Whether you capture photographs from your Windows Phone or a stand-alone digital camera, there will be times when a photo editor will come in handy from your Windows 10 PC. These editors can help you fine-tune your image or customize it with special effects filters.
While there's several excellent photo editors available on the Windows Phone side of the coin (Fantasia Painter, Black, Afterlight, etc.) in this roundup is focusing on the best photo editors available for your PC or tablet device. As is customary, if a photography app is available for both PC and Phones, we'll add the link information to both. We're focusing on photo editing apps available through the Windows Store, so that'll exclude a few outside apps like Photoshop Elements.
If we happened to overlook your favorite Windows photo editing app, let us know in the comments! Additionally, if you are interested in chatting it up about photography topics, jump over to our Windows Central Photography Lounge.
Fhotoroom
Fhotoroom is a popular Windows Phone photo editor and is also a pretty solid Windows 10 photo editor. Described as a Photography Experience Platform, Fhotoroom combines a comprehensive photo editor and a social network ideal for sharing your images. The Windows Phone version also tosses in a camera app into the mix.
You can share your photos with one of the fastest growing communities of photo enthusiast or if you prefer, simply use Fhotoroom to fine-tune your images. The editor can handle file sizes up to 41MP files with full EXIF and GPS metadata support. You also have RAW support for 150 file formats, along with JPEG, PNG and TIFF files.
Editing tools are extensive and include your basic editing tools (exposure, saturation, contrast, cropping, etc.). You also have a collection of presets to add effect filters to your images. Then there is the Pro Tools set that helps set Fhotoroom apart from other Windows photo editors. These Pro Tools include HDR conversion, tilt shift, Tiny Planets conversion, color splash, filter brush and more.
I've been using Fhotoroom for years from both my Windows Phone and Windows tablets. It has a relatively small footprint storage footprint of just 22MB, but casts a wide and long shadow with its features list and quality. The core app is free and offers you plenty of editing horsepower. There are several in-app purchase opportunities to choose from the will open up Fhotoroom's editing abilities further.
Fhotoroom is a free app with several in-app purchase opportunities and is available for both Windows PC and Phone.
Download Fhotoroom for Windows PC and Phone
Adobe Photoshop Express
Adobe Photoshop Express is a lighter-weight photo editing option that is well suited for mobile devices like your Windows Phone or Windows 10 tablet. It is also a nice option for those looking for an editor that covers the basics without getting too deep into things.
Photoshop Express for Windows 10 has the ability to edit existing photos stored on your computer, OneDrive and edit photos captured from your devices camera (where applicable). Editing tools cover the basics rather nicely and include:
- Cropping
- Adjustments for Contrast, Exposure, White Balance
- Apply dozens of special effects filters
- Red-eye Reduction
You can make adjustments to your images manually or tap the Auto-Fix button and let Photoshop Express make the necessary adjustments. Additional add-on components are available through in-app purchase for noise reduction tools and additional effects filters.
I did hope to find more features with Photoshop Express, something along the lines of a scaled down version of Photoshop Elements. Still, for basic editing Photoshop Express does a good job of things. One advantage Photoshop Express does have is a small footprint of only 10MB. If you need an editor on a device where memory is at a premium (e.g. tablets), Photoshop Express may fit the bill.
Adobe Photoshop Express is a free app with in-app purchase, available for both Windows PC and Phones.
Download Adobe Photoshop Express for Windows PC and Phone
Fotor
Fotor is another solid photo editing choice for Windows 10. Fotor takes more of an all-in-one approach with both a healthy photo editor and collage creator rolled into one app.
Let's start with Fotor's photo editing feature. Here you can adjust the basics (exposure, contrast, saturation, temperature, etc.) as well as crop your images and add effects filters, borders and text boxes. It also has a tilt-shift tool and thirteen preset scenes that can be applied to your photos.
Fotor has support for RAW file conversion, along with the ability to resize images. Fotor's feature set sits somewhere between Photoshop Express and Fhotoroom.
The collage generator has three different modes: template collage, photo stitching and shuffle collage. The template collage is fairly straightforward: you choose your images and Fotor populates a collage frame with them. You can choose a different template layout and shuffle your pictures around.
The free style feature provides you with a blank canvas on which you position your images to your liking. While you might think photo stitching is a tool for building panoramic images, it is more of a film strip creator. The end product reminds me of the old photo booth picture strips.
All in all, Fotor is a quality photo editor to consider. It has a respectable amount of photo editing tools delivered in a user-friendly package.
Download Fotor for Windows PC and Phone
Polarr Photo Editor Lite
Polarr Photo Editor is a pro-style photo editor for Windows 10 PC, and while it's impressed many with it's capabilities, the $19.99 price tag without a trial version can be a lot for some to swallow. Enter Polarr Photo Editor Lite.
Polarr Photo Editor Lite offers many of the editing features of the full-version, the same pro-style editor layout and an even smaller storage footprint (a minuscule 4MB). This makes Polarr Photo Editor Lite a very attractive editor for Windows 10 tablets where storage space is at a premium.
The lite version has support for JPEG and most RAW file formats up to 42MP along with support for the import and export of transparent PNG files. Images can be imported from your local hard drive or cloud services such as OneDrive and Dropbox.
Editing tools included with Polarr Photo Editor Lite include adjustment tools for exposure, color, clarity, sharpness, saturation, contrast and more. You will find tools for cropping, resizing, tilting, optic distortion and a boatload of effects filters. Any features available with the full-version of Polarr Photo Editor will be visible in the lite version but locked.
The layout of the Polarr Photo Editor Lite is identical to the full-version, sharing the user friendly design. Adjustment controls run down the left and right side of the screen with your image resting in the center of the screen. Polarr does have live preview for your adjustments to let you see how your fine-tuning will look without the need to tap an "apply" button.
Polarr Photo Editor is a very capable photo editor for Windows 10 and Polarr Photo Editor Lite is a great way to have access to many of these editing features free. It too is a very capable photo editor and likely to fill many photographer's needs.
Download Polarr for Windows 10 PC
