GNU Image Manipulation Program, commonly known by its acronym GIMP, is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks. It is extensible by means of plugins, and scriptable. It is not designed to be used for drawing, though some artists and creators have used it in this way.
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1987 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the most used tool for professional digital art, especially in raster graphics editing. Owing to its fame, the program's name has become genericised as a verb although Adobe disapproves of such use.
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and design software developed and marketed by Adobe. Originally designed for the Apple Macintosh, development of Adobe Illustrator began in 1985. Along with Creative Cloud, Illustrator CC was released. The latest version, Illustrator 2024, was released on October 10, 2023, and is the 28th generation in the product line. Adobe Illustrator was reviewed as the best vector graphics editing program in 2021 by hpMagazine.
Preview is the built-in image viewer and PDF viewer of the macOS operating system. In addition to viewing and printing digital images and Portable Document Format (PDF) files, it can also edit these media types. It employs the Aqua graphical user interface, the Quartz graphics layer, and the ImageIO and Core Image frameworks.
Corel Photo-Paint is a raster graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel since 1992. Corel markets the software for Windows and Mac OS operating systems, previously having marketed versions for Linux. Its primary market competitor is Adobe Photoshop.
A number of vector graphics editors exist for various platforms. Potential users of these editors will make a comparison of vector graphics editors based on factors such as the availability for the user's platform, the software license, the feature set, the merits of the user interface (UI) and the focus of the program. Some programs are more suitable for artistic work while others are better for technical drawings. Another important factor is the application's support of various vector and bitmap image formats for import and export.
Aperture is a discontinued professional image organizer and editor developed by Apple between 2005 and 2015 for the Mac, as a professional alternative to iPhoto.
A camera raw image file contains unprocessed or minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, a motion picture film scanner, or other image scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed, and contain large amounts of potentially redundant data. Normally, the image is processed by a raw converter, in a wide-gamut internal color space where precise adjustments can be made before conversion to a viewable file format such as JPEG or PNG for storage, printing, or further manipulation. There are dozens of raw formats in use by different manufacturers of digital image capture equipment.
Adobe Lightroom is an image organization and image processing software developed by Adobe as part of the Creative Cloud subscription family. It is supported on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and tvOS. Its primary uses include importing, saving, viewing, organizing, tagging, editing, and sharing large numbers of digital images. Lightroom's editing functions include white balance, presence, tone, tone curve, HSL, color grading, detail, lens corrections, and calibration manipulation, as well as transformation, spot removal, red eye correction, graduated filters, radial filters, and adjustment brushing. The name of the software is based on darkrooms used for processing light-sensitive photographic materials.
Helicon Filter, also referred to as Helicon, Filter, or as HF, was a proprietary commercial and shareware photo editing software program for Microsoft Windows, similar to such programs as Adobe Photoshop and GIMP, developed and published by Helicon Soft Ltd. Unlike these other programs, Helicon Filter is designed primarily to edit and improve existing photos and not for graphics creation. Helicon Filter's interface also differs from other programs in that compact toolbars and menus containing editing tools are replaced with labeled "filter" tabs, each tab containing labeled edit options specific to a single aspect of the picture. Although some editors used to Photoshop-style programs may initially find this layout unfamiliar and unlike the standard toolbar layout, beginners and those who don't recognize the standard icons generally find this very helpful for getting through the editing process.
Portrait Professional or PortraitPro is a portrait photography retouching software developed by Anthropics Technology and initially released in 2006. It automates the photo editing process with algorithms that manipulate facial features, remove skin imperfections, alter colors and tone, replace the background, and so on. It is available as a standalone application, as well as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Photoshop Elements, and Aperture plug-ins on Windows and OS X systems.
PhotoLine is a general purpose bitmap and vector graphics editor developed and published by Computerinsel GmbH for Windows, macOS, and Linux/Wine. It was originally created in 1995 by Gerhard Huber and Martin Huber. The program combines bitmap and vector graphics editing in one seamless working application unlike most graphics software which tend to focus on either bitmap or vector editing and output. PhotoLine is considered as a market competitor to Adobe Photoshop.
SAI or Easy Paint Tool SAI (ペイントツールSAI) is a lightweight raster graphics editor and painting software for Microsoft Windows developed and published by Systemax Software. Development of the software began on August 2, 2004, and the first alpha version was released on October 13, 2006. SAI's official release (1.0.0) was on February 25, 2008, and an update preview was released shortly after. It has been available on Microsoft Windows from XP to 11. It is available in Japanese, German, and English.
Capture NX is a photo editing computer program developed by Nik Software in partnership with Nikon for macOS and Microsoft Windows.
Affinity Designer is a vector graphics editor developed by Serif for macOS, iPadOS, and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the "Affinity trinity" alongside Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Affinity Designer is available for purchase directly from the company website and in the Mac App Store, iOS App Store, and the Microsoft Store.
Affinity Photo is a raster graphics editor developed by Serif Ltd. for iOS, macOS, and Windows, alongside Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher. Development of Affinity Photo started in 2009 as a raster graphics editor for macOS. Its first version reached general availability in 2015 with the Windows version launched a year later. It is a successor to PhotoPlus which Serif discontinued in 2017.
Artipic is a graphics editor developed for Microsoft Windows. An older version for macOS is still available but unsupported.
EasyHDR is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image processing software that merges differently exposed photographs into HDR radiance map and tone maps them. With a single photograph, easyHDR can be used to increase contrast and refresh colors.
Luminar Neo is a universal photo editing software application developed by Skylum available for Windows and macOS.
Skylum is a software development company based in Kyiv, Ukraine. It is most known for its award-winning photo editing software Luminar Neo and Aurora HDR. Skylum is also the developer of other photography apps for Mac such as Snapheal, Focus, Tonality, Intensify, Noiseless, and FX Photo Studio.
