Roland Waddilove shows you how to supercharge your photo editing, with these great apps for PC and mobile
Most people have at least one photo editor on their PC. It’s most likely one of the wellknown favourites like Photoshop, Gimp or Paint.Net, but there are many more great programs available. Alternative applications often provide different ways of working, new tools and exciting effects, so it’s a good idea to expand your toolkit with a few freebies.
One of the excellent photo editing applications that you might be missing out on is the Google Nik Collection. These are professional filters that the Alphabet company has decided to give away for free. ON1 Effects is a similar collection of filters and editing tools for professional photographers, yet they’re also free of charge. Online apps are steadily improving too. Sumo Paint, for example, is impressive for something that runs in a browser window.
These days, we take a lot of photos on smartphones, so the dedicated digital camera has largely gone the same way as the film camera. A few enthusiasts and professional photographers still use them, but most people use their mobile phones to take photos. The ease and speed with which we can shoot photos and post them online means that some form of photo editing app on your smartphone can be useful and perhaps even essential.
You need at least some basic correction tools, but surprisingly, some mobile photo editors are now almost as good as desktop software running on your PC, and there are some really powerful apps for your phone. In fact, the range of filters and effects in mobile apps often exceeds that of desktop software. They do lack fine controls for detailed work on small parts of an image, but for some broad photo editing tasks, it might even be better to use a phone instead of your PC, or at least apply some basic effects and corrections before transferring a snapshot to your PC for further work.
There are great photo editors for Android and iOS, but you do need a top-end phone to make the most of them. For example, they work best on a fairly high-resolution screen that is around five inches or larger. You might struggle on an iPhone or Android phone with a 4” screen because of the size and low resolution.
Many of these PC and mobile apps offer paid upgrades that unlock even more features. This is optional, and all the apps here can be downloaded, installed and used for free.
Pc Photo Editors
Google Nik Collection
Nik Collection (google.com/nikcollection) consists of seven world-class Adobe Photoshop plug-ins. Last year, these extras for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Lightroom were priced at $150, but earlier this year Google decided to make them free for anyone to download and use. They’re some of the best plug-ins around and are definitely worth installing if you have any Photoshop package, but what if you don’t?
It’s not obvious, but you can run all these plug-ins without Photoshop. Download and install Google Nik Collection, and it says there are no supported applications, so it puts all the plug-ins in C:\Program Files\Google\Nik Collection. There’s one folder for each of the seven plug-ins, and if you open a folder, there’s an executable file in each one. Some of them have a file menu to enable a photo to be opened for editing, but others don’t. However, you can drag a photo and drop it on the .exe file to open the file for editing, and Alt+F4 quits the program afterwards.
Each Google Nik Collection tool runs like a stand-alone program, and the effects they contain are brilliant. Analog Efex Pro applies effects to emulate classic cameras. There are nine presets, but a flyout panel enables you to select Black and White, Colour Cast, Motion, Wet Plate, Double Exposure and more. These effects all come with adjustment tools. Color Efex Pro has over 50 predefined effects organised into categories like Landscape, Wedding, Nature, Portrait and others. Each of the effects displays a control panel that enables it to be customised.
HDR Efex Pro has 28 effects that simulate HDR (high dynamic range) photos. They can really make the colours stand out and enhance the contrast in images. As usual, there’s a full set of controls for adjusting the presets, including tone compression, tonality and colour. Sharpener Pro can be used to bring out the detail in images; Dfine is used to adjust the contrast and reduce colour noise; Viveza is for adjusting the brightness, contrast, saturation and structure (textures and details).
Accessing these tools individually through Explorer is a pain, and you can’t use them as your only photo editor, because they are basically just filters, but they are superb. Whether you have Photoshop or not, these are essential tools.
Vintager 2
This photo editor (exeone.com) is more of a fun tool for people who take snapshots than a serious application for professional photographers. The editor can perform several functions, but its main purpose is to artificially age your photos. There are more than 30 frames to choose from, including ones like Gothic, 50s, Polaroid, Burned Camera Film and so on. After selecting a frame, there are 16 textures that can be applied, such as Dirty Photo, Vignetted Old Photo, Rainbow Flare, Thorn Scratches and so on. You can even add spots on the lens.
These aging effects don’t have to be used, and there are comprehensive controls for adjusting the brightness, contrast, exposure, hue, saturation, luminance, levels and curves. All the controls are easy to use, and there’s a slider for almost everything, so you can just drag them and see the effect, then apply it if you like it.
There are a lot of good features in Vintager, but the program doesn’t seem to allow the window to be resized, and it’s a fairly small one that provides only a thumbnail of the photo being edited. It would be useful if it could be made larger. Vintager 2 is free but limits the maximum output size to 2048 pixels unless you donate a few dollars to the author.
Sumo Paint
In the future, we might not run software on our computers, and instead we might use web apps that run in a browser. Sumo Paint (sumopaint.com), which aims to be Photoshop for the web, is a photo editor that runs in a browser. Like all web-based software, it continues to improve. Adobe doesn’t have much to worry about, but if you use Paint.Net, Gimp and other free desktop software, you’ll be quite at home with the range of features in Sumo Paint.
This web app is fast to start if you have a reasonably quick internet connection, and loading and saving images from a PC’s disk is fine. You wouldn’t want to edit large, high-resolution images online, but it’s fine for photos taken on a phone or mid-range digital camera.
A tool palette on the left provides access to 32 tools, such as various selection tools, gradient fills, paint bucket, clone stamp, text, blur, smudge and so on. There are over 35 filters in categories like blur, noise, distort, pixelate, sharpen, texture and so on. The filter parameters and strength can be adjusted, usually with sliders, and the effects are shown live as you experiment with the controls. That’s impressive for a web app. The filters can be used to apply special effects to photos or to fix faults.
The app supports multiple layers with various effects, so you can apply filters to layers, toggle visibility of layers on and off, and choose how layers are applied. You probably won’t find a better online photo editor than Sumo Paint. It’s free to access most features, and there’s a Pro upgrade that adds more.
ON1 Effects 10.5 Free
ON1 Effects (on1.com) is designed for users of Adobe products like Photoshop and Lightroom. However, these plug-ins can also be accessed without any software, with the whole package running like a stand-alone photo editor.
It consists of a collection of professional and high quality tools that can be used on two levels. There are around 100 presets that you can easily access just by pointing and clicking on thumbnails images. The presets are organised into categories like Architecture, Hipster, Film, Urban, Weddings and so on. Select a category, and there’s a collection of thumbnails showing each effect; you just click the one you want.
There’s so much more, and when a preset is applied, much like an Instagram filter, a panel appears on the right with more presets and detailed controls for adjusting all the parameters. The controls vary depending on the type of filter being applied, and there can be as many as two dozen sliders, menus, buttons and options. It’s a bit overwhelming at first, which is probably why the one-click presets are provided. As you become familiar with the program, you can experiment with the controls and adjust them to tweak your photos.
ON1 Effects is basically a super-powerful filter tool with some amazing features. It doesn’t do everything you might want in a photo editor, so you’ll need to switch between this and something else, like Gimp or Paint.Net, for other functions. If you have Photoshop, then you have everything you need, of course. This is highly recommended as a plug-in or stand-alone photo editing tool. It’s brilliant!
Polarr Photo Editor
This is a free app (www.polarr.co) that works on Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome and in a web browser. If you find ON1 and Nik Collection too complicated and confusing, Polarr Photo Editor might be just what you need, because it’s easier to use and understand. There are 15 categories of filters, although only the first two are accessible in the free app, and the rest require a paid upgrade. The filters are displayed as thumbnails in a panel on the left, and in the middle of the screen is a large preview of the photo.
Select a filter, and all the settings are displayed in an adjustments panel. There are simple sliders to modify the colour temperature, tint, vibrance and saturation. Light controls adjust the exposure, brightness contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks. There’s clarity and sharpen, five vignette adjustment controls, hue, saturation, luminance, curves, toning, distortion, grain, pixelation and more. So although you only get 22 presets, they’re infinitely adjustable, and you can spend hours experimenting with the settings to get the look you want.
In addition to the filters, there are other tools like Radial, Gradient, Colour, and Brush masks. Some features are free, but others must be unlocked with a paid upgrade.
There are a lot of great tools in the free version Polarr Photo Editor, and more can be added for a fee. One of the best features is the tutorial that pops up explaining how to use each tool when it’s accessed for the first time. It shows how it works and how to use it, which is perfect for people who aren’t sure how to use advanced photo editing tools.
Android/iOs Apps
PhotoDirector
The features list for PhotoDirector is longer than for some desktop photo editing programs. It has almost every feature you could wish for, and it’s available for Android and iOS.
The home screen provides access to three modules consisting, of edit, collage and templates. After selecting a photo to edit, a toolbar at the bottom of the screen is used to access all the functions. There are 18 icons, some of which display multiple options on a second toolbar, so Basic Edit has crop, rotate, horizontal and vertical flip; Adjust has tone, curve, saturation, sharpness, HSL, white balance, hdr and vignette. This pattern continues for many of the other tools.
The range of editing tools and effects is extensive, and there are numerous filters in categories like Artistic, Lomo, B&W, HDR and Face. There are overlays like light leak, grunge, scratch and lens flare. Portrait tools include smoothener and red-eye removal. Pen tools, text tools and stickers are available.
One of the more interesting tools is an unwanted object remover. You paint over something in the photo that you don’t want, and the program removes it. You can apply effects and then scrape away areas that show the original through. A colour can be selected and everything else turned into black and white, and there are many more effects. Some of the tools are intelligent, and when painting, erasing and applying effects, it recognises borders and paints up to them, not over them, making it easier when using a stubby finger on a small phone screen.
The collage tool enables you to select multiple photos and arrange them in frames. You can also select from a variety of scenes, and your photo is inserted into it, such as a street artist, a magazine cover, a billboard and even coffee art, where a barista draws in the foam on your beverage.
PhotoDirector is so good you might want to use it instead of your desktop photo editing software. It’s free, with a few minor limitations that can be lifted with a £3.99 in-app purchase.
Gamma Play Photo Editor Pro
There are many similarly named photo apps and this one is Photo Editor Pro by Gamma Play in the Google Play store. It’s a straightforward Android app with an interface that’s easy to use, but it has an excellent range of features for editing photos and applying effects to them.
Take a photo or select one, and a scrolling toolbar at the bottom of the screen provides access to 19 functions. Among them are enhance, effects, frames, stickers, overlays, adjust, sharpness, focus, draw, text, blemish, redeye and whiten.
Some tools contain numerous options. Adjust, for example, enables you to change the brightness, contrast, exposure, warmth, saturation, shadows, highlights, vibrance, tint and fade. Colour can be removed from an image and then painted back.
There are a lot of features for free in this app, and faults in exposure and colour can easily be corrected. There are optional extras like stickers, frames and overlays with in-app purchases.
Photo Editor
Photo Editor by dev.mcgyver (not to be confused with similarly named apps) is an Android app that packs in a lot of useful features for those who like to take snapshots on their smartphones. It aims to be a serious photo editing tool for fixing photo faults and enhancing images, and it doesn’t have stickers and other fun stuff.
At the bottom of the screen, just above the ad, which you can pay to remove, is a scrolling toolbar that’s used to access all the functions, and there are 17 buttons. These include colour, curves, levels, two effects collections, frames, correction, de-noise, clone, straighten and more. Some of these have multiple functions themselves. The correction button, for example, displays eight buttons that enable you to adjust the temperature, white balance, backlight, perspective, red-eye and so on.
Some tools are straightforward; others are more advanced and are similar to those you might find in PC photo editors, such as levels and curves, and adjusting the gamma. There are two collections: one applies filters and colour effects, while the other has mirror, stretch, skew, perspective and other effects.
This is an excellent photo editor, and it’s well worth adding to your Android phone photo editing collection.
Snapseed
Snapseed started out as a simple photo organiser from Google, but if you looked at it some time ago, it’s worth trying again, because it has had many updates, with some great new features being added. It’s now a pretty good photo editor with a good range of tools.
It offers a choice of 11 tools and dozens of filters organised into 13 categories. Some tools have multiple functions. Tune Image, for example, enables the brightness, contrast, saturation, ambience, highlights, shadows and warmth to be adjusted. Wonky photos can be corrected with perspective and rotate tools. A healing brush smudges and smooths over flaws or objects you don’t want. Brushes for dodge and burn, exposure, temperature and saturation allow changes to be made to parts of the image instead of the whole.
The filter collection is excellent, and all the 13 categories have multiple options, so there are a lot of options and settings to explore. The face filter is a recent addition, which brings faces into focus, smooths skin and makes eyes clear. The app interface is easy to use, and you’ll be an expert in no time.
FotoRus Photo Editor
If you can ignore the huge advert that takes up half the home screen, and the other ads in this app, what you get are some useful tools, filters and features for your iOS or Android device. FotoRus has several modules, including collage, sticker, pro edit, beauty, paint lab, mag library and picture-in-picture (PiP).
Beyond the advertising hell that’s the home screen, there are some good tools. Pro edit, for example, has a toolbar with over a dozen functions. Scene is used to select between portrait (head and shoulders) and landscape scenes, simulate HDR and apply other corrections. As with many photo apps, there’s a good collection of filters. Around 40 are preinstalled, with others available for download.
A Light Pen tool is used for drawing light effects, such as simulating water drops or sunlight flares on the lens and so on. This is a great tool for making photos look impressive. There are crop and rotate tools to straighten skewed images where the phone wasn’t level, and all the usual controls for adjusting the white balance, contrast, saturation, sharpness, shadows, highlights and so on.
In addition to the serious photo editing tools are fun ones like stickers, text and a slimming tool for narrowing your waist and making it look like you’ve been on a diet. PiP is a fun module that puts your picture in another picture, so you see a photo in a bubble, bottle, glass, polaroid snap and other scenes. The Paint Lab module allows you to turn a photo into artwork, and there are many different styles. The artwork it creates from photos is brilliant. Indeed, this app worth getting just for this feature alone.
The ads in FotoRus will drive you nuts, and there’s no ad-free version, but the features are superb, and some of the effects are outstanding, so it’s still recommended for iOS and Android.