Time to come clean here: I am a Photoshop dunce.

I have tried dozens of times to try and figure it out. I even have it at work and am encouraged to use it there! But something about it just doesn’t click with me.

So, I have to use the array of other (ahem, virtually free) photo editing out there to do my dirty work.

There are 4 that I use heavily, all for different things.

Picasa is the quickest, for when I just need to crop and straighten. It also seems to be handy (for other people, I haven’t used this part) to share an album online. So if you have relatives far away that don’t have Facebook or Flickr, you can throw an album up online for them to see.

The next one I use is iPiccy. It is like the baby step of PS – it has clone tools, layers, etc. But the reason I really like it is that you can edit a photo from a website. So I can quickly edit and create a collage for my weekly link page, without having to save the photo, edit it, upload it again, etc.

PicMonkey is my favorite online editor, because the features are very user friendly, and the text over photo offerings (even though they are subscription-based now) are the best.

My new absolute favorite is CameraBag 2.0. The Beau bought it for me as a Christmas present (does he know me or what?!) through Steam. I can see by perusing the website they also offer it for free on the iphone, and you can download a free trial on your desktop. Warning, if you like the look of old photos, you will LOVE this editor. So many different styles of altering your photos – light leaks, vignettes, film bleed borders, B & W blowout…I could go on and on. But it is a great way to turn some good photos into great, interesting ones.

The newest editing tool I have come across is Canva. This is a great tool for creating images for commercial and blog use. You can add backgrounds, text, even buy stock images to add!