TechRadar Verdict
If you have a collection of photos that need a little extra polish, Fotor's one-click filters are the easiest way to make them look their best. It's no full-fat Photoshop replacement, but it's very easy to use and it's free.
Pros
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Smart filters and effects
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Easy photo collage tool
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RAW file converter
Cons
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Not as feature-packed as GIMP
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Not suitable for creating artwork from scratch
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Free Windows photo editor Fotor is an excellent free photo editor if you have some photos on your PC that you'd like to commit to canvas and hang on your wall.
Fotor is packed with image-enhancing tools and filters to make pictures look their best. It supports all the most popular image file formats, and even provides RAW file processing – a feature you might expect to be exclusive to full-price photo-editing software
Unlike the powerful open source image editor GIMP, Fotor can't rival Photoshop's range of tools, brushes and plugins, but the advantage is that it's much easier to use. Fotor is packed with one-click filters designed to enhance your pictures based on the conditions in which they were taken, and the subject. Examples include artificial lighting, sunset, portrait, landscape and theater.
User experience
In exchange for the odd not-too-annoying ad, Fotor offers a good range of image tools. You can apply special effects and add frames and borders, improve the appearance of photos and even get the kind of tilt-shift blurry effects that you’d normally need an expensive camera to achieve.
The emphasis here is on fast results, so for example Fotor has 13 different one-tap scenes that you can use to completely change the appearance of your images. Excessively dark scenes are brightened, over-exposed ones are dimmed, and colours really punch.
Fotor is free because its creators really want you to buy Fotor Pro, which removes the ads and adds some new features including more editing and full HDR support for really dramatic images, but the free version is pretty feature-packed in its own right.
Latest updates
The latest version of Fotor lets you create collages with a custom aspect ratio. It also features an improved tilt-shift algorithm and improved support for more raw file formats. For full details, see the official release notes.
The competition
- Check out our full guide to the best free photo editor
