There’s no way around it. Product photography has a major impact on how customers perceive your brand and its products.
When you use high-quality images and professional photo editing:
- Your products look more valuable — so you can charge more for them.
- Your store looks more professional and trustworthy — which can build your brand reputation.
You don’t have to be an expert to master photo editing, as there are hundreds of tools and services that can help you whip your product photography into shape.
In this post, we’re sharing 14 of the best photo editing software tools that are both free and paid.
Best Paid Photo Editing Software and Services
Paid photo editing software is generally more advanced than free versions. Additionally, all photo editing services incur at least a small fee for you to outsource your editing. This makes paid software and services the best option for ecommerce stores with a high volume of product images or a desire to be more creative with editing.
Subscription Photo Editing Software
PicMonkey
PicMonkey is a web-based subscription photo editing software. It provides all the expected professional editing tools, including resizing, adjusting exposure, and retouching. You can also use it to add graphics or text to your images. If you prefer, you can download the PicMonkey app for iPhone or Android.
This option is a simple and user-friendly photo editor that’s geared for beginners to photo editing. You can purchase a Basic subscription for $9.99 a month, a Pro subscription for $12.99 a month, or a Team subscription for $33.99 a month.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a popular photo editing tool with advanced editing capabilities. This feature-rich tool allows you to make extensive image corrections as well as to add graphic design elements for promotional images or marketing assets. Keep in mind that a tool of this caliber and extensive features may require some training to get up to speed.
For individuals, pricing ranges from $9.99 to $89.98 per month, depending on the services and features you want includes.
One-Time Payment Photo Editing Software
Corel PaintShop Pro
PaintShop Pro is a popular photo editing software that you can download to your PC — provided it uses Windows 10 (it is not compatible with Mac).
In addition to the basic photo editing tools, PaintShop Pro also allows you to edit raw images, to create animations with your photos or to add drawings or text. For a one-time payment of $79.99, it’s marketed as the “affordable alternative to Photoshop.” (Photoshop is about $10 a month or $120 a year.)
Alien Skin Exposure X4
Alien Skin Exposure X4 can be purchased as standalone software for Mac or Windows, or it can be purchased as a plug-in for Photoshop or Lightroom.
What differentiates this software from others is that it merges all its features into a single screen, compared to other software that may open different screens for organizing files, editing, or exporting. You can use Exposure X4 for all professional editing, including batch-editing with preset filters to save time. The regular version is $114 and the bundle version is $149.
Photo Editing Services for Outsourcing
Pixelz
Pixelz is marketed as an on-demand retouching service, and it exclusively serves ecommerce companies for product photography. You send your images to Pixelz to be retouched to eliminate flaws or remove or replace the background, and you receive back the edited images within 24 hours.
In addition to paying a small fee per photo, you pay a subscription every month. For solo entrepreneurs the cost is $9 a month, for small to midsize companies it’s $95 a month, and for large companies with a high volume of images it’s $1,995 a month.
Fix the Photo
Fix the Photo is an established photo editing outsourcing service that offers everything from editing wedding photos to retouching product photography.
For product photography, they offer image cropping, color correction, noise reduction, and background removal. At the Basic Level, editing is a flat rate of $2 per photo, but there are discounts for volume orders.
Best Free Photo Editing Software for Mac and Windows
The best free photo editing software for Windows 10 and Mac are enticing alternatives to more advanced paid options, especially if your product images don’t require creative editing or significant adjustments. In addition, free photo editing software is often easier to learn for beginners than high-tech software.
Free Built-in Photo Editing Software
Apple Photos
Apple Photos includes basic editing capabilities, and it is automatically downloaded to your Apple devices. It offers a surprising number of features, including the ability to edit raw images. If you simply want to retouch or sharpen your images, then your built-in Apple Photos editor may be all you need.
Google Drive Editor
Google Drive Editor is one of the best free options for photo editing software for Windows 10 and Mac, because it integrates seamlessly with your Google Drive. This makes it easy to store and organize photos for editing. The editing options are basic, but if your images are already high quality, you may not need to get a more advanced photo editor. You can sharpen images, enhance with filters, or rotate and crop.
Free Web-Based Photo Editing Software
Fotor
Fotor is a user-friendly photo editing software you can use right from your browser. It’s designed for beginners to photo editing and is one of the most popular choices for web-based photo editing software. You can selectively blur, retouch, add filters, add lettering or graphics, and more. And it’s completely free.
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