Great and Free Photo Editing Software for your Wedding Photos

6 tools to help you capture those “happily ever after” moments forever

Many brides and grooms find that photography is something you just don’t skimp on. After all, once the bouquet is tossed, the cake is cut, and the wedding dress is long outgrown, it’s our wedding photos that will grace our walls and stay warm in our memories for years to come.

However, if you find yourself without the money to hire an expensive professional, you can do wonders with an amateur photographer and a free photo editing software. But I warn you, there are a lot of choices available…what’s a busy bride or frazzled groom to do? Thankfully, I know a little bit about photography and so I pretty confident in the following recommendations for your big day.

Here are my top picks for some easy-to-use, and free, photo editing software to help make your wedding photos picture perfect…

1. Photoscape

Photoscape has a lot of features yet it’s fairly easy to use for newbie and amateur photo bugs. Not only is it free, but Photoscape offers a lot of great features—including multiple effects (i.e., contrast, color), photo adjustments (i.e., texture, backgrounds) and manipulation (i.e., erase and advanced color curves). Plus, users are able to back up the original photo before they make edits and save the edited version…you know, just in case they want to commemorate the real deal or re-edit it later on.

2. Picasa

Picasa is one of my favorite, free photo editing software tools—especially for weddings. Why?  Because it lets you edit photos and then manage and organize them all into one, complete photo library. I use it to store and access photos on my desktop computer, thin laptop, and even on my smart phone. And let’s face it; you end up with a lot of photos when you get married. The Picaso photo editor is easy to use—both for editing and organizing photos—and it even comes with “face recognition” so the software will automatically recognize and tag photos of the same person.

3. GIMP

GIMP (or the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is often called the “free Photoshop” of image editing software because it offers all full suite of advanced photo-editing tools that rival the paid program. However, GIMP is free due to the fact that it was developed and is updated completely on a volunteer programming basis. You can use this software like you do Paint (to make simple photo edits) or like Photoshop (to make expert photo retouches).

4. Ultimate Paint

Ultimate Paint is a free image creation, viewing, and manipulation software. It offers some pretty impressive photo editing features, such as photo rotating, resizing, flood filling, the ability to add text, and even brush handling for photo effects.

5. Zoner Photo Studio

The free Zoner Photo Studio is a real photo editing suite. You won’t be disappointed with its wide array of photo editing, management, and sharing capabilities—including one click red eye, wrinkle, and flaw removal, photo sharpening tools, and tools to help manage photo sharing via social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr.

6. PhotoFiltre

This intuitive, free, pixel-based image editing software for digital photography gives users quick access to various picture manipulation tools—including red eye removal, color adjustment, and layers. It’s great for photographers ranging from newbie to novice wedding shooters.