Icon of program: HP Photosmart Essential

HP Photosmart Essential for Windows

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Key Details of HP Photosmart Essential

  • Optimize your HP printer for faster digital photo enhancements and sharper printing quality.
  • Last updated on
  • There have been 5 updates
  • Virus scan status:

    Clean (it's extremely likely that this software program is clean)

Editors' Review

Download.com staff

If you need a simple, inexpensive photo editor with sharing features, there's still a reliable option: HP Photosmart Essential. For users who want to make small changes to their photos, such as changing color, lighting, sizing, cropping, etc., the program has a limited feature set covering the basics. While this simplicity limits the editor's functionality, it's easy enough for beginners or those overwhelmed by feature-heavy editors. With an intuitive, professional-looking interface, the designers have proven that they have kept it simple to use, with some simple tutorial videos showing what's in each available tool.

Photo sharing is one of the key features of HP Photosmart Essential and one of the most practical things. The program allows you to email photos from within the program or store them in a folder you can share with friends over the web. The availability of downloadable templates for creating cards and calendars, for example, takes the popular program to another level for users who want to turn photos into special gifts or printed keepsakes.

However, HP Photosmart Essential lacks advanced editing tools, such as masking, and the numerous filtering or precision image processing functions in most other software. If you're only going to do quick edits and simple layouts, this will work for you, but if you're a more advanced user, it's probably limiting.

So, if you're only looking for a limited photo management and editing solution, Google Photos offers an alternative. Unlike the HP Photosmart Essential, whether it's photos or videos, you can store them in the cloud for as long as you want and access them from any device without restrictions from other cloud services like Google Photos. However, Google Photos has auto-tagging and facial recognition, so you can't search for a person, place, or object in your library using HP Photosmart Essential. On top of that, Google Photos offers a broader palette of editing tools, from basic changes like brightness and color adjustment to filters and additional effects. It's suitable for casual and intermediate users who need more flexibility in their editing.

Google Photos is technically free, but in recent years, it has started insisting that users pay for Google accounts in exchange for unlimited high-resolution photos, and the app also requires an account. As freeware without such storage restrictions, HP Photosmart Essential remains a good option for users who want offline use without any registration or subscription fees.

Bottom Line

Overall, HP Photosmart Essential offers a neatly packaged set of tools that simplify things and make it work, but other apps like Google Photos may be more attractive options for those who want to organize photos more thoroughly and better organize and back up said images in the cloud. HP Photosmart Essential is a simple, reliable solution for those who want basic photo enhancements and easy sharing without relying on the cloud.

What's new in version 3.5

Updated Photo Book artwork styles are available to users, so with more visually appealing layouts available. Morever, the software also provides complete control over Photo Book fonts, the option to customize type, size, and color to better personalize photo collections. Equally notable is the ability to print a draft version of a Photo Book for users to see what the final version will look like before committing to the version. Additionally, version 3.5 includes 64 bit support for CD/DVD printing, extending its use by those interested in using physical media. They have significantly increased performance and reliability so users can run software smoothly.

Icon of program: HP Photosmart Essential

HP Photosmart Essential for Windows

Download now

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Full Specifications

GENERAL
Release
Latest update
Version
3.5
OPERATING SYSTEMS
Platform
Windows
Operating System
  • Windows XP
  • Windows Vista
  • Windows 10
Additional Requirements
None
POPULARITY
Total Downloads
532,593
Downloads Last Week
28
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Program available in other languages

Last Updated

User Reviews

3.1/5

68 User Votes

Developer's Description

By Snapfish
Optimize your HP printer for faster digital photo enhancements and sharper printing quality.
HP Photosmart Essential software provides consumers a fast and easy way to organize, edit, print, share, and creatively use photos all in one place. This software features an entirely new and engaging user interface and personalized home page that brings photos to life and ensures success with simple web-like navigation and integrated screen help. Users can quickly find photos by date, tag, or folders--even mark as favorites or search by name, make quick edits including automatic red-eye and manual pet-eye fix, use one click Photo Fix to correct color and lighting, and enjoy lab quality prints, projects and seamless sharing with Snapfish.

Version 3.5 has new Photo Book artwork styles, full control of your Photo Book fonts including type, size, and color, option to print a draft version of your Photo Book, CD/DVD printing support on 64 bit operating systems, and improved performance and reliability.