Photo Framer for Windows

We've tested a lot of photo editors, many of which are free or fairly inexpensive compared with programs like Photoshop. Most have been disappointing, so we didn't have high hopes for Photo Framer. But we're pleased to say that it exceeded our expectations.

The program's user interface gave us a very good first impression. It's very clean, simple, and intuitive. Drop-down menus and shortcut commands line the top of the window; frequently used commands line the left side for quick access. We jumped right into the program and opened an image file. From there, we were able to easily adjust the image's brightness and color balance as well as crop the image to our liking. The Frames feature comes with a large variety of frames that you can place around your image. We'll admit that some of the frames looked a little cheesy, but, thankfully, the program includes a Preview option for most of its features that lets you see your changes before they take effect, and there's an undo option that can take you back a step. Photo Framer also offers several effects, such as Sepia, Grayscale, and Colorize, which were all extremely easy to apply. There's an ample Help file, should you need it. Overall, Photo Framer is the perfect photo editor for novice users, or anyone who doesn't want all the bells and whistles that come with more-expensive image editing programs.

Photo Framer has a 30-use trial period. It installs and uninstalls cleanly, and we recommend this program for all users.