4 Free Editing Tools for Photographers (and a bonus tip)

As a photographer on a budget, it’s becoming harder and harder to find free editing tools that are a similar quality to Photoshop or Lightroom. Look no further, here are four free tools that are easy and accessible while giving you a range of editing effects and techniques.

Afterlight

Afterlight is available on iOS and Android as an app, it does offer a Membership at £2.99 a month, however without the membership, you’re still given a range of features.

The adjustment tool allows you to adjust the light with contrast, brightness, exposure, temperature and highlights and shadows. You can also adjust colour aspects of the picture with hue, vibrance and saturation.

My favourite part of the adjustment tool of this app is that you can manipulate the highlight, mid and shadow tones of the picture. This allows you to completely change the colours of different aspects of the photo.

As well as the adjustment tools, you can add light leaks, filters and colour shifts. Overall the free version of the app is great for optimising photos easily on your phone.

Pixaloop

Pixaloop is also available on both the AppStore and Google Play. It’s part of a collection by Enlight which offers similar features to Photoshop’s Lightroom. Pixaloop specifically allows you to add animations to your photos. You can make part of your photos move like the sky or water with the path, anchor and freeze tools.

Although there is a pro version, the free version offers a variety of overlays from butterflies to bubbles to rain. There is also an effects feature which lets you create dispersing shards from objects in your picture or smoke surrounding aspects of the photo.

Pixaloop is a great app to use if you share your photos digitally and is really accessible to use.

Split Pic

Split Pic is similar to most photo collage apps except the fact that it allows you to blend photos together. Unfortunately, it’s only available on iOS and Windows. With the feature to merge photos, you can clone people, use photo mirroring or make an entirely new photo.

The app also offers filters and basic adjustment tools as well as stickers and overlays.

As a photographer, on top of editing actual photos, the app can be helpful to show before and after edits or showcase different styles.

Pixlr

Pixlr is an online photo editor providing both an advanced version and a basic version, both versions being free. Pixlr X (the more basic version) lets you add effects, filters and adjustments to the photos. You can also liquefy and add borders, shapes and stickers.

The advanced editing software (Pixlr E) has almost every feature offered by Photoshop including advanced adjustment tools, the ability to add and edit different layers, colour change and light manipulation. You can also add filters, text and use double exposure. Pixlr E includes everything offered by Pixlr X.

Personally, this is one of my favourite tools because it’s super easy to use and there are so many options for what you can do with it.

Bonus…

One thing to bear in mind when editing is that with simple editing where you just want to make adjustments, is that you don’t need a fancy editing app.

Over the years, Apple has been providing better editing tools in the photo app with each update and it’s the same for most Android devices.

For simple edits, I actually find these really great because it’s a lot easier and you don’t have to worry about maintaining image size and quality.

So there you have it, four great free editing tools to make your life easier as a photographer on a budget.