The Top 16 Paid and Free Photo Editors Online in 2021

The best ecommerce sites all have one thing in common: amazing product photography. It’s one of the main factors that drive conversions. Customers can’t touch or experience your products physically, so it’s up to you to make them come to life online.

While getting the right shot is important, it’s what you do with it afterward that really takes it home. No matter how well you shoot your photos, there are always ways to improve them with photo editing.

That’s why we’ve put together this list of the best paid and free photo editors online as well as other resources for creating beautiful DIY product photos that shine online.

11 best free photo editors online

1. Taler
2. GIMP
3. Fotor
4. Inkscape
5. Pixlr
6. Photoshop Express
7. Photo POS Pro
8. BeFunky
9. Canva
10. Instasize
11. Scratch Photos

1. Taler

Best free online photo editor with free graphic design templates

Taler is a scrappy new social design and photo editing tool that’s free forever and perfect for launching a new business, brand, or store. With Taler you can customize templates for Instagram Stories, t-shirt mock ups, and social banners for Facebook and YouTube. 

New templates are being added every week, with more design sizes for all social platforms coming soon. Think of Taler as a sandbox for creating your digital branding with some great starter styles to help entrepreneurs grow their Shopify stores faster.

Features include: 

• Hundreds of customizable design templates tailored to size requirements for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and more.
• Drag-and-drop editor for easily customizing visual content to match your Shopify theme.
• Powerful suite of filters, overlays, and photo editing tools for carefully refining and adjusting your header template design.
• Text tools to move, resize, and color text to amplify your message.
• Over 17,000 high-resolution, royalty-free images to use in your design.
• Free stickers, shapes, emojis, and graphics.

Available for: iOS and Android

Price: Free

2. GIMP

Best open source online photo editor for pixel art and animation

GIMP is a free photo editor online that’s considered the best free Adobe Photoshop alternative. It comes packed with professional tools for image retouching and editing, free-form drawing, and converting different image formats.

Whether you’re a hobby photographer or learning how to take photos with a smartphone, GIMP gives you sophisticated tools for making your images standout. GIMP also has a full customizable interface and, since it’s open source, you can add your own filters and features. 

Features include:

• Fully customizable interface for making changes to the photo editor that meet your needs. 
• Powerful photo enhancement tools for fixing distort and imperfections. 
• Digital retouching for getting rid of minor details quickly and easily. 
• Hardware support for various devices to create custom tools and speed up workflow.
• File format support for JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, TIFF and other special use formats, including the multi-resolution and multi-color-depth Windows icon files.

Available for: GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows

Price: Free

3. Fotor

Best free photo editor online for beginners

Free photo editor Fotor is a browser-based option with an interface that makes it easy for creatives, photographers, and marketers to edit photos. Unlike other web-based programs, Fotor is fast and won’t slow up your computer while using it. 

Fotor makes advanced photo editing techniques achievable for less-technical people. You can easily apply filters, add effect, and edit images on the go. It’s intuitive and simple application helps you do more with your photos even without a background in photo editing and graphic design. Fotor is one of the best free photo editors out there, though for a small monthly fee you can upgrade to Pro for added features. 

Features include:

• One click batch processing for Scenes, Effects, and Borders.
• State-of-the-art photo processing engine for adjusting exposure, brightness, contrast, white balance, and saturation, removing red eye, and more. 
• Flexible text editing tool for adding text to any photo.
• Collage tool with over 80 templates and up to nine photos per collage.
• Batch resizing, renaming, and file format conversion.
• 100+ exclusive photo effects, 30+ photo frames, and 300+ custom stickers. 

Available for: Web, iOS, Windows

Price: Free, ($4.99 per month for Pro) 

4. Inkscape

Best free photo editor online for creating vector graphics

One of Inkscape’s strengths as a stand-out free photo editor is its ability to create and manipulate objects. It’s considered an excellent free alternative to Adobe Illustrator, with an ease-to-use and clear interface. 

The software uses the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) file format, so you can create graphics and use them in other marketing assets, like banners or social media posts, without distorting them. Like GIMP, above, Inkscape is open source, which means you can customize the photo editing software to fit the needs of your business. 

Features include: 

• User-friendly tool for creating vector graphics.
• Suite of pencil, pen, calligraphy, and shaping and cloning tools for creating your own images. 
• Compliant SVG format file generation and editing.
• Easy-to-use object manipulation tools for moving, skewing, cropping, and rotating images.
• Simple node editing for efficiently modifying images. 

Available for: Linux, Windows and macOS

Price: Free 

5. Pixlr

Best free photo editor online for Mac

If you want a lightweight editor you can use on your phone or laptop, Pixlr is a great free photo editor for you. With its robust suite of photo editing tools, you can make quick changes to your photos without any hassle—whether you’re at home or on the go.

Pixlr is built using Flash, so it requires a plug-in to use. Many experts in photo editing say the Pixlr editor has many of the same features as Adobe Photoshop, but the browser-based software is a lot simpler than Adobe. 

Features include:

• Free-to-use web-based editing tools available for commercial use. 
• Lightweight application that runs on any browser or operating system across a family of apps.
• Tons of one-click features and robust toolset for quick and convenient fixes to colors and saturation, sharpening and blurring images, and combining multiple images.
• Tutorials to guide you through more complex features.
• Available as native app on Mac and Android.
• Free vector graphics editor and selection of free stock photos for your creatives. 

Available for: Web, iOS, and Android

Price: Free

6. Photoshop Express

Best Adobe photo editor for mobile

Adobe, a company well known for elite image and video editing tools, also offers a free photo editor called Photoshop Express for your smartphone. Photoshop Express is easy to use, boasts impressive on-the-go editing features to crop, fix red eye, and even share your finished work on social media, and more. You can also sync the tool with other Adobe products if you are already using them. 

Features include:

• Quick-fix tools that heal blemishes, adjust perspective, and more.
• Hundreds of themes, effects, text styles, and stickers you can apply in one click to express your brand’s creativity. 
• Edit, retouch, and create collages or combine photos in a tap.
• In-app tutorials and playbacks that show you how to create and apply edits to your photos.
• Ability to post favorite photos to social media sites or share them in email or messaging apps. 

Available for: iOS, Android, and Windows

Price: Free

7. Photo Pos Pro

Best free photo editing software for Windows

The beauty of Photo Pos Pro is that you can choose your interface right off the bat, including a simple, beginner-friendly one with core tools and editing features. There’s also a more professional interface equipped with advanced functions like layers and layer masks and tools for adjusting curves and levels manually. 

Photo Pos is a great option for store owners and marketers who want a simple photo editor to remove background and unwanted objects, apply color correction, and create borders and overlays. Because of its user-friendly interface, you can perform various image enhancement tasks from basic edits to more advanced photo effects, creating new works from scratch, and more.

Features include:

• Support for all file formats, including RAW, GIF and PSD.
• Customizable interface for editors for different levels of experience.
• Pixel image-editing tools, including drawing, selecting the necessary area, adjusting the size, filling, eraser, and more. 
• One-click browser tools to adjust size, resolution, reflection, rotation, and more.
• Semi-automatic color correction and various filtering and effects options.

Available for: Windows

Price: Free (Pro Upgrade starting at $29.99)

8. BeFunky

Best free online photo editor with special effects for bloggers and influencers

BeFunky is a free photo editor that’s ideal for making basic photo enhancements and color correction quickly. If you have a specific area that needs retouching, the tool has a variety of options for taking your image to the next level. It’s simple, easy to use, and performs well in your web browser.

BeFunky also has another cool feature, called Graphic Designer, which allows you to create brochures, posters, social media posts, and even your own templates, right in the app. While it may lack certain professional features, such as editing layers, you won’t find a more efficient option for getting high-quality, creative images in little time.

Features include:

• Resize tool to quickly resize images for printable and digital assets.
• Background remover for easily creating solid and transparent backgrounds.
• Cartoonizer for going from photo to cartoon in one click.
• Suite of enhancer tools that use smart technology to sharpen photos, make colors vibrant, and more. 
• Batch processing tool for editing hundreds of photos at once, saving you time in your photo editing process.

Available for: iOS, Windows, Linux, NativeApp

Price: Free ($1.99 for app)

9. Canva

Best online photo editor for collages and professional level editing

Canvais a free photo editor that runs in your browser and is perfect for turning your images into other business assets like social media posts, brochures, presentations, and more. This online design tool offers a ton of powerful editing features, including a drag-and-drop design tool and millions of stock photos, vectors, and illustrations. 

With Canva, you can easily edit photos using preset filters or get advanced tools like tints, vignette effects, sharpening, brightness adjusting, saturation and contrast, and more. If you want to build a consistent presence around your entire business—from product photos to marketing assets—Canva’s got you covered. 

Features include:

• Image library with a wide variety of textured backgrounds for enhancing photo filters and transparency in your image.
• Image cropper for trimming and transforming shots on web or mobile devices.
• Ability to drag-and-drop speech bubbles and text into your designs to amplify your message.
• Tons of trendy filters for giving photos your favorite signature looks. 
• Photo-grid design collage maker to create everything from complex arrangements to mood boards. 

Available for: Web, iOS, Android

Price: Free (Pro starts at $9.95 per month)

10. Instasize

Best online photo editor for Instagram influencers and mobile editing

Instasize is one of the most popular Instagram tools and mobile photo editors for creatives. Its clean and easy-to-navigate interface helps you make photos look better instantly, with photo filters and editing tools including contrast, exposure, saturation, and clarity. You can also resize photos to fit any social media channel, like TikTok or Snapchat, with the photo crop tool. 

Even if you’re not much of a photo editor, Instasize makes it easy for any skills level to add a creative touch to their photos. With over 130 professional filters to choose from, including beauty tools, captivating borders, a collage creator and text editor, you’ll be well on your way to creating a unique look that’s just right for your brand.

Features include:

• Full editing toolkit for social creatives to make visually engaging photos and videos. 
• Free video editor with crop and export option for Instagram Stories, TikTok, and Snapchat. 
• 100+ unique photo borders, from original white to trending designs patterns.
• 20+ unique for adding a message on your photos and videos.
• Free photo collage maker with hundreds of layouts and backgrounds. 

Available for: iPhone and Android 

Price: Free (Premium starts at $4.99 per month) 

11. Scratch Photos

Best free photo editor online to remove background

Scratch Photos gives social sellers a tool to remove the background of product photos quickly and easily. It’s powered by advanced AI technology that scans and removes backgrounds from even the toughest photos. After removing the existing background, you can use Scratch Photo to insert a different color or texture or source a background from Burst. 

Scratch Photos is also a great tool if you run Amazon and Google Shopping ads. At the moment, product images need white backgrounds, which Scratch Photos can make in seconds.

Features include:

• AI-powered background remover that automatically takes out any background.
• Auto-adjust feature for improving darkly lit images and photo quality.
• Ability to cut and erase background and replace with plain pastel or custom background.
• Undo and redo edits for best results. 
• Direct sharing to social media.
• Download images as PNG files.

Available for: iOS and Android

Price: Free

5 best online photo editors to buy 

If you’re feeling confident in your photo editing skills and want to take your photos to the next level, explore these five photo editor apps.

1. Photoshop Elements
2. Photoshop Lightroom
3. ON1 Photo RAW 2020
4. KeyShot
5. PicMonkey

1. Photoshop Elements

Best photo editor online for hobbyists

Photoshop Elements, at its core, is the Adobe Photoshop suite for non-professional photographers. Compared to Photoshop’s subscription pricing, you can buy Photoshop Elements outright for $99.99 or buy it with Adobe’s video editing software, Premiere Elements, for $149.99. The 2020 update for Elements includes auto-colorization, one-click subject selection, automatic skin smoothing, and object removal. 

What’s also cool about Photoshop Elements is the step-by-step instructions to help you make beautiful images for your brand. It has a tutorial for anything you can think of— creating memes, multi-photo text, sketches, watercolors, shape overlays, background replacements, double exposures, and more. 

Features include:

• Intuitive home screen for learning new things to try, feature highlights, inspiration, and help.
• AI technology powers automated options that make it easy to get started and add your personal touch.
• Step-by-step guides for making stunning effects and creations with 55 guided edits.
• Create collages for social media or order photo prints and gifts right from the software.
• Organizer application lets you import, group, tag, and output your photos, as well as offers powerful search, auto curation, and sharing tools.

Available for: MacOS, Windows

Price: $99.99 one time fee

2. Photoshop Lightroom

Best photo editor online for professional photographers

While Elements leads the way for editing photos one by one, Adobe Lightroom focuses on pristine batch editing. It’s the complete package for professional editing workflows with top-tier organization tools, advanced adjustments, and all the printing and output options you could dream of. 

As of February 2020, Lightroom added new options for raw import profiles, support for big PSB files from Photoshop, and a faster graphic processing unit (GPU). It’s perfect for everyone from ecommerce store owners who want to develop their editing skills to photographers who want to sell photos online. 

Features include:

• Advanced photo management and organization tools.
• Lens-based and camera corrections.
• Brush and gradient adjustments with color and luminance masking.
• Face detection and tagging functionality.
• Connects with mobile app and family of Adobe products.

Available for: Windows and macOS

Price: Starts at $9.99/m

3. ON1 Photo RAW 2020

Best photo editing software and Lightroom alternative

ON1 Photo RAW is a photo editor that brings photo organization, editing, and effects together in one program. It’s commonly referred to as the Lightroom alternative because it has the same robust feature set, only you can buy the software outright rather than pay Lightroom’s subscription fee. 

ON1 Photo RAW includes the company’s popular independent products HDR, Effects, and Resize, along with Layers, Pano, Focus Stacking and other editing features. You also get access to hundreds of presets, filters, textures, borders, and more to add some creativity to your photos—all in a few clicks.

Features include:

• Fast photo browsing and catalogs for finding portfolios, favorite photos, or libraries.
• Easy importing from your smartphone, camera, or other device.
• AI Auto Tone to get equal tone and color on all types of photos.
• Filter effects including color balance, weather, channel mixer, and sun flare filters.
• Portrait tools to auto-detect faces and retouch to smoothen skin, sharpen eyes, whiten teeth, and more.
• Mask layers with a wide range of masking tools, including the edge-detecting Perfect Brush.

Available for: MacOS and Windows

Price: $49.99

4. KeyShot

Best 3D photo editor app 

KeyShot is a 3D rendering and animation software that helps with features such as still images, real-time ray tracing, color libraries, material templates, and toon shading. Its powerful interface with advanced capabilities allows you to apply materials and real-world lighting to images quickly and see changes happen in real time.

KeyShot uses a render engine to replicate materials from the real world, resulting in extremely photo-realistic images. You can render using your CPU or GPU and can switch between modes with one click. 

It’s the most expensive photo editing software on this list, but you can play around with KeyShot using a fully functional license for free. 

Features include:

• Simple, workflow-based interface with all the advanced capabilities for your visualization needs.
• Realistic, 3D-rendered photos you can create with scientifically accurate presets or your own 3D materials. 
• Advanced lighting capabilities to replicate studio shots or more complex interior lighting.
• Highest quality visuals possible for still images and interactive web and mobile content.

Available for: iOS, Windows

Price: $994.98

5. PicMonkey

Best photo editing app for social media marketers

PicMonkey is an image editor for creatives who want to produce high-quality, professional content—without the expensive price tag that comes with complex, high-end editing software. It’s easy to use for people who aren’t trained on software like Photoshop or KeyShot and can help produce better product photos and social media content. 

PicMonkey offers templates for creating the best content for your brand. You can also create content by uploading your own photos or using the platform's stock photos and editing tools.PicMonkey has a Brand Kit option for your business that lets you upload logos, colors, and templates to maintain a consistent brand identity. 

Features include:

• Photo-editing tools to crop, resize, adjust color and exposure, touch up portraits, and remove backgrounds.
• Flexible design features including textures, gradients and filters, and the ability to edit individual layers.
• Thousands of design templates and graphics.
• Ability to create images for Instagram Stories, YouTube, Facebook ads, custom highlight covers, and more.

Available for: macOS, Windows, and mobile devices 

Price: Free 7-day trial, then $12.99/m

Choosing a photo editing tool that works for your business

Now that you have a good understanding of the top paid and free photo editors out there, it’s time to get testing! If you don’t want to spend money on a photo editor, start with a free one or a free trial, then take it from there. 

The important part is that you’re on the right path to improving your brand’s visual identity, selling more online, and making the most of your marketing efforts. 

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