We continue with the rankings of the most downloaded free programs in the world, this time, with those that deal with photos and images, to manage them, modify them, to perform simple or complex photo retouches, to make photo montages, to manage them on the computer and to create personalized effects with your own photos. If it is true that there are many expensive software, used by photography professionals, it is also true that, for common users and normal people, there are as many valid programs, often with open source license, sometimes free, only if used at home .
In this list, drawn up on the basis of my personal opinion and with in-depth research, there are 10 best programs and, some of these, I find it hard to define indispensable and to have necessarily on the computer.
It doesn't matter if you manage many or a few photos and images on your pc and even if you work in the graphic field; programs like this can always be useful, they are almost all light and have been working very well for years.
The 20 best and most downloaded free programs for images and photos, for Windows (10, 8, 7, Vista and XP) are:
READ ALSO: Best alternative graphics programs to Photoshop, free
1) IrfanView
If for some categories of programs the first position can be discussed, in this particular sector the number one, a cut above all the others, is Irfanview and there is no one who will be able to object.
This application is downloaded every day by thousands of people and is a must for anyone working with images on their computer but it is also for inexperienced users who use the PC for the first time.
Irfanview, as I wrote in another article, is the best free program to browse and edit images and photos quickly.
Every time I read articles on blogs and forums such as: " How to resize photos on the fly ", " How to correct imperfections ", " How to cut out parts of images ", " How to balance colors ", " How to convert file formats image files "and much more, I reply:" better to use Irfanview "
Furthermore, like the program which inspires ACDSee (not free), it allows you to browse photos that are in the same folder by pressing the space bar and to open any type of image.
To have all the functions of Irfanview you need to download the program and then the plugins.
2) Picasa
This Google program has made leaps and bounds in recent times and has become an excellent program to manage the photos on your computer.
If Irfanview is perfect for quick operations and to browse through them, Picasa is ideal for organizing collections and having a global overview.
In addition to the many editing and creation options, Picasa also integrates with Google's online services (Picasaweb and Blogger) to upload photos to the internet with a click.
Picasa, as a PC program, is no longer developed by Google, but is still downloadable.
3) Pixlr is a great program for PC and Mac that allows you to edit photos very quickly thanks to its app-style interface for mobile phones.
All functions are easily found in the top menu or in the graphical menu on the left and are grouped into various categories.
The quick edits are resizing, cropping, red-eye, focus and auto enhancement.
In the other categories there are filters, effects, stickers, writings and image adjustment tools.
This is a great new and modern program that everyone can use to edit photos on their PC.
4) PhotoScape is one of the most used and downloaded programs by photographers, both professionals and amateurs because it allows you to work with the RAW file format .
There are also a lot of professional features like backlight correction, white balance adjustment, red eye removal and much more.
Phostoscape is ideal for combining images on a print page
5) FastStone Image Viewer is an impressive image viewer, comparable to IrfanView.
FastStone is a little less fast and simple but it has additional functions for editing images, even multiple batches together and allows you to work with Photoshop's PSD format as well.
6) Serif's PhotoPlus is an alternative to Photoshop for image and photo editing, very powerful, professional and free.
7) Microsoft Photostory 3
It is not clear why Microsoft abandoned this program gem in favor of the heavier Windows Movie Maker.
I speak of Photostory in the article as the best program to create a video with photo and image slideshows .
Although it has not been developed for 5 years, it can still be downloaded for free from the Microsoft website and, I can continue to say that it is the easiest to use and the most immediate software to create a video with photos.
7 Bis) Microsoft Photos is the Windows 10 program to manage PC photos and also to apply special effects and basic changes.
8) GIMP is the open source and free version of Photoshop.
Some say it is immensely better and others (including myself) say it is more difficult to use, since it has a bigger learning curve (and Photoshop is not that simple yet).
The good thing is that, being widely used all over the world and also in Italy, searching the internet you will find video tutorials, instructions and complete manuals to carry out most of the photo editing operations.
9) Paint.NET is similar to Gimp, much more recent but much easier to edit images effortlessly and without manuals .
Paint.net cannot be used with high resolution images and it is not a professional software but it is absolutely recommended and suitable as a home photo editing program by non-expert users.
10) XnConvert is a program for automatically editing groups of photos and images described in detail in another article, ideal for converting and editing various photos together.
11) PhotoPad is a free photo editor for Windows PC, easy to use and complete with all the image optimization tools for beginners and also with advanced functions for professionals.
You can easily crop an image, resize or rotate it, change colors, add effects, make automatic corrections, regional, add filters, insert text and much more.
12) LightZone is a very complex opensource program that allows you to quickly edit a series of photos, with great effects, styles and adjustable tools.
LightZone is the open source alternative to LightRoom, the best program for processing RAW images.
Instead of using layers and color masks, LightZone divides an image into 16 "zones", each varying in brightness from the one next to it so you can easily manipulate parts of an image.
LightZone can also immediately "turn on" the image so that it appears as if it were under different lighting conditions.
To download it, you need to register a free account on the site.
13) InkScape for vector drawing is a famous open source software used at professional levels as a free alternative to Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw, for vector graphics and support for the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format.
14) Photoshop can be downloaded for free in the CS2 version, the older one, still good for learning.
15) RawTherapee is another excellent alternative to Adobe Lightroom, open-source, not difficult to use like GIMP.
16) Photofiltre is a simple program that works very well for replacing colors in images and highlighting colors in photos
17) LazPaint is a little known but very effective open source program both in basic tools and in level support.
18) Chasys Draw IES is another free and open source image editor, which also works as an image viewer and converter.
19) RealWorld Paint is a program for editing images that is very easy and perfect to use also for overlapping photos with each other as well as for drawing on images.
20) Fotomix is not famous so it is out of the top ten but my cue that I cannot fail to mention yet.
Personally, a free program so simple to use to create professional photo montages and photo retouching, almost as you would do with Photoshop I didn't think it could exist.
Photomontages are not only of the classic type, where you put your photo on the background of another but it is also possible, with a 10-minute job, to put another person inside your photograph.
In other in-depth articles:
- Best free photo editor programs, for photo editing and graphics
- 3 programs to fix photos for free on Windows PC
