We all love free resources! I may be a “Mac Guy” but I still have nothing but love for those of you using my cousin the PC… So in the spirit of fairness I now provide you (the Windows users of the world) with not 5 but 10 FREE photo Editors for you to choose from!

1. PhotoScape

PhotoScape is an all-in-one style photo editor with fun and ease of use. Major capabilities are: viewer, editor, batch editor, page, combine, animated GIF, print, splitter, screen capture, color picker, rename, raw converter, resizing, brightness/color/white-balance adjustment, backlight correction, frames, balloons, text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal and blooming. PhotoScape has been used for two years and is expanding its features continuously.

2. GIMP for Windows

GIMP is a popular open-source image editor originally developed for Unix/Linux. Often lauded as the “free Photoshop,” it does have an interface and features similar to Photoshop, but with a steep learning curve to match. Because it’s volunteer-developed beta software, stability and frequency of updates could be an issue; however, many happy users report using GIMP for Windows without significant problems.

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

Requirements: GIMP should run on any NT-based version of Windows (NT4, 2000, XP or Vista). Older GIMP versions (2.0.x) could also work with older versions of Windows such as Windows 95 but they are not supported anymore. The amount of memory can be an important factor, especially if you intend to work on large images. A minimum of 128 MB of RAM is recommended, but the more RAM the better.

3. Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a free photo editor for Windows XP.

Paint.NET is image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple tool for photo and image editing.

4. Serif PhotoPlus

PhotoPlus is the amazing photo editing software from Serif that enables you to enhance your digital photos and images, create stunning bitmap graphics and even web animations.

With PhotoPlus you can easily edit images, enhance colour balance, adjust brightness and contrast and make many more changes and adjustments to achieve fantastic results every time! The Pro version costs under $80!

5. Pixia

Pixia is the English version of a popular free painting and retouching software that originated in Japan. It features custom brush tips, multiple layers, masking, vector- and bitmap-based drawing tools, color, tone, and lighting adjustments, and multiple undo/redo. Like many freeware editors, there is no support for saving GIF format. Pixia is also available for many other languages. Pixia works with Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000, and XP.

6. VCW VicMan’s Photo Editor

VCW VicMan’s Photo Editor is a versatile image editor with an intuitive interface and a wide variety of features. This powerful application is user friendly, offering simple image editing, high productivity and easy customization.

Now you don’t have to fork out hundreds of dollars for a quality image editor. This award-winning application is freely downloadable and comes with a wide range of essential features for both novice users and professional designers. With VCW VicMan’s Photo Editor you can refine your digital photos, draw artwork naturally and effortlessly, producing superb graphics for the web.

7. PhotoFiltre

PhotoFiltre is a complete image retouching program. It allows you to do simple or advanced adjustments to an image and apply a vast range of filters on it. It is simple and intuitive to use, and has an easy learning curve. The toolbar, giving you access to the standard filters with just a few clicks, gives PhotoFiltre a robust look.

8. Ultimate Paint

Ultimate Paint is a full-featured 32-bit Windows graphics program for image creation, viewing and manipulation. On this page you can download different versions, see what extras UP gives you compared to other paint programs, take a look at its cool plug-in effects, register the trial version and browse the tutorials.
In the latest trial version all basic functionality can be used without limitations. In addition we have also introduced a new freeware version.

UP supports JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PCX, AVI (reading only), TGA, WMF/EMF, ICO (reading only), IFF/LBM and WAP BMP image formats and Twain compatible scanners. You can easily print your image, setting its size, position and orientation.

9. ImageForge

ImageForge provides you with a set of powerful tools for painting and editing images, photos or other graphics.

Create and edit images, acquire pictures from your scanner, digital camera or other Twain-compliant device, apply special effect filters, produce your own photo albums and simple slide shows, and much more.

Upgrade your ability to edit images with this free paint program.

10. Picasa

This third version of Google Picasa is earning enthusiastic reviews for its improved image management and editing features, along with a basic movie editor and a lot of web synchronization. It even has a face-recognition feature that helps you find photos with people in them. The Mac version has now been released, joining versions for Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Linux. Older versions of Picasa run on earlier Windows operating systems. Reviews now give Picasa 3 the edge over other free photo software and say it may well be all you need — unless your collection gets too big.

If this post was helpful or if you have any photo editing suggestions, please add a comment below.