With the increased use of digital cameras as well as the cameras that are in smart phones, there is a need for photo editing software to take these snapshots and turn them into great photographs.
Luckily there are a number of free software programs that are currently available. These give the user a wide variety of ways to tweak and manage the photos that they take.
1. Picasa
One of the more popular programs that is used for photo sharing is Picasa. This program is made by Google and can be used through a web based version or a computer program that can be downloaded and installed for free. Picasa offers a wide variety of editing features that allow the user to touch up their photographs in many different ways.
There is also a great deal of organization available where users can manage their photo albums quite easily. Picasa can be downloaded onto Windows or Mac computers and the web based version works best on Google Chrome.
2. Picnik
Picnik is another free photo editing program. This is a web-based program that is also through Google. Picnik is more of a basic program and it allows users to add interesting and fun designs or effects to their photos. As it is primarily a web program through Google, it will run best on Google Chrome.
3. GIMP
For someone that is looking for a more robust and free photo editing program a good option would be GIMP. This program will run on Linux, Windows and Mac operating systems. GIMP is more than just a photo editing software program. It is a program that can be used to edit various forms of media and has a rather diverse layer editing function.
4. Paint.net
Paint.net is a simple to use photo editing program. It is available only for Windows computers and there is no Mac version available. It is a very straightforward program that includes a number of options such as layering. The one drawback to paint.net would be that there is no option for photo sharing or organization.
5. Windows Live Photo Gallery
For users of Windows computers, the Windows Live Photo Gallery is a good program for photo editing. It has a robust face recognition program and is simple to set up and use. The main drawback of the program is that it will only work in Windows 7 and Windows Vista.
As there are a great number of free photo editing programs out there, it is just a matter of finding the one that best meets the needs of the individual user.