Our Favorite Free Online Image Editors

Not all of us a have a budget that can accommodate photo-editing software like Sketch, Photoshop, or Fireworks. These free online image editors have some restrictions, but each one is a great starting place. For people who are not especially skilled in this practice, these platforms are easy to use and fun to work with.

Canva

Canva immediately presents you with a variety of templates once you create an account. It is, in our opinion, the champion when it comes to social media. Instead of posting a witty comment on Facebook or retweeting the same people every day, you can create a stunning graphic for your page in minutes.

In fact, one company used Canva and boosted their social media engagement by 1100% (we did not add an extra zero by mistake).

Once you pick a template, a blank canvas is laid out for you. You can drag elements right onto the canvas from the left toolbar, including backgrounds, icons, and text. You can upload your own photo onto the artboard and combine it with Canva’s unique features.

When you’re done, you can immediately share, download, or order prints. You can also save the templates you’ve made for later online without taking up space on your laptop.

LunaPic

LunaPic might not have the most visually appealing website, but don’t let that fool you. If you are new to design and need clear instruction, you can work your way around this site pretty seamlessly.

As you can see, everything is categorized with very clear labels, allowing you to accomplish what you want without the need to “dig in” too much. The left toolbar (not pictured) has all the action buttons you might expect: select, text, zoom, rotate, paint bucket, erase, save, and so on. If you’ve used the program Paint, you will have absolutely no problem with LunaPic, and the end result will be 100x better.

You can also have a lot of fun with the different creative features, like adding filters and effects to your image. You can transform your image into art if you want it to look like a sketch or an illusion, amongst other things.

Although Canva wins on quality content, LunaPic has more editing options - at least in the free versions. Canva requires you to upgrade if you want to resize a photo, which means you need to leave the editor, resize the image (in somewhere like Paint), return to Canva, and start over. LunaPic will let you resize with no extra pressure.  

Pixlr

When you open Pixlr, it almost looks like a simplified version of Photoshop. You can start from scratch, use your own photo, or grab one off of the internet.

The downside is that the icons on the toolbar don’t have labels as you go over them. Although they are pretty straightforward, it could take a little bit longer for someone new to navigate what each icon does.

There are still several winning features here, though. You can create layers in Pixlr, just like you can in Photoshop, which allows you to arrange your artboard. For example, if you want to add one picture on top of the other, you can use layers to order them. It also allows you to keep editing specific to the layer you are in so you don’t accidentally change the entire design.

Some of the icons even allow you to take identical actions found in Photoshop. You can smudge your design, “burn” a section to make it darker, or “dodge” a section to make it lighter. Like the other photo editors, there are plenty of free fonts and filters at your disposal.

*Note: You may need to activate Adobe Flash if you’re using this editor

If you want some basic exposure to graphic design and don’t want to spend the money, these free photo editors are a wonderful resource. Each one is unique so we would recommend spending some time in all three to see which works best for you.

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