Free photo editors with full support for layers, masks and other advanced image editing tools.
The right free photo editor will help transform your pictures – correcting colors, erasing blemishes and much more – so they’re ready to print or share online.
We’ve tested and ranked the best free photo editors, so you can get your pictures looking perfect without spending a penny on costly editing software. Whether you’re looking for a fully fledged Photoshop alternative for advanced editing, or a simple tool that will optimize your pictures with a single click, we’ve found the right tool for you.
Many free photo editors only offer a very limited selection of tools unless you pay for a subscription, or place a watermark on exported images, but none of the tools here carry any such restrictions. Whichever one you choose, you can be sure that there are no hidden tricks to catch you out.
If you need some resources for your projects, take a look at our guide to the best free stock photos.
Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux| Layers: Yes| Export formats: 40+
GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the best free photo editor around. It’s packed with the kind of image-enhancing tools you’d find in premium software, and more are being added every day.
The photo editing toolkit is breathtaking, and features layers, masks, curves, and levels. You can eliminate flaws easily with the excellent clone stamp and healing tools, create custom brushes, apply perspective changes, and apply changes to isolated areas with smart selection tools.
GIMP is an open source free photo editor, and its community of users and developers have created a huge collection of plugins to extend its utility even further. Many of these come pre-installed, and you can download more from the official glossary. If that’s not enough, you can even install Photoshop plugins.
Read our full review: GIMP
Platform: Windows| Layers: No| Export formats: JPG, PNG, BMP, TIF
If you’ve got a lot of photos that you need to edit in a hurry, Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019 could be the tool for you. Its interface is clean and uncluttered, and utterly devoid of ads (although you’ll need to submit an email address before you can start using it).
Importing pictures is a breeze, and once they’ve been added to the pool, you can select several at once to rotate or mirror, saving you valuable time. You can also choose individual photos to enhance with the software’s one-click optimization tool. In our tests this worked particularly well on landscapes, but wasn’t always great for other subjects.
If you want to make manual color and exposure corrections, there are half a dozen sliders to let you do exactly that. It’s a shame you can’t also apply the same color changes to a whole set of pictures at once, but this is otherwise a brilliant free photo editor for making quick corrections.
For more advanced editing, check out Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7 – the premium version of the software with enhanced optimization tools.
Read our full review: Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019
Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux (in browser); Android, iOS, iPadOS (mobile app)| Layers: No| Export formats: JPG, PNG, PDF
Canva is a photo editor that runs in your web browser, and is ideal for turning your favorite snaps into cards, posters, invitations and social media posts. If you’re interested in maintaining a polished online presence, it’s the perfect tool for you.
Canva has two tiers, free and paid, but the free level is perfect for home users. Just sign up with your email address and you’ll get 1GB free cloud storage for your snaps and designs,8,000 templates to use and edit, and two folders to keep your work organized.
You won’t find advanced tools like clone brushes and smart selectors here, but there’s a set of handy sliders for applying tints, vignette effects, sharpening, adjusting brightness, saturation and contrast, and much more. The text editing tools are intuitive, and there’s a great selection of backgrounds and other graphics to complete your designs.
Read our full review: Canva
Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux (in browser)| Layers: No| Export formats: JPG, PNG, PDF
Fotor is a free photo editor that’s ideal for giving your pictures a boost quickly.
