PhotoPad Image Editor is a small program that gives you the ability to fine-tune some of your photos. It has a pretty easy-to-understand interface, and gives you access to a number of great tools. With this editor being so small, I was shocked to see what a good job it did.

WHAT IS IT AND WHAT DOES IT DO

Main Functionality

PhotoPad Image Editor is a very small program that gives you access to a number of great tools that you can use to fine tune your images. I found the program to be extremely easy to use and was shocked with how many tools it came with for its small size. It also has a nice visible list of all of the changes you have made to your picture on the right side. You can actually rearrange these changes or undo them by simply clicking on the “X” beside each change.

Pros

• Small, lightweight program
• Very easy to use
• Loads most popular image formats (I was able to test Gif, PNG, BMP, and JPEG but am sure others work as well)
• Features “non-destructive” editing. This allows you to easily make changes or delete effects you have added without changing the quality of your picture.
• Lets you add text and captions to pictures
• Adjust the color, hue, brightness, contrast and saturation of your pictures
• Removes red-eye
• Crop, flip and rotate pictures with ease
• Cool picture effects like: Grayscal, local blur, sepia tones, vignette and more
• Can preview effects and photo filters before actually applying them to your pictures
• Allows you to create collages and mosaics
• Can upload your pictures directly to sites like Facebook, Flickr, etc.
• Allows you to convert picture formats (like JPEG) to other popular file formats

Cons

• Asks if you would like to install other programs during installation. The only one that is pre-selected is the Ask Toolbar, but it does not have to be installed — you can uncheck it.

Discussion

At first look, PhotoPad Image Editor looks like just about any other photo processing program out there. However, after having some time to use it, I liked it better than many of the other ones I have used. This is mostly because of how small it is, but it still comes with a number of great tools.

When you first install the program, it tries to get you to install other programs as well. Most of these are not pre-selected, but one is…the Ask Toolbar. I am sure you don’t want this, so the good news is you can simply un-select it and go about installing your program.

After that, you can launch the program right away. Right when it starts it looks like every other image editor. However, once you upload a picture you will see right away how easy it is to use. Most of your tools are located right at the top of the program. From the home tab you can open an image, print, crop, adjust contrast and Auto Levels (which works wonders). Of course, there are a number of other tabs located at the top of this program. This includes Edit, Color, Effect, Tools and Suit. Each one of these tabs, of course, has a number of other tools that you can use.

One of the things I loved about the program the most was located on the right side of the program after uploading a picture. It is a rundown of every change you have made to the picture. You can rearrange these changes and even delete changes just by hitting the “X” beside the change that you made. This is possible thanks to the non-destructive editing personality of the program.

CONCLUSION AND DOWNLOAD LINK

Overall, I really enjoyed using PhotoPad Image. Due to the fact that it is so lightweight and small, I highly recommend downloading it if you are looking for a new picture editor. This is a program that will easily get the job done for people looking to make basic changes to their pictures.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 2.27

Supported OS: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8

Download size: 480KB

VirusTotal malware scan results: 0/46

Is it portable? No

PhotoPad Image Editor homepage