Top 10 photo editing software :

This list of top 10 best image editing software programs is freshly updated and is as per the no. of total downloads, best reviews provided by top editors and common users. ( by publishing the list here I am not making it as an authoritative list- just recommending these 

photo editing programsthrough my own experience, analysis and research on the topic). 

All These top 20 listed photo editing software are available for free of cost-100% free to all users! Other paid and premium photo editing software programs haven’t included here in this list.I hope your quest for finding thebest free digital photo editor software ends here after browsing as many as 20 free image editor programs listed here!

Please visit my similar blog post to know which are the Best 10 Websites in World to download Software Programs-2012

Best, Free,Top Photo and Free Image Editing Software Programs List-2012

All the photo editing programs listed here with their latest version/edition forfree downloading.
I will keep editing this list time to time so that users can get the most updated and latest image editing programs. Please feel free to leave a comment, feed back for this listings, and inform me of any issues, broken links, etc.

#1. PhotoScape

PhotoScape was launced just 3 years back and it has gained a lot of popularity as a freeware photo editing program among (tech) users and critics for many good reasons. It supports RAW and almost all common image formats, i.e  JPEG, PNG, and GIF for animated images.Loads fast and is good for moderate level use. Not for very advanced photo editing. PhotScape is really good software to try as free image editing software.
Download Photo Editing Software-PhotoScape

#2. Irfan View

IrfanView comes with plug-in support (for image, video and music files), as well as an image explorer as a desktop shortcut for thumbnail views of the images. Irfan View is a very simple, yet powerful, potent,  and popular photo editing program for free of cost. It supports all common and major types of image formats.Its light weight, fast, easy and versatile !Irfan View has recently gained a lots of popularity as a free image editing software among graphic designers,Bloggers,common users for its quick, simple and effective photo editing capacities.
download photo editing software IrfanView

#3. Paint.NET

Paint.NET was initially intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software (as stated by its developers).Paint.NET has recently evolved into a simple yet powerful image/photo editing program and supports mainly all the image formats.Its for Windows only and is available as a freeware.It supports layers, history, and has an action manger.
Paint.net features

• Paint.net is designed only for Windows platforms.
• Multi image editing is possible in Paint.net through its tabbed document interface.
• Paint.net is one of the fastest image editing software programs and it works smoothly for both normal computer systems as well as sophisticated systems.
• Paint.net, like many of professional software programs (Photoshop,GIMP) lets you editing images through layers.
• Need any help relating editing images? paint.net has very helpful and knowledgable online forum. Updates? updating the software is easy and quick.
• Paint.net is loaded with loads of efficient photo editing tools. For eg, drawing tools to create varieties of shapes and curves.
• Unlimited undo and redo possible through unlimited photo history options.  

download photo editing software-Paint.NET

#4. Photo Pos Pro

Photo Pos Pro as the name suggests is a more advanced image editing software program than the others described above. It has many interfaces and in built image editing features.It has many image editing tools including layers and history features. Use Photo Pos Pro as an advanced image and graphics editing powerful tool. All this is free of cost ! 

Download Photo Editing Software Photo Pos Pos

#5. GIMP

GIMP is much more powerful and professional image editing program. It has got all the advanced editing tools that could be required for any graphics designer, web master, or any professional photographer.You can use channels, layers, masks, filters, tabbed palettes, editable text tools, perspective clone, and color operations for photo editing.

Download Photo Editing Software-GIMP

#6. Fast Stone Image Viewer

Fast Stone Image Viewer is a popular and powerful advanced image editing program. It supports many popular photo file formats.Has many powerful photo editing features and uses multiple interfaces for image editing.Supports dual monitor configurations .and multiple program skins, image EXIF metadata support, batch processing, slideshow creation with 150+ transition effects and music support. 

Download Photo Editing Software Fast Stone Image Viewer

#7. Photobie

Photobie is a freeware program for editing digital photos. Photobie has many features, tools, animation options to offer you for image editing in depth.. Photobie supports thousands of Photoshop filter plug-ins. You can also create/edit high quality GIF animations with this.Photobie comes with an ideal screen capture tool. It can also generate high quality PDFfiles for best printing output. Operating System: WindowsXp/2003/Vista/server08/07

Download Photo Editing Software-Photobie

#8. Pixia

If you are looking for a drawing as well as image editing software then Pixia could be in your favorite list.Free digital software with unlimited support for 10240by10240 pixels layout. Amazingly, you can ‘undo’ 100 times with this editing software.Operating Systems:
Windows 98/2000/Xp/Vista/NT 

Download Photo Editing Software-Pixia

#9. InkScape

InkScape is one of the excellent photo editing programs for Windows platform. Inkscape is an open source program for editing Vector Graphics. This is not for beginners- an expert level editing program.Inkscape also supports Craetive Commons meta-date, node editing, bitmap tracing, layers, XML editing. Truly, Inkscape is a power packed digital image editor. Operating Systems :Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Vista/NT.

Download Photo Editing Software-Inkscape

#10. Xn View

Xn View is a powerful and fast graphics browser.It provides lots of useful digital photo editing tools. It can read more than 400 file formats. Some good features includes,Transition effects, Screen capturing, TWAIN for scanner and digital cameras, file operation. Supports all the common and advanced file formats, e.g .-GIF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, TARGA, multipage TIFF, camera RAW, JPEG 2000, MPEG, AVI, QuickTime. EXIF,etc.Operating Systems : Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7/NT/2000 SP2.
Download Photo Editing Software-XnView

RAW Image Editor

Want to edit your own photos that you captured from your digital camera or through your favorite (advanced) mobile phone camera? Worry not! There are quite a lot good image editing software that can easily accomplish this task; and you could produce really wonderful photos out of the raw images from your digital camera. Raw image editing software can help you in re-touching, fine toning, shadows clearing, color highlighting, special effect applying to any type of digital photos (raw images).

RawTherapee (RT)

RT was openly released in 2006. Its an open source raw image editor/photo developer. RawTherapee is one of the best raw image editor program that anyone can share, distribute, and help in developing it.RawTherapee comes under GPL (General Public License )

RawTherapee( RT 3.0) Features-

• You can edit raw images from any type of advanced, medium, or average level DSLR ( Digital Single Lens Reflux) cameras.
• Image editing tools-color handling, details enhancing, tonality, denoising methods. 
• Batch processing  capability (multiple images converting power) , quick thumbnails, multiple image editing, multi-threading efficiency. 
• RT is a cross-platform or multi-platform based image editor.You can use it with the same ease for Windows, Mac, Linux (32 bit/64bit).
• Global appeal- RT is available in 25 languages. 

Free Download RAW image editor-RT

Picasa Web Albums (PWA) and Picasa 3.9

Picasa Web is very popular image editing, sharing, and organizing online web application powered by big G-Google!
Picasa Web Albums is build with keeping one thing in mind: "simple editing, easy photo organizing, powerful sharing capabilities". 

PWA(Picasa Web Album) doesn't need any introduction : Its backed up/owned by Google itself!   
Picasa Web is designed for Windows and Mac operating systems.Picasa Web has recently released its new version: Picasa Web 3.9 


Files supported in Picasa Web Album- it supports many types of common file formats including, photos, audio, and movies.
Photo file formats-jpeg, .tif, .tiff, .bmp, .gif, .psd , .png, .tga, and some selected RAW digital image formats.
photo animation is not supported.

What Picasa Web Anbum has got to offer you for Image editing/sharing/organizing :

1. Images sharing-Picasa Web Albums strongly focuses on sharing.You can share your Web images with Picasa Web Albums as well as with your Google Plus circles (connections).
2. Easy uploading and simple editing -Your Picasa Web Albums is no exception to Google's exemplary simplifying common policy : "make things simple". You can easily upload the photos by dragging them to the albums or simply uploading them from your computer.Google Picasa Web Albums offer you 1024 MB of free space to upload your favorite images.   
3. How to get maximum exposure for your Picasa Web Albums photos?- You can tag the uploaded photos so that they gain maximum/highest possible visibility when someone searches using the same tags or keywords on Google Images and Picasa Web Albums or even in Google Plus (the latter works only if you have shared your photos on Google+).
4. Complete control- Picasa Web Albums offers you full control over who can see your images or with whom do you intend to share your photos. To apply these controllers, create various albums based on their privacy. If you don't want to share some photos, put them in an album that is enabled for private viewing only. If you want to share some photos publicly then upload them in an album and set its visibility as 'public'.
5. How to use Picasa Web's all the features: As you know, Picasa Web is mainly an online image editing and image sharing application, hence to utilize its all image editing/sharing related features you should register to other Google services that interact with Picasa Web Albums. You should register to these following Google web services :Google Gmail, Google Plus,Google Reader,RSS Feed Reader, etc. And most importantly, you should download Picasa Web 3.9,if you want to use it fully and effectively.It can sync all your images from Picasa software and Picasa Web albums.
6. Overall, Picasa Web Albums and Picasa image editing software works greatly for those -#1. who believe in sharing and organizing their work or photo collection. #2. who don't need any advanced or expert image editing features, and they work with just simple image editing with some added 'special photo effects', quick fixes, and image tunning. You can easily sync Picasa Image editing software to Picasa Web Albums. 

Picasa Web is one of the most popular and widely used "free online image editors" and you can do lots of things with it including the following some : 

1. Resize photos
2. Edit photos online 
3. Collage
4. Movie Maker supported
5. Upload to Blogger
6. Print photos
7. Add tags to your photos so that they can be easily found in public searches.
8. Map photos locations
9. Sync to Web
10. Add captions and description to your uploaded photos.
11. Back up your collection.
12. Make private photo albums so that no one can see them except you!

Free download Picasa 3.9 for desktop

or use it online as Picasa Web Album 

10 More Major Image Editing Programs 2012 (Top 10-Top 20 List)

Top List	Top 10- Top 20 Best Free Photo Editing Software List	Download Free
#11	Photo Plus 6-Desktop publishing image editor.Highly rated by PC Mag.Similar to Photoshop. Painting, Drawing, Text Manipulation.	Download Photo Editing Software -Photo Plus 6
#12	Picasa 3 – Google’s digital photo editing program and a web hosting place for images.Its an image organizer and photo viewer desktop as well as web application.	download free photo editing software- Picasa 3
#13	ColorPic 4.1. Very light, easy, free, and popular Color picker software. It can pick any colour from the screen and save it automatically to various palettes.Has a built in magnifier.	download free photo editing software  - ColorPic 4.1
#14	PaintStar 2.70 –Digital image processing software for retouching digital photographs or snaps, composing and editing digital images.	free download photo editing software -PaintStar 2.70
#15	5DFly 3.62.3 Photo design is a great and popular freeware photo editing software.You can create photos, greeting cards, calendars,photo books, templates, photo effects.	free download photo editing software -5DFly 3.62.3
#16	Pinta 1.0- It makes Painting simple! Its an open source, free digital photo editing program for Windows, Linux, Mac. Main features: Lots of drawing tools, full history(unlimited undo),unlimited layers,adjustments and effects, 40 languages supported.	free download photo editing software -Pinta 1.0
#17	DigiKam 1.2.0 Digikam uses KDE platform for image editing. Also a powerfully great Photo management tool.Through its plug-in support you can export(share) your photo albums to Facebook, Flickr,Gallery2, and Google Earth. Burn on CD,create web galleries	free download photo editing software -DigiKam 1.2.0
#18	Visual LightBox v4.8 Visual LightBox is a great photo editing program that supports both Windows and Mac operating systems. You can quickly generate web image galleries with a nice overlay effect, without any use of coding. Great program for creating instant web galleries without it asking for photo editing!	free download photo editing software -Visual LightBox v4.8
#19	Stoik Imagic 5.06  Graphic, image and video editor-all in one! A powerful tool that works best as a photo album, image organizer, photo viewer, multi media viewer, picture retouching, video authoring. Stoik Imagic offers both, simple as well as advanced image editing options. All that is for free!	free download photo editing software - Stoik Imagic 5.06
#20	KolourPaint 4.0 –An easy to use, light, free, paint program for KDE platform (Unix based). Intermediate level image editing program that can be used for Image editing/manipulation,Icon editing, and painting.	free download photo editing software - KolourPaint4.0

Most of the image file formats accepted by image editor programs for editing images

Most commonly used file formats for editing images-
JPEG, JPG, PNG, GIF, TIF, TIFF, BMP.
Some advanced image editing file formats-
JFIF, PBM (portable bitmap), PGM, PPM, PBM, PNM, WEBP, Exif, RAW, PGA, TGA, FITS, PSD, ...and several other types of vector and compound image formats.