Need to clean up your photos, remove red-eye from portraits, perform gamma correction, or add special effects? Lots of software offerings can help. Our list includes tools for amateurs and pros alike.
The Gimp
When you think of open-source software, you might think of half-baked programs that lack power and are too hard for normal folks to use. Well, think again. This open-source image editor packs a surprising amount of power and is well designed, if a bit eccentric in layout. Even though it's free, it compares favorably to the power of Photoshop, and it includes many of the kinds of editing features you can find in Adobe's program, including filters, effects, masks, and layers.
Of course, it has the basic tools you'd expect in a photo editor, such as red-eye removal, but it offers plenty more beyond those. If you're looking for professional-level photo editing but you don't want to spend a bundle--or even a penny--this is the program for you.
Download The Gimp | Price: Free
Photo Pos Pro
With photo editors, usually you can have one of two choices--either simple or powerful. As a general rule, the more simple the interface, the more basic the program, and the more powerful the program, the more complicated the interface. Photo Pos Pro does a great job of balancing power and usability. The interface is clean and simple, with all of the editing tools laid out neatly along the sides and the top of the main screen, which shows your photo. Hover your mouse over an icon, and a balloon tip will tell you exactly what it does, although in many instances the icon is self-explanatory.
The array of editing tools in Photo Pos Pro is mind-boggling. Every automatic-editing tool you could want is right there, from the basics (such as red-eye reduction) to advanced functions that automatically sharpen or blur images, make them warmer or cooler, add frames and special effects, and do many other tricks. You get drawing tools as well, plus the ability to work in layers. If you want powerful editing tools within easy reach, this application is a great choice.
Download Photo Pos Pro | Price: $50 (shareware)
XnView
When it comes to affordable photo editing programs, nothing is better than free, particularly if the program has a reasonable amount of editing tools. And that's what XnView has. You'll be able to resize, crop, correct red-eye, flip, rotate, and perform a wide variety of image adjustments, including brightness, contrast, and gamma. The app can also convert your pictures to different image formats. XnView is not a powerful tool like The Gimp, but for most work it'll do just fine. And you can't argue with the cost.
Download XnView | Price: Free
Saint Paint Studio
Looking for a simple photo editor that isn't bloated, but loads fast and doesn't require you to be a photo maven to use it? If so, you need Saint Paint Studio. It handles not just photos but also animations, and it has a surprising number of capabilities despite its compact size. You can crop, resize, correct colors, draw, add special effects, remove red-eye, and adjust color and brightness balance, for starters. Saint Paint Studio supports layers for more-advanced photo editing, too, though it doesn't have all the capabilities of Photoshop or The Gimp. People who don't demand particularly powerful features will find that this download has all that they need in a photo editing program.
Download Saint Paint Studio | Price: $40 (Trial)
Image Resizer
Need a quick-and-dirty way to resize a group of photographs? Get this free, exceptionally easy-to-use PowerToy from Microsoft. Right-click a single photograph or a group of photographs, select Resize Pictures, and a dialog box appears for you to resize the images to one of four sizes: Small (640 by 480 pixels), Medium (800 by 600 pixels), Large (1024 by 768 pixels), or Handheld PC (240 by 320 pixels). When you make your selection and click OK, it will make copies of your pictures in the new size while leaving the originals intact. If you click the Advanced button before you click OK, you can choose to resize the original pictures instead of making a copy. Warning: You can make pictures only smaller, not larger--if you choose a size bigger than the original, the program simply won't obey.
Download Image Resizer | Price: Free
FxFoto 2.0
Here's another freebie that's remarkable for the number of surprisingly powerful editing tools it puts at your fingertips. Think of a photo-editing feature, and FXFoto probably has it. Automatic red-eye removal? Yep. Brightness, contrast, and gamma correction? It has those as well. Color balance, filter effects, automated blemish removal, color brush, cloning, adding frames and borders...the list goes on.
What's also nice about FXFoto 2.0 is its interface, which creates a gallery of photos down the left side of your screen so you can easily scroll through them and find the exact one you want. Once you've tweaked your photos to your heart's content, you can create captions and then create a slide show of them, complete with transitions. (If you want to add music or narration, you'll have to upgrade to the paid version.) In addition, the program lets you create photo collages, and includes tools for sharing that collage via e-mail, uploading it to a photo-sharing site, or burning it to a CD.
Download FxFoto 2.0 | Price: Free
Cleanerzoomer
Have photos that need to be fixed? I don't mean something simple such as red-eye removal, but more complex problems, such as moiré patterns and other artifacts, overall noise, and other frustrating imperfections that afflict digital photos. If you're facing such challenges, give Cleanerzoomer a try. It can also sharpen edges, automatically adjust color balances, remove white spots and other artifacts, and a lot more. You also get a remarkable amount of control over photo fixing--in fact, for some people, maybe too much. For removing artifacts, for example, you'll find a wide variety of options such as setting filtration levels and weight measurements. Still, with a little experimentation, you'll be able to clean up even the dirtiest-looking photos.
Download Cleanerzoomer | Price: $35 (shareware)
Photo Managers, Album and Slide Show Creators, and More
Okay, you have photos saved on your hard disk--now what? You need to manage your collection, first of all. Beyond that, though, you'll want to create albums and slide shows, and do other interesting things with your images. Check out these great tools, including one that lets you create comic books from your pictures.
ACDSee 10 Photo Manager photo organizer
If you're looking for a great photo management tool, look no further. ACDSee 10 has just about any feature you can imagine for keeping your photo collection tidy. Start off with its stellar organizational tools: Not only can you view photos by folders, but you can also view them by rating, by content (such as whether they show people), by those you've most commonly used or viewed, and by a mind-boggling array of photo properties, from the the focal length to the aperture used to the camera's make, model, and owner.
In addition, the program includes a wide variety of editing tools that can change the exposure, reduce red-eye, crop, resize, and more. You also can batch-convert photos, upload them to the Flickr photo-sharing site, and create movies from them. In short, ACDSee 10 will manage photos pretty much any way you want.
Download ACDSee 10 Photo Manager | Price: $50 (shareware)
Roxio Media Ticker
If you'd like to create a sliding photo show that scrolls across your desktop, or if you want to display your photos for others by using the photo-sharing site Flickr, you'll want to try out this software. It creates a ticker-style scrolling bar of images that you can put in various places on your desktop. The images can be photos from your hard disk, pictures from RSS feeds, or your own photos uploaded to Flickr. Hover your mouse over any image to see a description of it. Double-click an image, and it will appear larger in a window. From there you can print a photo, e-mail it, rotate it, or set it as your desktop background, among other options.
Download Roxio Media Ticker | Price: Free
Comic Life
You ought to be in pictures--or at least in comic books. And that's exactly what this unique little program does. With it, you can gather your photographs and make comic books out of them. Just arrange your photos on pages and resize them, add thought balloons and talk balloons, jazz it up with colors, and create a comic book out of your life. The application has a tremendous number of graphics and effects that you can use, so each comic book can be unique. Comic Life also includes sound effects that add to the fun as you work. If you find yourself with plenty of photographs but you aren't sure what to do with them all, here's an easy answer.
Download Comic Life | Price: $25 (trial)
InAlbum Deluxe
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when people used to do something very quaint with their photographs: They put the prints into photo albums, which they would then pass around to their friends. Those days, of course, are gone. But the idea of the photo album never quite went away, and InAlbum Deluxe brings it into the modern world. With it, you create photo albums and slide shows on your computer that you can then show on your own PC or share with others.
You can save your albums and shows as a screen saver, an HTML page, a self-running .exe file, or even as a Flash clip, and you can burn them to DVDs as well. The program makes it easy to collect photos for your show and then edit your images, give your shows overall themes via templates, decorate the shows and photos, and add music and your own narration. Note that the trial version of the program has some limitations; for example, you can't import more than five photos at a time.
Download InAlbum Deluxe | Price: $55 (trial)
MemoriesOnTV
Though this is another program for creating slide shows with your photos, it adds a twist: It creates slide shows suitable for playing on a TV. You can then distribute your slide shows to anyone, whether or not they have a PC or want to watch slide shows on their computer. It imports photos of all the major formats, and it lets you include not just photos but also videos in AVI format.
MemoriesOnTV includes a sophisticated set of tools for creating your slide shows. For example, it has a timeline view that allows you to build your slide show by dragging and dropping photos, audio files, and animation files, and then adding effects. It includes enough visual effects to make you feel as if you're Martin Scorsese--pans, zooms, fade-ins and fade-outs, and even audio fading so that your sound comes in or out as your photo does. When you're done with your project, you can burn it to DVD or SVCD formats, both playable on living-room DVD players.
Note that the downloadable demo version has no limitations on it, but your slide shows will appear with a watermark. To make the watermark disappear, you'll have to buy either the Pro or Home edition of the software.
Download MemoriesOnTV | Price: $50 (demo)
Photoscape
Photoscape is yet another remarkable free piece of software that any self-respecting digital photographer needs on his or her hard disk. There's no way to begin to describe the wide range of tools and features this program has--you get a file viewer, a photo editor, a slide show creator, a batch editor, a screen-capture program, and so much more. It also has some original and innovative tools, such as one that combines multiple photos in a single frame. Another small but extremely convenient tool will take photos that are in the RAW format used by many digital cameras and convert them to .jpg, so that they're more useful.
Even though this program is free, the creator will take donations if you find Photoscape useful and you can pay via PayPal. Given the quality of this software, if you keep using it, consider making a donation.
Download Photoscape | Price: Free
Collage Maker
Another great thing to do with your photos is to create collages out of them, electronically. Collect your photos, resize them so that they fit exactly as you want, merge them, add borders, backgrounds, and edge effects, and add text to them. Collage Maker has lots of extras, too, such as the ability to add gradient backgrounds or give photos a sepia effect for an old, weathered look. You'll also find transparency effects, and you can even add a halo effect to photo or text. When you're done, you can print the collages out or save them in assorted formats, including .bmp, .gif, and .jpg. Additionally, you can use your collages as your desktop background, and for CD and DVD covers.
Download Collage Maker | Price: $28 (shareware)