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 2.6.0 with Softonic Toolbar in Softonic

When it comes to photo editing, the undisputed king is Photoshop. But if you're looking for a cheaper alternative that can give you the same – or at least similar – functionality then Active Pixels is an excellent choice.

This photo editor resembles Photoshop in many aspects, from the way menus and windows are laid out on its interface to the keyboard shortcuts used for many actions. It also includes similar tools, like the magic wand, the gradient, the polygonal lasso and others. What's more, it supports working with layers. Active Pixels also includes some extra embedded apps, such as a red-eye fixer, a picture browser and a screen capture tool - although it only grabs full-screen images.

That said, bear in mind that this free photo editor is not as powerful as Adobe's big shot. Despite the large number of filters and effects included, some of them lack proper configuration settings. I specially disliked the way sliders are designed: they're very uncomfortable to use.

In any case, Active Pixels is an excellent photo editor that can be very useful for those cases in which you don't have Photoshop at hand or you just prefer to use a lighter app to perform the same tasks.

A great photo editor with which you can edit and optimize images, all for free.

Download Active Pixels 3.05 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 2.0.0.6 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 1.1 in Softonic

ACDSee Pro is one of the most comprehensive image viewers you'll find. Elegant and full of features, it's an essential for anyone working regularly with images.

To discuss and review all the features of this program would require an essay but from the quick viewing of images to support for a vast amount of image formats, audio and video, the possibility of examining within compressed files, retouching images, batch processing of images and mass conversion formats it's an impressive piece of software. This Pro version, as its name suggests, is particularly focused on the professional end of photography. It offers excellent support for RAW format images, new tools for editing and retouching images, more possibilities for processing huge images (now you can also apply sepia effects for example) and the interface has changed slightly to make the work flow even better.

Probably one of the best image programs out there outside of Adobe software.

Download ACDSee Pro 2.5.333 in Softonic

Making your own icons is a cool way to add a touch of class to your desktop without adding any widgets or changing the theme.

Easy Picture2Icon allows you to create snappy and customised Windows icons based on your favourite images and designs. So for example, if you have a favourite photo, Easy Picture2Icon can simply process it and turn it instantly into an icon you can use on your desktop. It doesn't accept all file types but at the moment, Easy Picture2Icon is able to convert digital pictures into BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPG and PNG files to Windows icons (ICO).

However, that's as far as it goes because Easy Picture2Icon then allows you to use your favourite graphical editor to retouch and add your own special effects to icons. Easy Picture2Icon does however allow you to make transparent icons and you can choose which color to make transparent.

Easy Picture2Icon is a great way to get started creating your own icons although it's a shame it doesn't come bundled with a more comprehensive editor.

Download Easy Picture2Icon 2.5 in Softonic

Browsing your digital photos on your PC can be a cumbersome affair using the Windows Photo Viewer. If you're looking for a replacement, you could give Alternate Pic View Lite a go.

Alternate Pic View Lite lets you browse your photo collection in several ways: as small-sized thumbnails, inside the program's window, in full screen or even as a slideshow. What's more, Alternate Pic View Lite includes a pretty varied array of filters and effects you can apply to your images, including rotation, color and brightness adjustment, greyscale and red eye fix, among others.

So far, so good. The problem comes when you have to deal with the interface in Alternate Pic View Lite: it just doesn't work like the other photo viewers. To begin with, it shows the selected folder content in a window that's too small to be comfortable. Then, each photo has to be double-clicked in order to be displayed (instead of just selecting it with the mouse). Also, viewing options in Alternate Pic View Lite are not saved between photos, so you have to be constantly resizing images in order to view them.

Alternate Pic View Lite could be a good photo viewer with some nice editing tools and special effects. Too bad the interface is lacking in usability.

Download Alternate Pic View Lite 1.415 in Softonic

This very basic image editing tool can be used to remove any scratches on your old photographs but that is just about all you can do. In this sense, it is a very specialized program and as a result won’t appeal to many users.

Retouch Pilot’s major advantage is its simplicity. While a lot of people will be frustrated by the lack of functionality, those who are wary of complicated procedures and difficult to use tools will appreciate the minimal approach. Simply open the file you want to clean up, select the scratch tool, (there is only one other tool, the “Undo Brush”) and carefully trace over or click the parts of the image that need to be fixed.

In terms of effectiveness, the program can do an excellent job on obvious flaws when they contrast highly with the surrounding colors, especially when working on monotone photographs. However, for highly detailed images or not so obvious discrepancies, the program stumbles and the desired result is not so straightforward to achieve.

The interface is uncomplicated and there is an extensive undo history although this may be somewhat unnecessary with the availability of the Undo Brush. For someone who has a collection of old, slightly damaged photographs that they would like to scan and clean up a little bit, this is a convenient solution. However, for anyone who is serious about getting great results and having complete control, they should check out Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.

Download Retouch Pilot 3.0.2 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 3.0.4 in Softonic

If you've got a few special photos that you intend to blow up or use for something important, it's always a good idea to retouch them slightly to optimise their appearance.

If you do this with Photoshop, then expect a steep learning curve because you'll be fiddling around for hours with filters and other industry standard enhancement tools. However, if you're looking for something that can do the job with the minimum of fuss and ease of use, then you should take a look at Lightbox Free Image Editor.

Lightbox Free Image Editor is a bit of an ugly duckling interface wise - the developers have clearly opted for substance over style but it's surprisingly effective at what it does. The main control Lightbox Free Image Editor gives you is over brightness, shadows, color and saturation of images. These can play a crucial part in ensuring your image looks it's best but finding the right combination can be trial and error. However, you can use Lightbox Free Image Editor "Auto Balance" and "Smart Fill Light Options" to automatically see if Lightbox Free Image Editor can do a decent job itself.

If it's red eye you need to remove, Lightbox Free Image Editor automatically takes care of it (with mixed levels of success) and it can also add borders to your images and trim fuzzy edges or annoying objects in photos.

Lightbox Free Image Editor is a simple solution for photo editors that's particularly useful when it comes to balancing light problems.

Download LightBox Free Image Editor 1.20 in Softonic

XnView Portable is, put simply, a file explorer that has been especially adapted for image files and is developed to be run from a USB key.

XnView Portable features the same design and the same tools as its older brother XnView, which makes it a really convenient photo editor that you can carry anywhere with you. It has support for a few hundred different graphic formats as well as other media files such as AVI and MP3.

The interface in XnView Portable is divided into two sections: the left pane shows the folder structure, while the right one is where the contents of the selected folder are displayer. A double click on any image is enough to open it in full screen and work on it with the program's set of tools. XnView Portable is obviously no Photoshop, but you'll be able to do some cropping and resizing, adjust brightness, correct red eyes and other basic editing and retouching tasks.

If XnView is your favorite resident image viewer, now you can take it anywhere with you thanks to XnView Portable.

Download XnView Portable 1.94.2 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 1.43 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

We've gotten used to the perfection of digital photography, but there was a time when photos had dust, scratches, stains and other imperfections that could easily ruin them.

Luckily you can now fix those imperfections with Retouch Pilot Lite, a really simple photo retouching tool that doesn't require any designing or editing skills and can therefore be used by anybody. This Lite version doesn't include the Smart Patch tool available in the trial, but other than that it's a perfectly working tool with which you can easily restore old photos.

That said, bear in mind that Retouch Pilot Lite works best with small flaws such as light scratches, spots and the likes. The more serious the defect is, the harder it'll be to fix it without leaving any trace. Also, I missed having a color picker when using the concealer; it was hard to choose the exact color to paint over certain artifacts in the photo to make them disappear.

Generally speaking, I found Retouch Pilot Lite to be a great retouching tool for newbies, and especially useful to remove small flaws from pictures without having to learn how to use Photoshop or any other mammoth-sized editor.

Retouch Pilot Lite is the perfect tool for a quick photo retouch to fix small spots. More serious imperfections definitely need more editing skills and a more professional tool as well.

Download Retouch Pilot Lite 3.0.4 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

DxO Optics is widely recognized as being one of the best tools around to enhance your photos. It works with a wide range of both DSLR and Prosumera cameras and lenses. The application is not meant to be a photo organizer but you'll find it others a simple way of searching through your library of pictures and selecting the ones to edit.

DxO Optics is built on a straightforward process where you select, organize, process and then view your picture. You can perform a number of advanced retouching effects including removing camera noise, optimizing color or correcting perspective. DxO Optics lets you really zoom into pictures and correct details.

We did find the installation process a bit lengthy, yet the program itself takes no time to launch. It's also good to know that it comes with the DxO Optics Pro plugin for Photoshop.

A powerful solution to enhance images, DxO Optics Pro is the perfect complement to any photographers digital arsenal.

Download DxO Optics Pro 5.0.4 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

Qviewer is the advanced photo editor, image viewer and photo management tool for enthusiasts, amateurs, and professionals. View, edit, find, organize and print your photos faster and easier. Professional image edit tool such as erase, red eye remove, smudge remove, calendar , weather effects and more; Better image organization tools such as image star rating. More advanced slidedshows. Instant searching via a search field and a new Calendar Search that lets you find images by the date.

Download Qviewer 6.9 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

CEKLi PhotoLab is a very small, free photo editor which is useful to have on a USB pen-drive to adjust the size and contrast of your images any time you need to; whether it's before a press conference or at a friend's home after you have just downloaded the photos you took that day.

Apart from than the contrast and the brightness settings, also useful is the white balance function which can make portraits a bit smoother. Other than this the only advantage of the program is its portability as it consists of just one small .EXE file. In order to be more interesting it should really have had a few more features to retouch photos, like quick ways to eliminate red-eye, change color of objects or attaching two photos to make a poster.

CEKLi PhotoLab is an interesting application for people looking to carry out very basic photo editing jobs on the move but it's lacking anything in the way of advanced features.

Download CEKLi PhotoLab 0.4 in Softonic