Whether you are making a Christmas card to send out for your holidays or making a fun collage to text your friends, you’ll need an image editing software.
A few years ago, you’d had to download and install a dedicated software to edit images. But thanks to the advancement in web technology, it’s now possible to edit images right in the browser. Let’s take a look at few of the best online photo editors available.
iPiccy: An Easy-to-Use Photo Editor with Some Advanced Features
iPiccy is an easy to use photo editor that you can use in your browser. It’s a tool primarily designed for basic photo editing—the type you might post to social media. The good thing is that you can open the web app and start editing photos even without creating an account. You also get a basic tour of all the features of iPiccy when you open the editor for the first time.
The tools in the editor are organized in an easy to use way, and you can start playing by uploading a photo or using one of the provided samples.
On the Editor menu, you’ll find basic editing tools for cropping, resizing, rotating, sharpening, and adjusting colors. You’ll also find advanced tools for working with things like curves, levels, dodges, and burns.
The rest of the tools are focused towards photo enhancement with features like photo effects, skin retouching, adding frames, and textures. iPiccy does have a layer manager, but it’s not nearly as robust as you might find in a desktop image editor.
Overall, iPiccy is a good tool to pick up if you have little to no editing experience. The simple tools, and the addition of a few power tools, serve as a great starting point for editing your photos.
Fotor: A Heavy Duty Photo Editor
Fotor has a similar interface to iPiccy, but once you upload a photo, you’ll find that Fotor offers quite a few more editing tools.
You get access to all the regular editing features and some advanced ones. Apart from editing, you can also create collages or design banners if you like. The interface feels polished and well thought out. However, there is a downside. Fotor’s interface can be a little sluggish at times, but restarting Fotor usually fixes that.
If you subscribe to Fotor Premium ($39.99/yearly or $8.99/monthly), you’ll get an ad-free experience, access to premium design elements, and access to the Fotor Cloud, where you can save your edited pictures.
Photopea: A Photoshop Replacement in the Browser
Photopea is a powerful online photo editor that is unlike any other editor on this list. It’s designed to be a complete Photoshop replacement running in your browser. In fact, you can even upload a PSD, XCF, Sketch, SVG, or any other image file to start editing.
The interface is also designed to be similar to Photoshop, so if you’ve got any Photoshop experience, you’ll feel right at home. Photopea even supports advanced features like scripts, and support for actions is coming soon.
It’s worth mentioning that since Photopea is a replacement for Photoshop, it’s not exactly beginner friendly. But the upside is that you can accomplish more with Photopea than any other tool if you know how.
Photopea has a free, ad-supported version and a premium, ad-free version that costs $9 per month or $20 for three months
BeFunky: Image Editing Made Fun
BeFunky is an online photo editor that is designed for people with limited editing experience.
When you start the editor, you can either upload an image or use one of the provided samples.
But that’s where BeFunky’s similarity to other editors ends. As you can see in the image below, the editing options in BeFunky lean more towards the decorative end while the basic editing options are all stuffed into a single tab.
An interesting feature in BeFunky is that you can vary the degree by which most effects are applied. For example, if you choose a Floral Overlay effect, you can customize the overlay by clicking the equalizer icon.
And then there are plenty of options for customizing the applied effect.
The free version of BeFunky is ad-supported and offers a decent set of editing tools. A paid version ($4.95 per month or $2.91 per month billed annually) drops the ads and loads in even more editing tools.
Pixlr: Image Editing for Everyone
Pixlr is a unique entry on this list. All the other editors we’ve mentioned have either had simple editing options, advanced editing options, or a combination of both. So, all the other tools have tried to create a single solution for everyone.
Pixlr has taken a different route and divided the easy (or simple) and advanced editing options into different tools. Pixlr Editor is the tool with the advanced editing tools while Pixlr Express is the easy to use tool for everyone.
If you check out both the tools, the differences become even more apparent. Pixlr Editor has a ton of options to work with and will be a delight for people with previous experience, but possibly a bit intimidating for others.
On the other hand, Pixlr Express has a simple and easy to use interface that anyone can use.
While both the tools are great at what they are designed to do, the separation of the two does have a disadvantage. You cannot use both the simple and complex editing options in conjunction, which is possible with other tools. To do that with Pixlr, you would have to export your image from one of the tools and then import it into the other. Apart from that, Pixlr is a handy tool to edit your photos and other images.
And if you’re just looking for a quick way to do some simple online editing, Pixlr Express might just fit the bill.
There’s also a Pixlr Pro offering ($5/month) that is a version of the Pixlr Editor with additional image format support, and gives you access to loads of templates, fonts, and royalty free stock images.
Those are our top picks for online photo editors. Have a different one you love? Let us know in the comments!
