Dec 29, 2020 FastStone Photo Resizer can be considered as the best free picture resizer, as it not only enables you to resize pictures but also allows you to edit them. It is a one-stop solution for your image resizing, editing, and managing requirements. Imgtap The Reddit Photo Submitter free download - Ksnipe Software Submitter, Photo Editor, Free Photo Viewer, and many more programs. Gimp graphic design software is well-thought-out and surprisingly free. It provides a versatile photo editor that can work on all main operating systems. Gimp is for those who are looking for robust software to perform different manipulations with photos, create paintings or mock-ups.

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Using a photo editor app can help you edit your photos with ease and allow you to create high-quality small size images to share on the web.

Here we will consider the list of the top 16 best free photo editing apps in 2021 to get a perfect job done:

Read on for the detailed analysis of each app.

Top 16 Best Free Photo Editor Apps

You're convinced that you want to get a photo editor software, but not sure where to start. There are many free online photo editor programs to choose from. We've narrowed down the best free photo editor that you can use without paying a hefty price.

1. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor

Best Photo Editing Software Overall

Although Photoshop can be a bit intimidating, its sister product Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is an altogether different animal. All the tools are readily accessible and easy to use.

Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a free photo editor. It is jam-packed with features that will allow you to make your images pop. You will be able to remove red-eye, resize images, make color corrections, and more.

It works right from your browser or mobile app. Editing photos is a snap with tools to balance color, resize, crop, change lighting, rotate, and more. The interface is appealing yet user-friendly. Our only gripes are that it was designed in Flash and not HTML5, and image formats can be somewhat limited.

👆 Special Features:

• Crop
• Rotate
• Remove Red and pet-eye
• Auto-Fix
• Text Tool
• Blemish Removal
• Corrections
• Customization
• Perspective Correction
• Pop-Color Tool
• Image Resize
• Watermark Images
• JPEG Quality Output
• Looks
• Borders

✅ PROS:

• Simple and complex customization
• Easy to use
• Compatible with other Adobe Products
• Gives you the edits you need to improve photos significantly

⛔️ CONS:

• Some features require creative cloud membership that has a fee
• The photo organizer tool is a separate app

2. Canva

Best Photo Editing App for Social Media

Canva is an easy to use photo editor app that allows users to create graphics and edit photos by merely dragging and dropping. It takes no time at all to build a design from scratch, and you don't have to be a pro to learn how to use this free photo editing software. It has tons of features that will help you create the ultimate design or touch up your pre-existing photos.

One of the best features of Canva is its extensive library of templates. Within minutes you can drop your photos into a preset layout and then style it using dozens of fonts, illustrations, graphics, colors, and design elements.

With Canva, you can create stunning pieces quickly that you can share, print, or export. This online photo editor also comes complete with built-in support using search, tabs, and articles to find help with any issue.

👆 Special Features:

• Photo Straightener
• Image Cropper
• The Ability to Add Text
• Speech Bubble Maker
• Transparency Tool
• Photo Enhancer
• Photo Blur
• Photo Vignette
• Design Grids
• Free Icons
• Photo Frames
• Web Wireframe
• Stickers
• Badges
• Add Texture

✅ PROS:

• Great for marketing photos on social media
• Make and design ebooks
• Excellent for web presentations
• Tons of great features for free
• Saves project history

⛔️ CONS:

• Unable to remove an image’s background
• Needs to increase font size

3. Resizing.app

Best Photo Resizer

One of our favorites is an online image resizer, called Resizing.app. The company has a straightforward website and process to resize images online within seconds. One of the coolest features is the ability to export your newly sized image into a different format.

Resizing.app couldn’t be easier to use. You simply drag and drop your images into the box on the home page. Then you select how you want to resize your image (by width, by height, custom size, by percentage, or by the largest side of the image). You can choose to compress your image for quality assurance and then just pick your new file format (jpg, png or webp). Once you hit the save button, your new image is saved to your computer. Voila’ all done. No frills but also no hassles.

Unfortunately, this online service does not have any additional photo editing capabilities to go along with resizing. But hey! It’s free, and we like free and simple.

If you resize your images and photos regularly, we highly recommend you to add the Resizing extension to your Google Chrome; it is also entirely free.

👆 Special Features:

• Resizing by width, by height, custom size, by percentage, and by the largest side of the image.
• Compress a photo
• Crop an image
• Convert an image to JPEG, PNG, WEBP
• Optimize a picture

✅ PROS:

• Free
• Easy to use
• Online
• Convert TIFF and HEIC files into JPEG, PNG or WEBP
• Has extention for Google Chrome

⛔️ CONS:

• Doesn't have any additional photo editing capabilities

4. inPixio

Another app we tested looking for the best free photo editor was inPixio. In reviews, inPixio earns high marks for usability, features, support, speed, and pricing. It has some fantastic tools to fix perspective (straighten buildings), image correction, dehaze, and you can even edit metadata right within the app to add headlines, captions, and copyright details.

inPixio also offers a free tool to remove the background from an image. It works pretty well if the photo has a clear color distinction between what you want to remove and what you want to keep. inPixio is fun to use, although it may not rank as the best free photo editor on the block, it is worth checking out.

To purchase the full program, you will need to select either the inPixio Photo Studio 10 for $49.99 or inPixio Photo Studio Professional version for $59.99. The price is for the full software you can install and use on your Mac or Windows PC.

Looking for one for your Mac? Read our review of the best mac photo editor.

👆 Special Features:

• Eraser
• Correction Patch
• Cloning stamp
• Cutter
• Retouching and Correction
• Perspective correction
• Film grain module

✅ PROS:

• Tools for retouching photos, resizing, removing backgrounds, cropping, fixing sharpness, trimming, and adding filters.
• Share images within the app.
• Erase objects easily from photos.
• No ads.
• It doesn’t “push” you to upgrade.
• Special effects to enhance your images.

⛔️ CONS:

• The background removal tool doesn’t always yield perfect results.
• Some users complain that it does not work as advertised.
• Puts watermarks on images with the free version.
• Cannot batch edit.
• Works by installing multiple modules.

5. Instasize

If you are in the market for the best free photo editing app, you will want to check out Instasize. The app was designed for social media and influencers who want to create eye-catching, creative photos, and videos for their social feeds. The software includes dozens of visually stunning filters, color editing tools, and you can even edit your videos with it.

Instasize has a broad fan base of more than 500,000 users. The plethora of editing tools also include photo retouching features, fonts, and text editing. The free version is limited, but if you are willing to pay $4.99/month, the Premium version is loaded with goodies.

👆 Special Features:

• Collage maker
• Naturally enhancing filters
• Advanced editing adjustments
• Borders
• Beauty tools: edit blemishes, whiten teeth, remove redness, etc.
• Social media formats
• Pro fonts and text editor
• Video editing

✅ PROS:

• Geared toward creating engaging content for social media.
• Dozens of useful features, including backgrounds, beauty enhancements, borders, and filters, to make content creation easy.
• Create collages in a snap.
• Automatic resizing for social media formats.
• Fast and easy to use.

⛔️ CONS:

• The free version is stripped down and includes ads.
• Some users complain about the ads and some glitches.
• Only works on mobile devices, no app for PC or Mac.

6. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

A well-known name in the photo game is Adobe, which makes dozens of photo enhancement and editing products. One such app is the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom app.

This product is a cloud-based product where you can upload batches of images and edit them together. It wouldn’t be from Adobe without excellent photo editing tools built-in, and if you run into trouble, they have online tutorials to walk you through it all.

You can edit photos easily with all the expected features, share photos, take pictures from inside the app and sync them across all your devices. The Premium version cost is $9.99/month, which may be more than most users want to pay. If you want access to all the creative cloud apps, that figure balloons to $52.99/month.

👆 Special Features:

• Preset creation
• Split Toning
• Tone Curve
• Batch editing on desktop
• Camera
• Healing Brushes
• RAW Editing
• Cloud Storage
• Sync Presets & Profiles

✅ PROS:

• Runs on Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS.
• Easy to use, clean interface.
• Create albums to organize all your photos.
• Built-in presets to make editing easy.

⛔️ CONS:

• Costly to use cloud storage.
• May be too much for some users.

7. Fotor

Best Free Photo Editing App Online

Fotor is a photo editor software that allows you to utilize its photo editing suite to create top-notch photos. In just a few clicks you can adjust the color, size, lighting and more. It also has an HDR effect for your advanced editing needs.

The magic of Fotor is its extensive library of one-click filters to enhance and liven up any photo. Although Fotor is not as powerful as Photoshop and not as feature-rich as GIMP, it holds its own with a solid set of skills such as RAW file processing, borders, frames, color enhancement, and lighting adjustments.

If you like Fotor, there is also a Pro version you can purchase. However, it only works on the Windows platform. Read our review of the best windows photo editor.

👆 Special Features:

• Image Shape
• Fonts
• Stickers
• Align
• Drop Shadow
• Transparency
• CLone
• Color Picker
• Photo Collage
• Filters
• HDR
• Beauty Retouching

✅ PROS:

• Has web, mobile and desktop version
• Smart filters and effects
• Collage maker
• Raw file converter
• Has a social network

⛔️ CONS:

• Lots of ads
• Inability to edit photos at a deeper level
• Incompatible with creating images from scratch

8. VSCO

VSCO is another contender in our line-up of the best free picture editing apps. VSCO is a minimalistic app with a simple interface and powerful features. Its best feature is the vast library of filters to enhance your images and make them share-worthy.

You can do so within the VSCO social media channel. Yes, they have their own social network but you aren’t limited to just that one. VSCO also offers some other photo editing tools such as adjusting color, balance, highlights, cropping, and spot healing. The free version is limited to only ten filters, which isn’t very many compared to the 200+ you get with the paid version. A VSCO premium membership costs $19.99/year.

👆 Special Features:

• Filters
• Clarity
• Tint
• Fade
• X-Skew
• Y-Skew
• Skin Tone
• Highlights Tint
• Shadows Tint

✅ PROS:

• Includes its own social network to share images.
• Easy to use interface.
• Excellent editing tools with the paid version.
• Powerful camera features like ISO, exposure, white balance, and focus.
• Save images in RAW format.
• Video editing.
• Create montages easily.
• The ability to share from within the app.

⛔️ CONS:

• Requires a paid subscription for the best features.
• Only works on mobile devices, no app for PC or Mac.
• Not as good for social media image creation.
• Pushes upgrading.
• No option to take selfies with the app.
• No zoom features.

9. BeFunky

BeFunky is much more than just a free photo editor. With easy to use features, this photo editor app provides high-quality results whenever you use it to edit photos or make collages. You’ll have fun using this software for years to come.

Using the myriad of free collage layouts and design elements, you can quickly create a new Facebook banner or other social media image. The program is an online photo editor but also supports a handy mobile app. Integrations allow you to save your masterpiece to Dropbox or Google Drive and share it on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. BeFunky’s drag-and-drop functionality makes it a breeze to use.

👆 Special Features:

• Collage
• Crop
• Resize
• Digital Art
• Cartoonizer
• Enhance DLX
• Font Pairing
• Create Wallpapers for Your Device
• Edit and Replace Colors
• Batch Processing

✅ PROS:

• Complete control of your work
• Easier than most programs to use
• Privacy
• Editing tools have variety

⛔️ CONS:

• No eraser tool
• Additional content has a cost

10. Pixlr

You can’t beat the convenience factor of a powerful photo editor that runs in your browser, and Pixlr delivers. Pixlr is a great way to have a convenient photo editor at your fingertips that is user-friendly and can provide the professional-looking images you imagined.

Pixlr is a Photoshop clone that offers a generous treasure trove of image-editing features along with the ability to import photos from Facebook. Pixlr has also been compared to GIMP in terms of functionality and user interface. Although it may be overkill for some, it’s just the right balance of form and functionality for others.

👆 Special Features:

• Edit Photos Using Dropbox
• Layers
• Filters
• Adjustments
• Texts
• Fonts
• Magic Wand
• Lasso
• Brushes
• Eraser
• Object Transform
• Color Replace
• Digital Painting
• Image Retouching
• Digital Inking
• Photo Collage
• Effects

✅ PROS:

• Available on desktop and mobile
• Supports layers and masks
• Customize the interface

⛔️ CONS:

• Some ads

11. Snapseed for Android and iOS

Best Photo Editing App for Professional Photographers

Snapseed is a free online photo editor designed for the serious photographer who wants to enhance their photos professionally. Its primary focus is on providing filters that will change the effects. You can also share your creations with its export tool.

The software uses stacks/layers of edits so you can remove, arrange, or apply them at will. These stacks can be saved as a “look,” meaning a style which you can then use to apply to other photos. Compared to other apps, Snapseed shines with an impressive array of filters, brushes, and nondestructive editing tools that will delight any serious photo editing buff.

👆 Special Features:

• Pre-Made Filters
• Looks
• Tools
• Export

✅ PROS:

• Nondestructive editing
• Selective edit brushes
• Photographic filters

⛔️ CONS:

• More suitable for experienced users
• No auto-save

12. PhotoScape

PhotoScape was designed for the beginner, but don’t let that fool you; it is a powerhouse of features and functionality. Although the layout of PhotoScape is a bit clunky, the tools are solid, and along with retouching features, you can easily add filters to your images, create animated GIFs, batch edit photos, create slideshows and more using dozens of free templates.

The list of accolades is impressive for a free photo editor app.

PhotoScape gives you the ability to create stunning images with access to multiple tools. Enhancing your photos becomes more convenient, and you aren't disappointed by a system that doesn't deliver. It has your basic features and more advanced ones such as Batch Processing, Font pairing, and Digital Art.

👆 Special Features:

• Viewer
• Editor
• Batch Editor
• Page
• Combine
• Animated GIF
• Print
• Splitter
• Screen Capture
• Color Picker
• Rename
• Raw Converter
• Paper Print
• Face Search

✅ PROS:

• Plenty of Features
• Effects Preview

⛔️ CONS:

• Redundant Interface

13. Paint.NET

Paint.Net started as a built-in program on the Windows platform and evolved into its own standalone photo editing software with an innovative user interface that supports many features. This photo editor can be extended through plug-ins to give a wide variety to what the photo editor app can do.

While it provides a clean layout and powerful tools, this program is not for beginners. It boasts of a main working window with the tools corralled into their own movable windows. The program uses layers to keep everything organized. A design aficionado will be disappointed with the lack of some features, but for most users, it’s a great solution.

👆 Special Features:

• Layers
• Unlimited Undo
• Special Effects
• Powerful Tools
• Unlimited History

✅ PROS:

• Innovative Interface
• Keyboard Shortcuts for Tools and Menu Items
• Font Previews

⛔️ CONS:

• Little Control Over Text
• Minimal Layer Effects
• Few Brush Options

14. GIMP

Best Open-source Photo Editor

GIMP is open-source software and a favorite among many graphic designers. GIMP has often been compared to Photoshop. While it shares many of the same features and functionality of the popular photo editing software, GIMP is free.

Some of the highlights are a plethora of brushes to choose from, filters, and even plugins to make the software more desirable. GIMP also supports animation. Because of all this, GIMP is by far our pick for the best free photo editor.

👆 Special Features:

• Color Correction
• Skin Retouching
• Eyes Brightening
• Customizable Interface
• Graphic Design Elements
• Original Artwork
• Photo Enhancement
• Inkscape
• Swatch booker

✅ PROS:

• Compatible With Many File Types
• Developer Support
• User-Friendly Interface
• Open Source Code

⛔️ CONS:

• Functionality

15. Photo Pos Pro

Photo Pos Pro is excellent for creating computer graphic designs and text that will pop. It is a powerful software that can be mastered by advanced and beginner photo editors. The system has a program that offers assistance for beginners who need step by step instructions.

With Photo Pos Pro, you get the best of both worlds, the choice of a beginner or expert interface. Photographers will love the support for RAW files, the many filters, and retouching tools. Both the novice and pro interfaces are a bit confusing and cluttered. It’s a very personal preference when picking the best free photo editor for you.

👆 Special Features:

• Filters
• Layers
• Masks
• Curves
• Scripts
• Effects
• Brushes
• Frames and Collages
• Text Effects
• RAW Files Support
• Remove, Erase, and Replace Backgrounds

✅ PROS:

• Great For Any Level of Experience
• Superb Help and Tutorials
• Manual Editing and Automatic One-Click Editing Balance

⛔️ CONS:

• Large Learning Curve
• Software Glitches

16. Colorcinch

Colorcinch is another great free photo editor with some advanced features that rival PhotoShop. The one-click photo cartoonizer is a fun feature to turn a photo into a cartoon and a work of art all in one. Check out this complete how-to guide to turn your photo into a cartoon.

This free photo editor app is easy to use and full featured, with the ability to use layers, overlays, artistic masks, blur, blend, frames, or eliminate blemishes. The free version works very well, but you can also pay for an enhanced version for $4-$6/month, depending on the plan you choose.

Some features are not available in the free plan, like premium filters and enhancements.The interface is super simple. Just drag and drop a photo and begin editing. People seem to love the cartoon feature; however, some users have experienced bugs. The company recently rebranded; let’s hope they upgraded the app to go with the new name.

✅ PROS:

• One-click cartoon feature.
• Layers.
• Easy to use.
• Full-featured photo editor and text editor.
• Advanced features.
• Inexpensive

⛔️ CONS:

• No batch edit feature (yet).
• Premium features not included with the free version.

How to Choose The Best Free Photo Editor?

When it comes to choosing the best photo editor software, there are many things to take into account. The top features to look at are the file formats, organizing tools, photo sharing, and standard editing tools. These items are significant for those who're interested in doing photo editing whether it is for pleasure or career.

File Formats

File formats like jpg, gif, and png are essential to have if you're uploading your photos to the Internet. These formats allow you to compress the file size of the images to publish them on the web.

Organizing Tools

Having a free online photo editor should come with tools to help keep you organized. It is essential to have features that will keep track of your photos by using thumbnail previews, search, and naming schemes.

Standard Editing Tools

Having the basics is vital to being successful at photo editing and utilizing the photo editor software of your choice. Some of the typical tools you'll need are adjusting brightness and contrast in your photos, crop, resize, and rotating the images. They should be easy to catch onto and fast to use.

Searching for how to resize images without losing quality? Follow our step-by-step guide on how to do it at no time.

Photo Sharing

We all know how eager we get to post our work and personal photos online. With the right program, it will reduce the time it'll take to upload the image online. That will decrease the need to have a photo editor software that has blogging tools to get your photos posted.

If you want to edit your photos like a PRO, check out the following presets of ours. Alternatively, you can leave it to professionals; FixThePhoto is one of the best photo editing companies to assign your photo retouching tasks.

Finding the best free photo editor is what will set you apart with your photography whether it's a hobby or your career. Choose from these free online photo editor apps to enhance your photos with a few simple clicks. The best part about photo editor online software is that you don't have to break the bank with these free, high-quality programs and can do it from any device, because they are web-based.

Related Articles:

5 Free Image Resizer Apps for You in 2020
5 Tips on How to Optimize Images for Web

Launchberg editors pick and review products independently. We may earn affiliate commissions when you purchase an item via our links—it helps support our testing.

Post-processing astrophotography images is mandatory: you cannot avoid it. It can be a fairly long and technical process, but it is necessary to squeeze out the most you can from your images.

Everything begins with pre-processing your images, a step including image calibration and image stacking, which we have already covered in this article.

After that, it is time to post-process your stacked image with your software of choice. In this article, we will discuss the different options that are available to post-process your astrophotography images.

Note: Don’t miss the detailed video at the end of this article, It was created to help show you how to process your images with some of the software mentioned in this article.
Click here to skip to our Image Processing Demo Video.

What Does Post-Processing Mean In Astrophotography?

In astrophotography, the post-processing includes steps that are crucial to the quality of the final image. Those steps can be summarized as:

• Histogram stretching
• Gradients and light pollution removal
• Stars color calibration
• Stars reduction and Stars removal
• Sharpening and noise reduction
• Final tweaks

Of the steps mentioned above, it is worth to spend a few words on the Histogram Stretching, as it is of utmost importance in deep-sky astrophotography.

What Histogram Stretching Is And Why You Need It

With image stacking, you have combined all your light frames (the actual images of the sky) into a single image with an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio.

With deep sky astrophotography, this stacked image can be surprisingly dark, with only a few bright stars visible.

There is nothing wrong with it, as all the details and information are there, but hidden in the dark background. And this is why this process also goes under the name of background extraction.

Histogram stretching can be done manually using Adobe Photoshop or in automatic/semi-automatic way using astrophotography software such as Astro Pixel Processor, Star Tools, or His Majesty PixInsight.

A rigorous explanation on how digital data are recorded and how the histogram works can become fairly technical and is beyond the scope of this article.

To keep it simple, let’s say that when you perform the stretching of the histogram, you are broadening the histogram. Thus pushing details that were crammed in the blacks towards the middle tones.

And you do that slowly, in small steps, to ensure retaining the best possible image quality.

The process allows us to take full advantage of the image stacking process, and it results in a cleaner, brighter image with a lot of details that were not visible (or barely visible) in the single exposures.

Stars Reduction / Stars Removal

Star reduction is another process that is standard when editing deep-sky astrophotography.

While it seems odd that you want to shrink or remove stars from a photo about stars, this process aims to make the multitude of visible stars in the image less imposing and distracting.

By reducing enlarged stars due to the histogram stretching and by removing the smallest stars, you make the deep sky objects in the image more visible, as shown in the image below.

The procedure is particularly useful when shooting deep-sky objects, such as nebulae, that are in the Milky Way Band.

Software For Astrophotography Post-Processing

We can group the software for astrophotography post-processing in two categories:

1. generic photo editors, such as Photoshop, Gimp, Affinity Photo, etc.
2. Astrophotography editors, such as StarTools, Nebulosity, Astro Pixel Processor, Pixinsight, etc.

The main advantage of generic photo editors over specific astrophotography editors is versatility.

With a generic photo editor, it is easy to post-process all kinds of astrophotography, from deep-sky imaging to lunar and planetary shots, passing for star trails and starry landscapes.

In this article, for example, we discussed how to stack starry landscape images in Photoshop.

Not many astrophotography editors are this flexible.

Here is a list of software that are most commonly used to post-process astrophotography images.

Adobe Lightroom CC

Generic Photo Editor | Commercial From $9.99 Subscription Plan | Windows, Mac OS X, IOS

Pros

• Easy to use
• Powerful image development and image organizer
• Easy integration with Photoshop
• Can use photographic plugins

Cons

• Can’t do the complex editing needed for astrophotography (histogram stretching, Stars Reduction, etc)
• Limited to cosmetic tweaks

Adobe Lightroom is a popular, easy to use and fairly powerful RAW developer and image organizer.

Its usefulness in astrophotography is somewhat limited, as you cannot perform complex tasks such as histogram stretching, advanced light pollution, and gradient removal, star reduction, etc.

On the other hand, it is a terrific editor for the final cosmetic tweaks to your image and to organize them in collections, per tag, and location. Lightroom is also great for color proofing your images before printing them.

If you are subscribing to the Adobe Photography Plan, you also have Photoshop CC included for free. And here is where things get interesting.

To get the best from the two worlds, load your stacked images in Lightroom, organize them in collections, and call Photoshop from within Lightroom for the astro-specific editing (histogram stretching, etc.).

Then make the final tweaks in Lightroom.

Adobe Photoshop CC

Generic Photo Editor | Commercial From $9.99 Subscription Plan | Windows, Mac OS X, IOS

Pros

• Versatile and Powerful Photo Editor / Image Manipulation Software
• Suitable for deep sky and planetary astrophotography as well as star trails and starry landscapes
• Astrophotography Action Sets and Plugins Available
• Subscription Plan with Photography Bundle

Cons

• Lacks Some Advanced Features for Astrophotography

Photoshop is one of the most commonly used software in the field of photography editing and image manipulation, and it can be used to post-process astrophotography work.

If you are a beginner astrophotographer, you are on a tight budget or you already own Photoshop, you should give it a try as all the basic post-processing steps can be performed in this software.

If you need more advanced features, you can also expand Photoshop capabilities thanks to many astrophotography related Action Sets, Plugins, and Panels.

Finally, with Camera Raw filter and other photographic plugins (like for smart sharpening and advance noise reduction), you can perform with ease all the final tweaks an image may need.

As a Photoshop user, I tried many plugins and action sets for astrophotography, and here is my must-have extensions list.

Astronomy Tools by ProDigital

Actions Pack For Deep Sky Astrophotography| Commercial $21.95 | Windows, Mac OS X

A rich set of actions suitable for post-processing astrophotography images. The set includes actions such as star reduction, enhanced DSO, light pollution and color gradient removal, sharpening, and noise reduction.

Best Free Photo Editor For Mac Reddit 2019

Photokemi’s Star Tools by Ken Mitchel

Actions Pack For Deep Sky Astrophotography | Commercial $14.95 | Windows, Mac OSX

Similarly to Astronomy Tools, this action set is most useful for deep space astrophotography.

It offers advanced star removal and star reducing actions, semi-automatic histogram stretching, different sharpening and noise reduction actions, as well as actions such as nebula filters and star color enhancement.

There is also a set of extra actions, available for $6.95.

GradientXterminator by Russell Croman

Plugin For Deep Sky Astrophotography | Commercial $49.95 | Windows, Mac OS X

This plugin is a gradient removal tool that is easy to use and extremely effective. Despite a rather steep price (a trial is available for you to test the plugin), this is a terrific add-on for Photoshop, if you are serious about deep-sky astrophotography.

Hasta La Vista Green! (HLVG) by Regelio Bernard Andreo

Plugin For Deep Sky Astrophotography | Donationware | Windows

Despite its old age, this plugin is still useful, and it does an excellent job of removing green noise and the green casts such noise may cause in some images.

Astro Panel By Angelo Perrone

Panel For Starry Landscape And Deep Sky Astrophotography | Commercial | Windows, Mac OS X

Astro Panel consists of a rich set of functions and methods that produce high quality starry landscapes and Milky Way images.

It is also easy to process Deep Sky Photos thanks to advanced functions for reducing digital noise and hot-pixels, eliminating the gradient, managing artificial flat, and much more …

Furthermore, astronomical images aside, you can use the Astro Panel to edit classic landscape images too.

Affinity Photo

Generic Photo Editor | Commercial $49.99 | Windows, Mac OS X, IOS ($19.99)

Pros

• Affordable
• Powerful
• The interface and commands are similar to Photoshop for an easy switch
• Suitable for deep sky and planetary astrophotography as well as star trails and starry landscapes

Cons

• Lacks third-party actions sets, plugins and panels

Affinity Photo from Serif Lab is a great, affordable alternative to Photoshop, and you do not need to pay for a subscription plan.

With Affinity Photo, you can carry out with ease all of the basic astrophotography post-processing.

But since there are no plugins, action sets, and panels to help you out, you have to learn to do things manually, even the more advanced tasks such as star reduction.

Gimp

Photo Editor | Freeware | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Pros

• Freeware
• Great community and lot of info available
• Powerful
• Suitable for deep sky and planetary astrophotography as well as star trails and starry landscapes

Cons

• Interface a bit confused
• Lacks third-party actions sets, plugins and panels

Gimp is the historical freeware alternative to Photoshop. Since it is freeware and on the market for many years, there is a big community of users, so it is easy to find relevant tutorials and guides to help you out.

The software has a slightly confusing interface, particularly if you are trying to switch from Photoshop, but it is powerful enough to let you edit your astrophotography images with ease.

Unfortunately, there are no third-party action sets, plugins, or panels to help you automate some tasks. As with Affinity Photo, you have to learn how to do everything manually.

Star Tools

Astrophotography Post-Processing Tools | Commercial $45 | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Pros

• Affordable
• Multiplatform
• Offers many advanced tools
• Trial without time limit

Cons

• Interface bit confusing
• Convoluted workflow
• Slower than other software

StarTools is a deep-sky post-process editor that does everything you need except the initial light frame calibration and stacking.

Once you have the stacked image from, say, Deep Sky Stacker, you can post-process it in StarTools, taking advantage of the many tools the software has to offer.

The interface is a bit confusing, and it may take a while to get used to the convoluted editing workflow.

Fortunately, the trial version never expires, so you can take all the time you need to experiment with StarTools before deciding if it is for you or not. The only limitation of the trial is that you cannot save your results.

SiriL

Multipurpose Astrophotography Editor | Freeware | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Pros

• Freeware
• Multiplatform
• Active Development
• Suitable for different kinds of astrophotography
• Fairly easy to use
• Powerful full-grown astrophotography software

Cons

• Develop the image is a lengthy process
• Interface a bit confused

I’m no expert with SiriL, but it is probably the only full-grown astrophotography editor that is freeware and multiplatform.

Siril will allow you to perform all the essential steps in your astrophotography editing workflow, from image calibration and stacking to (manual or auto) histogram stretching and post-processing.

Since it is free, if you are looking for an astrophotography package, SirilL is worth downloading and having a go with it.

Nebulosity

Deep Sky Astrophotography Editor | Commercial $95 | Windows, Mac OS X

Pros

• Capable full astrophotography editor
• Can calibrate and stack your images
• It offers many advanced tools

Cons

• Not abandonware, but development is somehow slow
• The interface feels old and not very user friendly

Nebulosity 4 was my first software specific to astrophotography. It is intended for deep sky astrophotography and is fairly easy to use.

It offers a good way to calibrate and stack your images, and you can use it for stretching the histogram, tighten the stars, calibrate the background colors, and perform sharpening and noise reduction.

But the interface is not as intuitive, it looks “old,” and while development is there, it is not as quick compared with other software.

Astro Pixel Processor

Deep Sky Astrophotography Editor | Commercial €60/Yr (Renter’s License) Or €150 (Owner’s Renter) | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Pro

• Great deep sky astrophotography package
• Powerful
• Easy to use
• Batch processing
• 30-days free trial available
• Suitable for creating stunning mosaic with ease
• Active development
• Rental license available

Cons

• Vignetting removal tool could be better
• No Stars Reduction methods available

Astro Pixel Processor is my goto software for my deep sky astrophotography and I decided to go with the renter’s license to always work with the latest version of the software.

The interface is easy to navigate, options are explained by text messages that appear when you hover on the options with the mouse, and the different tabs are numbered.

This means that there is no guessing in establishing the best workflow: just follow the numbers from 1 to 6 and jump at the tab number 9 for post-processing the stacked image.

You can run all the steps once at a time or set them up and run all with a batch processing: this way, you can do other stuff while the software calibrates and stacks your images.

If you are looking for a way to edit your deep-sky images and create mosaics, I vouch for Astro Pixel Processor.

PixInsight

Multipurpose Astrophotography Editor | Commercial €230+VAT | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Pros

• The best and most complete astrophotography editor on the market
• Multiplatform
• Suitable for Planetary and Deep-Sky astrophotography
• 45-days free trial available

Cons

• Expensive
• Extremely steep learning curve
• Requires a powerful computer to run smoothly and conveniently fast

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I will be honest with you: I requested a trial (and it was granted twice), but both times I ran away from PixInsight screaming in despair.

Not that PixInsight is bad or lacks crucial functions, but because it is very complicated to use for beginners and the learning curve is very steep.

Granted, PixInsight, being the software of refinement for the category, there are tons of tutorials and guides online (Light Vortex Astronomy has some of the best ones and are free). But you need to spend a lot of time in front of your computer, particularly if you have an old one.

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But if you can master it, you will be rewarded with Pro-grade deep sky astrophotography images.

A Comprehensive Video About Post-Processing

In this video, I show you how to post-process a deep sky image using some of the software discussed in this article.

While it is not a complete tutorial in post-processing deep sky images, it gives you a feeling of how easy (or not) is to use those software and where they differ.

Conclusions

Stacking astrophotography images is only the first step in the lengthy astrophotography editing process. In this article, we have discussed the different software that is available to post-process the stacked image to obtain a compelling image of the night sky.

Some are free, some are commercial, some are specific to deep sky astrophotography while others are generic photography editors, and they all have their pros and cons.

This guide will help you to decide which software is best for you.

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Personally, I am a fan of Astro Pixel Processor for deep sky astrophotography, as it is powerful and easy to use, and of Photoshop for its flexibility.