The PC Utilities Guide to...

Free Digital Photo Tools

Ensure you're making the most of your digital photo collection with our pick of the best tools to edit, manage and share your snaps

In less than a decade, digital cameras have all but completely usurped their film-based predecessors to become a common sight in most households.

The switch to digital photography doesn't just change the way images are captured and stored, it also has a big impact on everything from how we later view the pictures to how we choose to share them with others. Whilst there will always be a place for the treasured family photo album, we now have so many more options to choose from.

With a few clicks of the mouse it's now possible to email images to friends and fmaily or upload photos to Web galleries for the whole world to see.

Of course, one of the most attractive aspects of digital photography is just how easy it can be to edit and enhance pictures. Your family photos need no longer be ruined by red-eye, and the lamppost growing out of Aunt Mable's head can be surgically removed in a matter of minutes.

It's easier to get creative with your pictures too, turning digital photos into works of art or combining images together to create montages and complex photo projects.

In order to take advantage of all the possibilities to open to the digital photographer, you'll need to arm yourself with a selection of specialised software tools. A capable image editor, for instance, is absolutely essential, as is a decent photo management application.

It's a good idea to equip yourself with a tool for backing up your photos too, and perhaps a utility for creating online photo albums as well.

If you've just spent a few hundred pounds on a new digital camera, the prospect of spending several more to get all the software you need is far from appealing. That's why we've scoured the Net to bring you the very best collection of freeware utilities to edit, manage and share your photos.

— Luke Whittaker. This article is an excerpt from a larger article in issue 110 of PC Utilities magazine. Each month PC Utilities magazine reviews scores of great new programs. Have you considered taking advantage of our no-risk subscription offer?

This page was last updated on 12 Jun 2009

# Name
1

Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition
Organise your digital images to make finding the files you want much easier

2

ArtPlus Digital Photo Recovery
Recover lost images on a corrupted or formatted memory card

3

ArtRage Starter Edition PIC
Play with paint, pencils and crayons without the mess, and transform photos into digital artwork

4

BW-Plus
Quickly convert colour images into greyscale photographs - Photoshop-compatible plug-ins

5

Gentibus CD
Scan photo CDs or removable drives, and index thumbnail images of all pictures found on your PC

6

JetPhoto Studio PIC
Organise a digital photo collection, resize and watermark your images, and create a Web album - latest beta version

7

Light Artist PIC
Add lighting effects to your digital photos to create ambient illumination effects, boost colour and more

8

Paint.NET REVIEW PIC
Dump the Windows Paint tool in favour of this free alternative featuring layers and image-editing effects - requires the .NET Framework 2.0; Open Sour

9

Photo Backup LE BUY REVIEW PIC
Back up copies of your digital photos to CDs or DVDs, and browse their contents using a graphical thumbnail index

10

PhotoOnWeb PIC
Create albums from your digital photos, which you can host on the Web - includes 100MB of free hosting space

11

PhotoPerfect Express PIC
Optimise your digital photos in three easy steps

12

Picasa REVIEW PIC USER
Find, edit and manage your digital photos and share them with friends

13

Pictomio PIC
Browse through your digital photos in a range of slick new ways, edit pictures and view EXIF data - alpha version includes new geotagging features

14

RIOT
Optimise images for the Web or email with the Radical Image Optimization Tool

15

SkyAlbum Photo Gallery Builder
Create Flash-based photo galleries that can be uploaded to the Web or burned directly to a CD/DVD

16

The GIMP REVIEW PIC USER
Create graphics and edit your images with this advanced image editor - Open Source

17

Tintii Photo Filter
Apply colour-separation effects to your images with just a few clicks

18

VSO Image Resizer BUY PIC
Organise your photos by shrinking their resolution or moving them within your hard drive