Photo editors are the advanced image editing tools that follow the sophisticated algorithms to edit and manipulate existing pictures into brand new photos.
If you are looking for an easy to use, powerful digital photo management apps to be included in your photography workflow, then this article is for you. In this article we will discuss top open source photo editor apps that can help developers and photographers in their day to day photography. These powerful photography workflow management applications can come in handy for both developers and photographers. As an open source image editor applications these are free to download and are compatible with many operating systems. Lets discuss there features one by one:
Darktable
Darktable is a free image editing software that provides photographers with professional color management features and allows photographers and developers to create a pipeline for the editing and refinement of your images. Similarly, as an open source photo editor application application, Darktable doesn’t require technical skills for users to be able to benefit from its features. Here are some prominent features of Darktable:
- Fast speed
- Professional color management
- Cross platform compatibility
- Compatibility with different image file types
- Color image modules
GIMP
GIMP is one of the best free photo editing software. It has a customizable interface that is easy to understand and navigate, while providing versatile image manipulation features. Not only is it compatible with multiple languages like Python, C++, Perl, Scheme and more but you can also integrate into your photography workflow alongside other applications like Scribus, Inkscape and SwatchBooker. Following are some of the key features it provides:
- Perspective distortion
- Barrel distortion
- Easily correct the color saturation, brightness, contrast and more
- Digitally retouch images by removing any unnecessary details
- Provides parametric brushes for digitally painting images
- Allows the use of 3rd party plugins
Photivo
With Photivo you can use the image editor to process not only raw files but bitmap files as well such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, and many more. It uses many algorithms already available for changing local contrast, sharpening images, applying filters and much more. Photivo is compatible with multiple operating systems and allows for GIMP integration as well. Here are some stand-out features of Photivo:
- Corrects chromatic aberration
- Corrects bad pixel reduction
- Corrects line denoise
- Easily tilt, shift or apply a toy effect
- Apply film grain simulation, adaptive saturation
- Available in multiple languages
Digikam
DigiKam is an open source image editor. It is compatible with multiple operating systems including Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Similarly, the team developing DigiKam is continuously releasing stable build versions of digiKam to make sure that the photography workflow isn’t affected. With Digikam you can easily import and export raw files, organize your files chronologically through folders and search them up likewise. Following are some of the key features it provides:
- Allows the user to store the image database either locally or on a remote server
- Compatibility with multiple digital camera models
- Multiple image import functions
- Organize by hierchary
- Has a whole list of plugins
- Provides a batch queue manager to process large number of files
RawTherapee
As an open source, free to download, cross platform raw image editor, RawTherapee is quite a powerful software that can help users improve their digital photography. It has been released under the GNU General Public License, and is specifically aimed at raw photo post production tasks. And like most image processing software it is compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Here are some prominent features of RawTherapee:
- Non-destructive editing of raw images
- Employs many modern and traditional demoisaic algorithms
- Ability of advanced color handling
- Allows to control luminance, chrominance and noise reduction
- Edit multiple images at a time
Conclusion
Whether you merely shoot with your smartphone or you’re a professional photographer, you need image editing software to organize and optimize your digital photos. We have discussed some of the top open source photo editor software in this article. It can help you to decide which image editor you can use depending upon your requirements. These software allow to organize your shots, pick the best ones, perfect them, and print or share them online.