Top 5 Best FREE Photo Editing Software (2018) for Windows PC, Linux & Mac

If you’re looking for top best free photo editors 2018 and you don’t want to purchase expensive software like Photoshop, you have many choices. Today, in this post, I will tell you the top 5 best free photo editing software of 2018 or top best Photoshop alternatives 2018 for Windows PC, Mac & Linux that you can use for free on your computer. Each of these programs can perform the basic tasks of enhancing your photos to make them look amazing. Some of these include advanced features similar to Photoshop that should satisfy your image creating and editing needs.

5. Photoscape – Easy to Use Free Photo Editing Software

There are filters, effects and tools to transform your image. You can also create animated gifs, collages and has several backed options for working with multiple images. When you launch Photoscape, it shows you most
of the tools that you can use along with tutorials. When editing your photo, you’ll find all the tools in the upper right just like the other programs that I’ll tell you.Photoscape is free and they do offer a pro version with extra features for around $40. But for most people the tools available in the free version will be all that they need. If you’re running Windows 10 or on a Mac you will want to install Photoscape X, for older Windows operating systems you will want to select the link for Photoscape 3.7

4. Krita

Krita is a open source and free program, designed primarily for digital painting and animation purposes. So it has a higher learning curve than the others mentioned. There are plenty features available for image editing such as brushes, masking tools, effects, filters and many more. With this program, you’ll find the most of the tools you’ll be working along the left. On the right is advanced color selector, along with ability to quickly  add new layers. Pressing the tab key on your keyboard, enlarges your image, getting rid of these sidebars, giving you more space to work with. If you need help for learning, they offer tutorials on their site.

Karita is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

3. Paint.net

Features of advanced tools including layers, filters and effects that will give your image a whole new look.

It was created many years ago as a more powerful alternative for Microsoft Paint.

You can also download plugins to add new effects, adjustments and file types to paint.net that were created by the community.

Paint.net is available for Windows 7 or newer and it can be downloaded for free with the option to donate to
the developer on their site. You can also support the developer by purchasing it from the Windows Store

2. Pixlr – The Best Free Server Based Photo Editing Software

Pixlr offers server based software that can be run inside your web browser without the need to install a program on your computer. Two of their web apps that are recommend are, Pixlr editor and Pixlr Express.
Pixlr Express is an easy to use photo editor like Photoshop Express. Along the bottom it offers several adjustments including crop, resize, color, red-eye and several others. There are some cool effects, overlays, borders, stickers and the ability to add text to your image. If you want to quickly edit your photos I would recommend using Pixlr Express over Pixlr editor. But if you want more tools at your disposal, I would recommend Pixlr editor.
In Pixlr editor most of the tools are on the left along with extra tools found in the menu bar and you have the ability to add more layers on the right. If you prefer to work with server based programs, Pixlr editor and Pixlr express are both excellent choices for editing your images without the need to download any software.

1. GIMP – The Best Free Photoshop Alternative

This open source program was initially released in 1996 and is packed with features often found in expensive software. There’s a massive set of tools on the left in the toolbox. On the right, you can find your layer and brush options. In the menu bar, there are a lot more settings that you can mess with. If you want to get rid of the multiple floating windows to have everything in just one window, simply select windows and at the bottom of the drop down menu enable single window mode. It’s advised when learning to use GIMP that you watch tutorials. There’s some available on their site and several good ones can be found on YouTube. GIMP is available on Windows, Linux and Mac.

if you’d like to recommend a photo or image editor that is not mentioned here, let us know
about it in the comments below.