Four Free Photo Editors

When most people think of photo editors, they immediately think of Adobe's Photoshop.  However, the expensive price tag and steep learning curve is a turn-off for most average users who only want basic image editing features.

You don't have to lighten your wallet by $100 (or more) just to do photo editing, unless you are a professional that needs many of the advanced features of Photoshop.  Here are four options that won't cost you a dime to editing your pictures:

1) GIMP - GIMP is an advanced photo editor that has most of the features of Photoshop.  Like Photoshop, it does come with a substantial learning curve, but it will allow you to obtain professional-quality results.  If you are looking to do professional image editing, this is clearly your best option.  If you are looking for something that will be easy to use, you may want to skip this one for other options.

2) Serif PhotoPlus Starter - Serif created a basic edition of its PhotoPlus editing program that is completely free.  It can resize images, remove red eye and blemishes, and crop and straighten photos.  Obviously, the goal for this free version is to entice you to buy the full version, so if you want more than just the basic features, you will need to pay.  However, if you are looking for a program that will do the basics quickly and easily, this is a great option.

3) PhotoScape - PhotoScape is free with one caveat:  it is part of the Open Candy network, so it will display ads within the program for other software.  (It will not infect other parts of your computer with adware, but you will see ads within the program.)  However, PhotoScape is a great option if you want one program to edit and display your photos in a slide show or animation.

4) Paint.net - Paint.net started as an alternative for Microsoft Paint, but it has developed into something much more powerful.  Even though it is not nearly as powerful as GIMP or Photoshop, it is probably the easiest to learn and it contains many useful features.  If you are looking for software with beginning and intermediate level features that you can learn quickly, Paint.net should be your first choice.