Free Online Photo Editors: Pixlr vs. Fotor
Do you ever see beautiful underwater photos shared on social media, like the one featured above, and think, “Why don’t my photos ever look like that?” Photos don’t come out of the camera looking that crisp and colorful, they have to be edited.
Underwater photos need color adjustments and other touch-ups, even when the photographer is using high-end equipment. Regardless of the camera you’re using, you can improve your photos with some basic edits. I use Photoshop to edit my photos, but not everyone has access to a paid photo editing tool, so in this post I will show you how two free online photo editing tools compare to Photoshop and to each other. We will be discussing Pixlr and Fotor.
Below is an underwater photo taken with a Samsung S4 cell phone camera on the left, and a Photoshop-edited version of it on the right that has been adjusted for color and sharpness only.
[Read: Cell Phones Make Great Underwater Cameras]
Because water filters out different wave lengths of light at different depths, you will want to use an editing tool that allows you to make color adjustments. Red, which has the shortest wave length, is the first color to be filtered out so I always begin my editing by adding red back into a photo, then I adjust the other colors until I get a result that looks close to the way I remember it looking underwater. I also apply just enough sharpening to make my subject’s outline sharp and clear.
In the Photoshop version above, I would typically adjust the exposure and contrast as well, but for the sake of comparison, we are just going to look at the color adjustment tools in each of the online photo editors described below and also apply the same amount of sharpening to each photo.
Download vs Upload
There are two kinds of free photo editing tools you can access on the internet. One requires you to download a program to your computer and the other allows you to upload your photos into an online editor and download the result. Both Pixlr and Fotor allow you to upload your photos, apply your adjustments, and download the resulting image. They are also easy to use without additional tutorials.
Pixlr
You can drag and drop a photo directly into Pixlr to edit it. Select “Adjustments” in the top tool bar and then “Color Balance” and a panel with red, green, and blue color sliders will open. Start by adding red back into your photo, then play with the other two sliders until you like the result. You can also adjust a range of other items in Pixlr or select “Auto Adjust” to see what the program thinks your photo should look like.
In the edited images below, I have only adjusted color balance and sharpness. The original photo is in the middle, the Pixlr version appears on the left and the Photoshop version appears on the right. There are slight differences between Pixlr and Photoshop, but overall, both are good photos.
Fotor
Fotor also offers a drag and drop editor, but after you make your adjustments you’ll be prompted to sign in before you can download your edited image. You may sign in with your email or with your Facebook account, and you have the option of sharing your edited photo directly to Facebook.
In the Fotor editor, select “Color” in the left-side menu and you’ll be presented with temperature and tint sliders. They are not exactly the same as color balance sliders, but they do a similar job. You can edit sharpness under the Basic menu items, and there are other items you can fine tune as well, just as there are in Pixlr.
Here is a side-by side comparison of the color-adjusted Fotor image, the original image, and the color-adjusted Photoshop image.
All three edited images look better than the original, but the Fotor and Pixlr images look different from each other. Here are the edited images placed side by side.
The Fotor image leans more toward a green-blue tint because the editor did not have color balance sliders, only temperature and tint adjustments, which aren’t as precise. The result is still an improvement over the unedited photo, but I prefer the Pixlr image to the Fotor image.
Featured image: Photo by Maja Novak on Unsplash
All photographs are the property of Diane Thomas unless otherwise noted. They are protected by U.S. Copyright Laws, and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission. Copyright 2019. Diane Thomas All Rights Reserved.