AFTER HOURS
Online Photo Editors: Quick Fixes for Your Pics
by Thomas Pack
You just want your photos to look good. Sometimes all it takes is a little tweaking, so you don’t need all of the tools in a pro-level photo-editing program—and you probably don’t want to climb the steep learning curve such software usually requires. Several simpler photo editors can help. Most of them are available in both web-based and app versions, offer free and premium sign-up plans, and provide basic as well as easy-to-use advanced tools in case you decide you do want to take your photo editing to the next level.
PIXLR
Pixlr proclaims itself “[t]he suite for all your creative photo and design editing needs directly in your web browser, on your smartphone, or on your desktop, all free.” Besides providing basic tools for such tasks as cropping, retouching, and adjusting light and color, the Pixlr photo editor offers a range of AI-powered tools. For example, Generative Expand lets you stretch your image beyond the actual edges of the photo you took and uses AI to fill the void. Generative Transform lets you separate objects from an image and move, resize, or rotate them. You also can modify or remove a backdrop, upscale an image while retaining overall quality, and even swap out faces in a photo.
Pixlr also offers an AI image generator, and, as the website says, it’s “all free,” but you’ll need to sign up for a Plus ($1.99 a month), Premium ($4.90), or Team ($9.91) plan to remove ads and the limits on the number of photos you can save. These fee-based accounts also give you more of the credits you need to use the AI-powered tools.
BEFUNKY
BeFunky offers photo editing, collage making, and graphic design tools. It lets you quickly retouch, crop, and resize images and even provides batch editing so you can alter and enhance multiple photos at the same time. There are artsy filters if you want your photos to look more like paintings, sketches, or cartoons. AI-powered features include an object eraser, a sky replacer, and a deblur tool. You can remove the background from your photo with one click and replace it with a solid color or make it transparent.
Graphic design features include a wide range of customizable templates for social media images, brochures, and fliers. BeFunky also offers more than a million stock images and thousands of vector graphics and icons. The free BeFunky account provides the basic photo-editing tools and limited access to a few others. The complete suite of image-editing and design features is $14.99 a month or $83.88 a year (which works out to $6.99 a month).
POLARR
The free, web-based version of Polarr lets you use filters and adjust light, contrast, and color. You also can crop, flip, rotate, and resize your images. With the premium plan ($7.99 a month or $47.99 a year), you get a wide range of other tools, including perspective correction, overlays, double exposures, and the ability to select and adjust specific areas of your image. You get more than 100 additional filters, so you could, for example, emulate the look of vintage film, remove fogginess, or correct and enhance various skin tones in portraits.
Polarr also offers a range of easy-to-follow, interactive tutorials in case you want to expand your photo-editing skills by learning about such topics as white balance, selective coloring, gradient blur, dehazing, and touching up faces.
PHOTOPEA
Photopea lets you upload photos in an exceptionally wide range of formats. Its suite of basic editing tools makes it easy to crop, resize, and enhance your images. Advanced features include layering, masking, and blending. You get both the basic and advanced tools with a free Photopea account. If you sign up for one of the premium plans (starting at $8 for 30 days, $15 for 90 days, or $50 a year), you get an advertising-free photo-editing experience and 3,000 AI credits a month. You also can go back more steps in your image-editing history.
Photoshop users should note that Photopea supports the PSD format, both to open and save files.
GIMP
An open source image editor, GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It’s free, downloadable software for several operating systems, including GNU/Linux as well as macOS and Windows. The program provides the tools you need for everything “[f]rom retouching to restoring to creative composites,” according to the website.
Many users may find GIMP more complex than the other image editors listed in this column, but you can download a range of tutorials written by the user community. If you’re primarily interested in quick pic fixes, check out the GIMP Quickies tutorial. It explains how to use GIMP for “simple graphics needs without having to learn advanced image manipulation methods.”
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