Free image editing software you should know about!

Most of the time, when something is advertised as being both awesome AND free, it’s too good to be true and loaded with catches. This is not one of those times.

We constantly have customers contacting us asking us to edit their images for one of our canvas prints, unfortunately we don't always have time to oblige! Instead, we've spent ages ferreting around online, testing various free photo editing software options to see what’s good, so you don’t have to. We know, we’re sweethearts...

Photoshop is the boss when it comes to image editing, but not everyone has access to it or is keen to fork out serious bling for something they are only going to use a handful of times. Also, sometimes you just want “to like, make an image look ‘vintage’ or whatever.” We feel ya. 

Here are our two favourites, one for the complete novice, and the other for the more advanced computer user.

Befunky – for beginners.

· This website is free and it’s stupidly easy to use. No confusing language, really engaging interface and the whole website is a piece of cake to navigate.

· Get rid of red eye, adjust the brightness and contrast, crop your image or fix the colours.

· You have access to a huge range of effects that you can apply to your image instantly with the click of your mouse including pop art, vintage and lomo.

· There are some advanced options and effects that you have to purchase to use, but all of the basic and popular effects and tools are FREE and you don’t have to download anything.

Aviary - more advanced.

We’re kind of late to the party on this one. Aviary has been around for a while, and it’s basically amazing.

· Aviary allows you to extensively edit and manipulate media, offering some, if not all, of the basic functions you’d get in Photoshop.

· You have access to the same basic editing tools and effects as befunky, but a lot more freedom to move beyond those options and create effects yourself.

· You can download it as an app for mobile users, and it’s compatible with pretty much any browser.

· There are loads of tutorials online, so if you’re a newb and you want to take your image editing to the next level, make sure you hit up YouTube first.

In case you didn’t already know, we’re super open to suggestions and feedback, so if you want to see us do a tutorial or blog on a particular topic, reach out! Hello@pixelpaint.co.nz.