Basic Photo Editors is designed for common users for basic photo editing, like rotate, crop, resize, add watermark, and photo adjusting etc.

It has many built-in effects and filters, and you only need to import the photos to the software, then click a button to add the effects and filters into the photos. Some software also provides the help guide Info of tools and commands, so that it’s very helpful for users to lean. If you are a beginner, we recommend you use basic photo editing program.

Choose Your Suitable ProductDue to a wide range of photo editing software that designed for different user groups, and usually there are many differences in features between each other, that caused customers don’t know how to choose a suitable one. So we filtered the most popular photo editing software and make a test, then we divided all these products into two types - Basic Photo Editors and Advanced Photo Editors. If you need a photo editing tool, please check out the table below to select a right product.

Basic Photo Editors

Pros: This kind of software is designed for common users, and it’s easy to use. It has lower (easier) learning curve, and the ease of use is the key advantage. It excludes many advanced editing tools, only provides the most common editing tools, such as rotate, crop, resize, red eye correction, adjustment and many built-in effects and filters. Most of this kind of software provide instant one-click effects, and users only need to click a few buttons or directly drag images to quickly and efficiently make the effects and filters to your photos.

Cons: Not powerful enough

Advanced Photo Editors

Pros: It is designed for professional users, and widely used in a variety of fields. It provides many advanced photographic features, such as channel, layer, layer mask and path tools etc. It is also able to complete the most sophisticated image processing, and with high degree of freedom. It has a large number of third-party plug-ins and extensions, so you can add many features as you want.

Cons: This kind of software usually has a steeper learning curve, and users need to have professional image editing knowledges and have to spend a lot of time learning to use it skillfully.

Basic Photo Editors's important and necessary featuresAdjustments: When you view your photos, you may notice problems that you want to correct. In some photos, the problems are obvious, such as when the subject is too dark. In other photos, you may sense the need for improvement but not know what to fix. With the software, you can correct specific aspects of a photo or allow the program to make basic photo adjustments.
Clone Stamp Tools: Removes flaws and objects by painting over them with another part of the image.
Content Aware Move Tool: The Content-Aware option in the Patch tool synthesizes nearby content for seamless blending with the surrounding content.
Easy built-in learning: This handy integrated reference guide offers step-by-step instructions and quick access to the right tools to help you get the most out of your photo-editing software.
Guides/Grid: Guides and the Grid help you position images or elements precisely. Guides appear as nonprinting lines that float over the image. You can move and remove guides. You can also lock them so that you don’t move them by accident.
HDR Merge: In photography, HDR refers to “high dynamic range”. Dynamic range is the range of luminance that can be captured in a photo, from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights.
History Panel: Lists the actions taken on the active image; lets you undo and redo adjacent or nonadjacent actions.
Layer style: The Layer Style dialog now lets you apply multiple effects—strokes, inner shadows, color overlays, gradient overlays, drop shadows, etc—to a single layer style. Also, more than one instance of some effects can now be applied to a layer style.
Layer mask: You can add a mask to a layer and use the mask to hide portions of the layer and reveal the layers below. Masking layers is a valuable compositing technique for combining multiple photos into a single image or for removing a person or object from a photo.
Layer: Layers are like sheets of stacked acetate. You can see through transparent areas of a layer to the layers below. You move a layer to position the content on the layer, like sliding a sheet of acetate in a stack. You can also change the opacity of a layer to make content partially transparent.
Magic Wand Tool: The Magic Wand tool selects similarly colored areas.
Quick selection tool: The Quick Selection tool lets you quickly “paint” a selection using an adjustable round brush tip.
Nondestructive editing: Nondestructive editing allows you to make changes to an image without overwriting the original image data, which remains available in case you want to revert to it. Because nondestructive editing doesn’t remove data from an image, the image quality doesn’t degrade when you make edits.
Straightening images: You can easily straighten crooked images by aligning a straightening bar with an image feature.

Learning Resources

Learn & Support /Photoshop Elements Help

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List all the popular Basic Photo Editors.
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Paint.NET

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Layer maskAdjustmentsGuides/GridMagic Wand ToolNondestructive editingRed eye removalEasy built-in learningClone Stamp Tools

5.0

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