic stitching.

Share your memories

Share your pictures with the world - from a simple e-mail attachment, to a DVD slideshow with music and narration, see how you can show off your best work

Download Microsoft Digital Image Starter Edition 2006 11.1 in Softonic

This software application is probably the fastest and easiest way to apply some nice effects to your photos. You don't need any artistic skills, nor the ability to manage a complicated photo editor like Photoshop.

In Professor Franklin's Photo Effects you simply choose the picture you want to work on and select the filters you'd like to apply to it. The only big problem is the program's interface, which is designed to be different from the standard Windows app but makes it incredibly difficult to use. It seems they were paying more attention to esthetics rather than usability.

Despite this handicap, the program still has some interesting effects that will add a touch of elegance and originality: borders, frames, painting filters, folded corner effect or drawing filter are just some of the effects you'll find.

Add special effect to your photos in a couple of mouse clicks.

Download Professor Franklin's Instant Photo Effects 2.0 in Softonic

High resolution photos from modern digital cameras are often too large to send by e-mail, or at least, take a long time to upload.

Sometimes, if you're in a hurry, you just want to get your photos sent off without worrying about whether it's going to attach or not. Imgares is a batch photo editor that allows you to reduce both size and e-mail or upload transfer times. All you have to is drag and drop your photos into the application window (as many as you want), change the size and click "Start" - there's not much too it beyond that. This makes it very limited on the one hand but also extremely quick on the other. After resizing however, the program does allow you to rotate photos, add text to them and even make a slideshow in movie format. The useful bit is that this can all be performed in "batch" processing mode so you can process, resize and label as many images as you want at once. If you do choose the slideshow function, there are several transitions you can apply such as Zoom In and Zoom Out, light effects and some rotation options.

This is one of the most basic photo editing applications you may ever use but for those who need large numbers of photos resized instantly, look no further.

Download Imgares 1.41 in Softonic

DeformerPro is probably one of the easiest ways to have some fun with your photos and your PC on one of those boring Sunday afternoons.

First of all, bear in mind that this program is mainly intended for people who have little or no knowledge of photo editing at all. Power users may find it then a bit too simple but in any case it works really well for a quick morphing effect.

Simply run it (no installation required) and load a photo. Then start deforming the image with the mouse's right button and see how it's coming out in real time. At the beginning it'll all look weird but soon you'll get the knack of it. The overlaid grid also helps to achieve better results. Just one thing: you really need to be careful because DeformerPro only supports a one-level undo.

Once you like the final image (you can get a better look by temporarily disabling the grid) you'll be able to save it as JPG, BMP or PNG, ready to be published online or shared by email. Just be careful not to hurt other people's feelings!

Though probably too simple for expert image editors, DeformerPro is a great tool to apply warping effects to your photos in no time.

Download DeformerPro 1.0 in Softonic

If you've ever needed to resize an image quickly, then you need a tool that makes it as easy and as straight forward as possible.

VSO Image resizer organizes your photos by shrinking their resolution or reducing them on your hard drive. It's a one stop easy to use solution for all those that need to resize, compress, convert, create copies, import or organize photos. The main benefit of this is that the photos take up less storage space and are much easier to e-mail. You can also use them in third party applications much easier too such as design applications and other image editors. In addition, it's a good idea for webmasters to use this because reducing the resolution alone can mean that your webpages load much more quickly. You can change their format and also edit large numbers of image files at once as it supports batch editing. While the program doesn't have a particularly great interface, it is integrated very well into Windows shell so it's easy to access simply by right clicking.

If you're looking for a super quick and easy images resizing solution, then VSO will more than cater for your needs.

Download VSO Image Resizer 2.0.1.3 in Softonic