There is no lack of picture editors on the internet; that is for sure. Since there are so many to choose from, I typically only pay attention to the ones that are free. After all, why should I pay top dollar for a program that I can get for free somewhere else? That is what brought me to PixelSwapper. This is a free program that you can use to easily edit your pictures.

WHAT IS IT AND WHAT DOES IT DO

Main Functionality

PixelSwapper is a program that you can use to edit your pictures for free. In short, this program is alike a Photoshop clone. There is really no limit to what you can do with this program as long as you put your mind to it. Whether you want to convert, crop, rotate, mirror, resize and so on, this program can do it all. Best of all, it’s free!

Pros

• Supports many popular picture formats: BMP, GIF, ICO, IFF, JPG, PCX, PNG, PNM, TGA, TIF, and XPM
• Crops and rotates pictures with ease
• Mirror pictures both horizontally and vertically
• Resize your pictures to any dimension you want
• Convert pictures to other file formats (only to the ones listed above)
• Use image effects on your pictures, like grayscale
• Supports pasting from clip board and drag-and-drop
• View print previews of your images
• Auto-scales your pictures to fit the screen
• Very easy to use interface

Cons

• Attempts to get you to install other things on your computer (Can avoid by clicking “decline”)
• Not as advanced as what it would lead you to believe
• Bland interface

Discussion

I had high hopes after reading everything that PixelSwapper could do. Let me start off with this. If you were not impressed with the list of pros you saw, then this program is not for you. That is because, if the feature you want is not on the list, then it can’t do it. I know that is an odd statement to make, but I only bring it up because there are always programs out there (this goes double for editors) that always do more than what they promise. This is not one of those programs.

When you open it up, you will see that PixelSwapper has a very basic look, and by basic I mean bland/unattractive. Of course, this is good because it is a very basic program. It claims to be a free version of PhotoShop, but let me tell you…it doesn’t come close. If you go into using this program hoping you are going to get a PhotoShop experience, then you are mistaken my friend.

Don’t get me wrong, the program is able to do all of the things that it says it can. It can rotate, crop, flip, mirror, grayscale and auto-scale with the best of them. However, that is about as far as its usefulness goes. In the end, I found myself wanting more.

They do offer a few features that seem to make the program more user-friendly. For example, I support any program that offers a drag-and-drop interface. I feel like this makes the program more accessible to people. That being said, a lot of people who are looking for user-friendly programs would be scared off by a program that has such a lackluster interface. I mean, there is nothing even semi-attractive about the setup of this program.

CONCLUSION AND DOWNLOAD LINK

All in all, the program is decent. It does what it says it will do…and that’s it. If you need a very basic picture editor, you may want to give this one a try. However, for the most part I feel like you can find much better photo editors out there than this. Of course, I can’t knock it too hard…the program is free after all.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 1.21

Supported OS: Windows XP / Vista / 7

Download size: 1.62MB

VirusTotal malware scan results: 1/45

Is it portable? No

PixelSwapper homepage