While most professional photographers will utilize a professional image editing system like Adobe Lightroom, Apple’s Aperture Pro, or Adobe Photoshop, there are a lot of people who don’t need all that high-priced processing power and a few who just can’t afford it yet.
There’s no need to feel left out, there are many really good free photo editing applications out there. Some require a bit of learning and lack the automation and polish of more expensive programs, but you can’t argue with the cost.
GIMP is proof that high end image processing capabilities don’t have to cost a lot of money and it runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. The downside is it has a steep learning curve. If you’re coming at GIMP from an older version of Photoshop, you can almost forget it. GIMP gets its automation from scripts generated by the user base and getting them to work right can take a bit of practice.
I’ve also talked to the GIMP developers about changing the name, trying to point out the connotations of the name in English, but they just laugh and say I’m crazy.
Picasa offers superb organizational tools, galleries, geotagging data, support for RAW formats, and basic editing features. I’ve been a fan of Picasa from the beginning and, like most of Google’s tools, it just keeps getting better.
Probably the best organizational feature is the Unnamed Faces tool. When you import pictures of people, Picasa puts people it doesn’t recognize in a special folder and lets you tag them when you have time.
New editing features include blemish fix and basic retouching.
Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011
As the name implies, this application is limited to those of you using Windows. Despite that limitation, Windows Live Photo Gallery is quickly becoming a capable application. The first couple generations were a little chunky, but those days are behind them.
Windows Live Photo Gallery includes features to combine parts of two or more photos, retouch pictures, automatically stitch panoramas, and straighten photos that are crooked.
It may not be a power user tool, but it does bring a lot of push-button functionality to new users.
Paint.net is another Windows only program, but gets very high ratings from users and reviewers. CNET gave it 5 stars, as did Softpedia, and PC World.
Designed to be quickly intuitive, Paint.net supports many high end features including layers, unlimited undo, and dizzying array of special effects. Paint.net has an active and supportive community that provides a lot of support.
This is a Linux only program, but I wanted to give it honorable mention for being one of the best free photo applications on the market. It organizes photos by gallery, plus features a full suite of photo editing tools and compatibility with the KIPI plugin library.