Free Photo Editing Software

Every once in a while I’ll have a customer who needs to crop images to a certain size and they either don’t have any photo editing software, or the software they have allows them to crop images, but doesn’t tell them what size they are cropping the image to.

My first recommendation for photo editing is Photoshop. I love Photoshop! But, if you just need to crop images, it’s overkill, and it’s pretty expensive. If you’re on a smaller budget, try www.fotor.com. It’s free and there is nothing to download to your computer, which means you can use it where ever you have internet connection. Cropping photos is as easy as following these steps:

1) Choose Edit a Photo button.
This will open up your computer files so you can select the photo from your computer. Select the photo and double click on it.
2) Click on the Crop button on the top left.
From the drop down, choose the dimensions you want to crop your image to. Keep in mind, that you cannot crop a picture bigger than it’s current dimension. There are several preset drop downs to choose from so you can automatically crop your image to a square, 5×7, 8×10, computer screen (to create wallpaper), iphone, or even for your facebook cover photo.
3) Click the Apply button.
4) Above the image, click the Save icon.
5) Then click the Save button on the left column.
It will open your computer files again. I recommend that you rename the image so that it doesn’t overwrite the original files (just in case you change your mind). If you are using the photo on your website, name it something relevant to help with SEO and help people find it. Picture names should preferably be all lower case, and have no spaces. Dashes are okay and preferable to underscores.
Done!
It’s that easy, so stop slowing down your website with over-sized images. Start cropping your images today!

**Update: I have a customer who recommends http://www.picmonkey.com/. He says it is easier for him to use.