Purchasing photography software can cost an arm and a leg. This poses a problem for photographers who need software and are expected to purchase the standard programs. The quality of the standard programs that cost so much is typically guaranteed but there are other options for software that are far cheaper that also provide decent tools for editing. The cheaper software programs are aimed at anyone, ranging from those who continuously keep their cameras on auto up to those who only shoot in RAW. Popphoto.com composed a list of favorite photo software programs that are available for a cheap price.

1. Windows Photo Gallery: This photo editor is simple and for everyday use. It has facial recognition, blemish removal, red-eye removal, and other basic editing tools. What makes this program unique is its photo stitcher and “photo fuse” tool that let you combine similar images with each other.

2. Picasa: This software has the ability to do basic image organization and editing. It contains tools such as facial recognition, color enhancement, red-eye reduction, cropping, geo-tagging, and photo filters. Google made this program and therefore it interfaces perfectly with Google+ and various online printing services. It has a great search engine and can support RAW files. Photographers seek this program because of its interactivity with Google+. Also due to its Google background, great features are continuously being added to the program.

3. GIMP: GNU Image Manipulation Program is widely known as the best open source alternative to Photoshop. Also, it’s free. GIMP even beat Photoshop to having content aware fill. Since the program is open source, there are offshoot projects of it. Among these projects is Seashore, which is a simple, Mac image editor that uses a friendlier UI with GIMP. There are only a few things GIMP cannot do, but it should be noted that it does not include CMYK.