5 Free Online Photo Editing Tools

No Desktop Installation Required

Social networking sites have turned many of us into chronic over-sharers. But even the most modest among us find ourselves obligated to post a photo or two to Facebook. And, naturally, we want to manipulate those photos a bit to make ourselves (and others) look, well, better. The good news is that we no longer have to hire studio professionals or Photoshop gurus to do this for us, nor do we have to install expensive software on our computers. We can use online photo editing tools. They’re free and there are plenty of them.

They offer all sorts of different features—but don’t bother comparing them with traditional desktop tools: they just don’t have the same features as the paid programs. Online photo editing is intended for people who want a quick and cheap way to make basic fixes, add cool effects and filters,and share photos almost instantly with their friends and family.

People will continue to use free photo editors as long as they are available. It’s a competitive market so the feature sets should become more interesting over the next few years. As the devices we put our pictures on change and morph into smarter solutions, these photo editors will want to keep up with the Joneses to survive a competitive world. For photo editing lovers, that spells even better pictures at the same price—free!

We looked at five of the most interesting online photo editing options for this article. Big players like Google, Yahoo!, and Adobe also offer free online photo editing options but we decided not to include them because they expect you to store your images with them as well.