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Photo & Image Editors and Viewers

Online and Offline

 

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Whether you are away from your normal production "machine", you want to try some new software, or don't want to spend the near-'ransomware' prices associated with some software packages, there are a number of alternatives available. Please have a look at some of the offerings listed below.

Clicking on any of the links below will open a new window or tab and take you to another website. Phase One has no control over these websites. Please use caution when visiting them. And, as with all free software, please investigate before downloading to be sure they are safe and free from malware.

Free - Online Use

  • First, here are some searches for you to try:
       ai photo sharpening,
       ai photo enhancement,
       ai photo background removal,
  • Krita : "Krita is a professional FREE and open source painting program. It is made by artists who want to see affordable art tools for everyone. An intuitive user interface that stays out of your way. The dockers and panels can be moved and customized for your specific workflow. Once you have your setup, you can save it as your own workspace. You can also create your own shortcuts for commonly used tools."
  • Photopea is an advanced image editor, which can work with both raster and vector graphics. You can use it for simple tasks such as resizing images as well as complex tasks such as designing web pages, creating illustrations, processing photographs and more. It supports editing PSD, XCF, Sketch, XD and CDR formats (Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, Sketch App, Adobe XD and CorelDRAW).
  • Photoshop Express Editor : No downloading or installation necessary, this is an online editor – "Make your snapshots look amazing with the Adobe® Photoshop® Express Editor, which gives you easy options for quick fixes, creative enhancements, and endless fun."
  • Pixlr : a free image editor that rivals Adobe Photoshop! Home Page | Direct link to the Editor | Background Removal
  • Polarr : Free & Premium level accounts.
  • Sumopaint : More of a painting tool than a photo editor. Free & Premium account levels.
  • Tailor Brands : "Kickstart Your Business. Start With A Logo."
  • Vectr : "Free Vector Graphics Software. Vectr is a free online graphics software resource used to create vector graphics easily and intuitively. It's a simple yet powerful web and desktop cross-platform tool to bring your designs into reality." (Free & Premium levels)
  • AI Aided App: Hotpot Tools From their website: "Hotpot offers AI & design tools for graphic design and media creation. Our AI services include background removal, picture colorization, photo restoration, image upscaling, art personalization, app localization and more."
  • AI Aided App: AI Image Enlarger From their website: "AI-Powered image enlarger increases image resolution without losing quality. Fix blurry photos by using Image Sharpener." (The free version of ImgLarger limits you to eight images per account/email address.)
  • AI Aided App: Profile Pic Maker From their website: "Make an awesome profile picture from any photo."
  • AI Image Enlarger From their website: "Enlarge and Enhance Images with AI Image Enlarger. One-click AI solution to Make Your Photos Sharper, Crisper, and Cleaner. Increase image resolution without losing quality."
  • BeFunky From their website: "Photo Editing and Graphic Design Made for Everyone. BeFunky's all-in-one online Creative Platform has everything you need to easily edit photos, create graphic designs, and make photo collages."
  • Fotor Image Enlarger From their website: "Free Online Image Enlarger. With Fotor's AI image enlarger, you can enlarge images online with just one click! Instantly increase image size and resolution with better quality."
  • Image Enlarger From their website: "This free online tool allows you to upscale small images without losing quality or introducing distortion (also known as 'artifacts'). Our tool provides several resampling methods which are suitable for different types of images (e.g. line art vs photographs) and allows you to choose your preferred upscaled version from a list of results."
  • Infogram : "Create engaging infographics and reports in minutes. Infogram is an intuitive visualization tool that empowers people and teams to create beautiful content. Design with ease" — Free & Premium levels.
  • Upscale Pics From their website: "Upscale Enlarge And Enhance Your Images For Free. Automatically increase resolution using AI image processing."
  • Change My DPI : "Use this free tool to change the DPI of your image instantly. 1) Choose a new DPI value (by clicking on the number bar, for example 200 or 300). 2) Select your image file (press the "choose image" button). 3) Your new image (with your chosen DPI) will instantly download to your device."
  • FastStone Image Viewer & Photo Resizer : "Image Viewer — An image browser, converter and editor that supports all major graphic formats including BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO, TGA and camera raw files. It has a nice array of features such as image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, color adjustments, musical slideshow and much more. Photo Resizer — An image converter and renaming tool that intends to enable users to convert, rename, resize, crop, rotate, change color depth, add text and watermarks to images in a quick and easy batch mode."
  • Image Optim Online : "JPEG and PNG compressors with special secret artisan-crafted settings."
  • OptimizeImages : "online with our compressor and converter! With our tool you can optimize and compress images (PNG, SVG, JPG, GIF), convert to newly formats such as webP or AVIF and scan your website to check the images that need optimization."
  • Squoosh : "Small. Simple. Secure." Now you can compress images online - no need to install or open software on your computer.
  • Tiny PNG : "Smart PNG and JPEG compression. More than 1 billion PNG and JPEG images optimized and still counting!"

Free - Installation Required

  • APowerSoft : "Will allow you to view photos supported by these programs and cameras: PhotoShop, CorelDraw, Canon, Sony, Nikon, Olympus, Matsushita and others. Will allow you to view photos in these formats: PNG, JPG, BMP, TIFF, HEIC (HEIF), PSD, CDR, RAW, etc. This software also allows you to view PDF files directly."
  • CinePaint : "is a deep paint image retouching tool that supports higher color fidelity than ordinary painting tools. CinePaint opens high fidelity image file formats such as DPX, 16-bit TIFF, and OpenEXR, and conventional formats like JPEG and PNG."
  • GIMP : This is most well-known of the free alternatives to Photoshop. It is cross-platform with full support for layers and masks. There's even a version called GIMPshop for those Photoshop users who want a less painful transition to this alternative.
  • HoneyView : "HoneyView is a free image viewing program which allows you to easily view and edit images. It works well on all Windows devices and comes with a range of features. You can use the app to see compressed files without extracting them, add different effects while presenting a slide show, and edit entire folders if you need to. HoneyView is well-designed and suitable for anyone looking for an easy-to-use image viewer tool." Download Here
  • Image Glass : "A lightweight, versatile image viewer. A simple-to-use program that comes packed with basic functions and a nice minimal modern user interface."
  • Inkscape : "Inkscape is a professional vector graphics editor for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It's free and open source." But it comes with a steep learning curve and is not very intuitive.
  • IrfanView : "Loads of features, including: View Images, Convert, Optimize, Scan & Print, Create Slideshows, Batch Processing, Multimedia capable, and much more. • Fast and compact (just 5 MB), • Freeware for non-commercial use, • Supports Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10, • 32 and 64 bit version, • Multi language support, • Unicode support, • Designed to be simple but powerful. In addition to its image viewing features, it also includes a few handy tools. One is its OCR-enabled image editing capabilities. This enables you to read text on an image and export it to an editable format."
  • JPEGView : "Enables you to open, view and edit photographs, as well as display information about them, without hampering your system's resources. JPEGView is a small software application which was developed in order to help you view and edit images, with support from a wide range of formats, including JPG, BMP, PNG, TIFF, WEBP, GIF, TGA, DNG, CR2, RW2, DCR and CRW."
  • LazPaint : Definitely for the beginner, but also for experienced users who want a fast, fun, easy to use editor when they are in a hurry.
  • nomacs : "nomacs is a free, open source image viewer, which supports multiple platforms. You can use it for viewing all common image formats including RAW and psd images. nomacs includes image manipulation methods for adjusting brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, gamma, exposure. It has a pseudo color function which allows creating false color images. A unique feature of nomacs is the synchronization of multiple instances. With this feature you can easily compare images by zooming and/or panning at the exactly same position or even by overlaying them with different opacity."
  • Paint.NET : This Windows-only offering, though slightly less powerful than GIMP is a bit easier to use.
  • PhotoFiltre : "is a complete image retouching program. It allows you to do simple or advanced adjustments to an image and apply a vast range of filters on it. It is simple and intuitive to use, and has an easy learning curve. The toolbar, giving you access to the standard filters with just a few clicks, gives PhotoFiltre a robust look."
  • PhotoPad : Photo Editing Software. Edit your photos easily on a PC or Mac.
  • Photoscape : "is a free, fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos."
  • PhoXo : When you want to have some fun with your images, here is a "tiny, fast, easy to use, powerful, free, image and photo editor".
  • Pixia : An English language version of an image editing program popular in Japan. (Windows only)
  • RawTherapee : "RawTherapee is free and open source (cross-platform) software, meaning you can use it free of charge, wherever you like on whatever hardware you like, as long as you abide by the copyleft GPLv3 license. With RawTherapee you can work with RAW files as well as standard JPEG, PNG (8/16 bits), and TIFF files. It gives you advanced control over various algorithms with many fine-tuning parameters and curves. A wide variety of cameras are supported, including almost all DSLRs and even some medium format bodies."
  • Seashore : "Seashore aims to serve the basic image editing needs of most computer users, not to provide a replacement for professional image editing products." (Mac only)
  • XnView : "XnView is an efficient image viewer, browser and converter for Windows 7 & 10. This software is really simple to use and totally free for personal use. It supports more than 500 image formats! No Adware, No Spyware."

Free - Other Editors

  • a9t9 - Free OCR Software : "Free open-source OCR software for the Windows Store. The application includes support for reading and OCR'ing PDF files. The a9t9 free OCR Software converts scans or (smartphone) images of text documents into editable files by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies. It uses state-of-the-art modern OCR software. The recognition quality is comparable to commercial OCR software."
  • Photo Scan - OCR and QR Code Scanner : "Photo Scan lets you extract Text from Photos and can help you Scan/Generate QR Code without any problem. Photo Scan is efficient, clean, beautiful and easy to use. It can help you in many different scenarios like copying number or very long Important text from a photo which is difficult to write."
  • Capture2Text : "Capture2Text enables users to quickly OCR a portion of the screen using a keyboard shortcut. The resulting text will be saved to the clipboard by default."
  • SimpleOCR : "SimpleOCR is the popular freeware version of OCR Software with hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. If you like free stuff, freeware versions of our SimpleView Document Viewer (with Tesseract OCR), SimpleCoversheet Bar Code Printer, and SimpleExport CSV to XML Converter are also available. If you have a scanner and want to avoid retyping your documents, SimpleOCR is the fast, free way to do it. The SimpleOCR freeware is 100% free and not limited in any way. Anyone can use SimpleOCR for free–home users, educational institutions, even corporate users."

Paid For

  • Pixelmator : ($29.99, Mac) "A full-featured and powerful image editing app for the Mac. Pixelmator takes full advantage of the latest Mac technologies, giving you speedy, powerful tools that let you touch up and enhance images, draw or paint, apply dazzling effects, or create advanced compositions amazingly simple. Once your images are ready, access them anywhere with iCloud, send them to iPhoto or Aperture, email, print, share, or save them to popular image formats–all right from Pixelmator."
  • Acorn : ($39.99, Mac) "Everyone needs to edit images at some point, but not everyone has the time to learn complicated super pricey image editing programs. This is why we created Acorn. Add text and shapes to your digital pictures. Combine images together to create your own. Work with layers to touch up your favorite photos or make something new from scratch. Do all this and more with Acorn."
  • Sketch : ($9/month or $99/year, Mac) "The designer's toolbox. Sketch is a professional vector graphics app with a beautiful interface and powerful tools. We set out to build a better app for graphic designers. Not to copy, but rather to improve."
  • Aperture : ($79.99, Mac) "Aperture combines the control and speed pros want for demanding photo tasks with the easy learning curve iPhoto users need to step up to an advanced photo tool."
  • PaintShop Pro : PaintShop Pro 2021 is a one-time payment of $119. PaintShop Pro 2021 Ultimate is $149.
  • PhotoPlus X6 : ($89.99, Windows) "Photo editing just got easier - Edit and enhance photos of family, friends, and holidays in no time with the easy-to-use tools in our great-value, must-have photo editing software. Make simple, hassle-free fixes in minutes and achieve stunning results with professional features, all in PhotoPlus X6."
  • Photoshop Elements : ($99.99, Windows & Mac) "Empower your creative vision with photo editing options for every user level, and turn ordinary snapshots into something spectacular. Easily organize, edit, and create brilliant photos to share via print, the web, Facebook, and more. And now, take your Elements photos with you, wherever you go, on your smartphone or tablet."