Photo editors are essential for digital photographers. They allow photographers to edit, alter and enhance the final look of their digital photos. Adobe Photoshop is the most popular photo editing software on the market, but it's not the only tool that both amateur and professionals have at their disposal.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard for editing digital photographs. It allows its users to retouch images, add special artistic effects to the images, and much more. For professional photographers and designers, no other photo editor can beat Adobe Photoshop. The only downside to this software is its price. Photoshop is available for $699, as of February 2011, from the Adobe website.
Picnik
For amateur digital photographers, Picnik is a popular online photo editor. The interface is easy to navigate and it is simple to add text, elements, borders and other effects. Picnik is a property of Google, so users can save the images to their Picasa web albums, in addition to their own computers. Picnik is free to use.
Pixl
Digital photographers who are familiar with Photoshop's interface will appreciate the web-based photo editor Pixl. Pixl is free, and some describe it as Photoshop in a browser. It has many of the basic features of Photoshop, including drawing, shapes, free transform and more.
Slashup
Another photo editor for amateur digital photographers, Slashup is a web-based photo editor that has the look of a desktop application. Slashup is similar to Photoshop in that it supports layers. Users can crop, use shapes, draw, and more. You can also import images from your computer or from popular photo sharing websites, such as Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa Web Albums.
Gimp
If you are looking for a Photoshop-like application, try Gimp. Gimp is a user-friendly and free photo editor application with features that are comparable to Photoshop. Gimp users have access to layers and masks, tabbed palettes, the clone tool, dynamic brushes and more.
Corel PaintShop Photo Pro
Corel PaintShop Photo Pro is a premium photo editing software. It is less expensive than Photoshop, available for under $100 as of February 2011, and it features photo effect filters, sketch, paint and photo-paint options. This photo editor makes it easy for digital photographers to import, edit and create professional-looking images.
Pixenate
The features on Pixenate are easy to navigate, which makes it good for novice photographers who are not familiar with advanced photo editors. Users can edit images stored on their computer or on a website. Features of this photo editor include teeth whitening, red eye, rotate, normalize and other basic tools.
FotoFlexer
Similar to Picnik, FotoFlexer is an online photo editor with basic features, such as rotate, crop, resize, red eye removal, blurred edges, grayscale and sepia conversion. FotoFlexer gives its users the option to import and edit photographs stored on social media websites, like Facebook and MySpace, as well as online photo sharing websites, like Photobucket, Flickr and Picasa Web Albums.
Phoenix Image Editor
Phoenix image editor is a web-based application that has basic photo-editing options, including undo and redo, fill color, add text, blend and tool brush. You can import from popular photo sharing websites, including Picasa Web Albums, Facebook and Flickr.
Picture2Life
Picture2Life is a free and easy-to-use online photo editor. It's useful for beginners, and it offers basic features like brightness, border, crop, contrast, oil paint, overlay and other tools. Users can upload images from blogging websites, such as Blogger and Wordpress; social networking websites, like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace; and photo sharing websites, such as ImageShack and Photobucket.
Tags: photo editor, Adobe Photoshop, digital photographers, online photo, photo sharing