Family, friends and clients are always asking for photo editing program recommendations. Photoshop is definitely my first choice, but if you aren’t familiar with all the tools, it can be a bit overwhelming. The price doesn’t make it very accessible either. The programs below have their pros and cons as well, some with more flexibility than others, but 3 are free and you can’t beat that.

Google Picasa

The first program on the list is indeed free. It’s user-friendly with an intuitive interface that makes small tasks easy and doable for just about anyone. You can remove red eye, crop photos, and other standard photo editing functions. The major downside, is that you can’t do any advanced things, but if you’re looking for something that’s easy to use, this is a great starter program to try.

Sumo Paint

Sumo offers much more flexibility and tons of tools. It’s all online so you have to sign up for an account but it’s pretty impressive once you’re in. You can bring in photos from your computer and do most of the same things that you can in Photoshop. You can have multiple layers and it offers some neat shapes and gradients if you’re looking to create some art. I do have a few cons though. My major complaint is that since it is online, and my service goes in and out at times, I noticed some lag time when trying to use the program. I also didn’t like that you can’t edit text after you’ve created it and clicked off of it. You can delete it, but not change it. They also have a community of users that you can share your art with, ask questions, and network with.

Gimp

This program packs a ton of tools to use. It’s got lots of possibilities with many functions to edit photos and create things: cropping, airbrushing, etc. With all the tools and options, this program may be hard to learn for some that aren’t familiar with the interface. I liked it and would recommend it to anyone looking for a good solid program, and with the free price tag, you can’t go wrong.

Photoshop Elements

This program gets you as close as you can get to Photoshop, without having the real deal. It offers lots of functions for editing photos: cropping, retouching, airbrushing, levels. You can purchase it from Amazon for a fraction of the price of the full Photoshop. One downside of the program is that since it is very similar to Photoshop, it will have the same learning curve and many find it hard to open up and use. There are many tutorials available on the internet but learning a new program and it’s functions may be a downside for some.