Image editors
From TSG Library of Knowledge
If you have a digital camera, you know that the shots you take can often be far from perfect, but with a little computer magic you'll make your images look much better. Image editors are focused on processes such as cropping, image adjustments, sharpening, and filters and should not be confused with Image Managers, slightly different programs that aim at organizing large collections of images.
For information on how to edit photos, see Image Editing.
Free and Open Source
- Paint.NET
- Started by two WSU students and later bought by Microsoft, Paint.NET is an intuitive application that is much more than an extended Paint program. Paint.NET supports features like brightness settings, contrast settings, gradients, and embossing, as well as more advanced features such as curves and layers. It also sports a beautifully clean interface.
- IrfanView
- IrfanView is a powerful image editor with support for nearly all image formats. You can scan images, look through hundreds of images as thumbnails, create minor image adjustments, and create simple shapes in IrfanView, though it has a steeper learning curve than some other, albeit less versatile, image editors.
- GIMP
- Originally written for Linux, this open-source program is now available for Windows. It's a very powerful image manipulation program for photo editing and image creation that has been compared to Adobe Photoshop. However, its interface, consisting of many windows, is disliked by many.
- GIMPshop
- A modification of GIMP to imitate the menu and terminology of Adobe Photoshop. It shares GIMP's features, but the Windows version uses a consolidation of the application's many windows.
- Picasa2
- A popular image-editing program from Google.
For Pay
- Adobe Photoshop
- Now in its 10th edition and exploding with features, Photoshop remains the king of all image editors while maintaining a fairly gentle learning curve. For 1 grand you can have the full power of Photoshop or you can settle for the $650 version that lacks 3D and video support.
- Photoshop Elements
- A simplified version of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements is aimed at amateur photographers and is not as well suited as Photoshop for print design. PS Elements can help organize your pictures, in addition to editing them.
- Paint Shop Pro
- An advanced graphics editor from Corel.
- HP Image Zone 5
- An image editor from HP. The Adaptive Lighting adjustment is quite useful for salvaging underexposed images.
