Top 3 Free Photo Editing Applications

Last week, in our featured download section we focused on free Antivirus software. This particular feature was quite appreciated, with many readers writing in to say that it was just the solution they were looking for, as their AV was either not up to the task or had expired on them.

Keeping this in mind, we decided to focus oin a different area this week. As many of our readers know, over the last few years digital cameras have really come into their own in India. Today there is a surfeit of choice, from the world's best brands offering everything from entry-level cameras to digital SLRs. With such a vast range of cameras to choose from, consumers have naturally flocked to these devices causing the film camera to nearly go the way of the dodo. This has however caused an interesting problem. Unlike film based affairs, digital cameras allow you to copy the images to a PC. These images can then be color corrected, enhanced or worked upon to our heart's leisure. The software that is most commonly used in such cases is Adobe Photoshop.

However Photoshop while being easy to use for basic work has a few problems that put it out of the reach of most users. Firstly it has been designed as a commercial image editing, manipulation and DTP solution with an appropriate price point that keeps it well clear of the average consumer. Secondly over the last couple of releases, its complexity has grown to such a point that most people will never ever use those features. Finally with its increased bulk, it has become far more demanding on systems requiring tonnes of memory and space to work with. All these problems cause it to become more of a headache for the average consumer than a useful tool.

Therefore this week we have shifted our focus to free photo image editing applications. We sorted through many software releases before we finally came upon the list that we are putting up here. As we mentioned last week, the software chosen here are not only completely free, but offer features and sophisticated capabilities that rival the best commercial offerings out there.

We hope you enjoy these free and great software.