There are several graphics editors and raster editors available for you to use. Whether you want to edit some badly photographed images or want to create your own 3D models, there’s a tool for you. In this article, I’m going to show you the best raster graphics editor download according to me so that you can choose any of them for yourself after educating yourself about your options.
Raster graphics editor download is one of the most effective, yet underutilized tools in web design today. If you’re just getting started with a raster graphics editor download, or have been using one for years, there’s a lot to learn. Here’s some tips, tricks and helpful information to help you become an expert.
Artweaver
Available for both free and an affordable price, Artweaver is a realistic painting tool — not just for creating original artwork, but a software you can use to turn images into pieces of art. It’s also easily accessible for both first-time and advanced users, thanks to its easy-to-use interface, customizability, and support for a broad range of tools, presets, and more. Artweaver even has brush types that mimic famous painters like Van Gogh, and has a similar interface to the widely known Photoshop.
While the free version has many of the basics, Artweaver Plus also includes more enhanced tools, extended support for PSD files, support for pen tablets, additional brush types and methods, and more. Artweaver Plus is available to download for a limited time test version.
Price: Free; €34
Artweaver pros:
- Intuitive interface you can customize to your personal workflow
- Ability to work with other artists over the internet, either on the same project simultaneously or communicating through a team chat
- Highly configurable brush system, with a variety of brush types and presets
- Compatibility with plugins for added functionality
- Supports a variety of tools, layers, and filters
- Recording capability to capture the painting process
- Native 64 bit and support for multiple CPU cores and documents with 8 and 18 bit/channel
- Industry standard editing tools
- Supports pen tablets, including pressure, pen erasers, and tool ID
- Compatible with all raster graphic file formats (TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PCX, and BMP)
Artweaver cons:
- Works solely as a painting tool rather than image adjustment
- Interface seems less advanced than other programs on our list
- Supports Windows 7, 8, and 10 only
How it compares
Artweaver isn’t like many of the raster graphic software programs on our list, as it’s more of a painting tool than a program you’d use to simply adjust a photo. But if you’re finding yourself creating raster graphics of this type, Artweaver comes at a great price point — or simply free — for a user with any level of expertise.
Corel Painter
Another digital painting software, Corel Painter stands out thanks to its vast amount of brushes and customization options — in addition to the overall advanced interface and tools it offers creatives. Perfect for use with a stylus, Corel Painter helps save time with a vast amount of options.
Price: $429 for full program; $229 for upgrade
Corel Painter pros:
- Over 900 realistic art brushes across 36 categories
- Variety of brush adjustment options, such as size, ship, angle, flow, and more
- Includes color harmonies, perspective guides, mirror painting, and other tools
- Responds dynamically to stylus movements and canvas textures
- Automatic performance optimization to ensure optimal speed on your device
- Learning portal with videos, sharing capabilities, tips, webinars, and contests
- Bonus functionality to help you know how to upgrade your systems
- Additional brush packs for enhancement
Corel Painter cons:
- Catered more toward digital painters than photographers
- Updates from previous versions may take some time to get used to
- Requires newer devices to run the program
- Pricier than some programs on our list
How it compares
Much like Artweaver, Corel Painter is specific to digital paintings than photos. However, if that matches your raster graphic needs, the program is within your budget, and you’re an intermediate to advanced user, Corel Painter can help you create a realistic raster graphic photo with its vast variety of brushes and adjustment options.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is probably the most popular raster graphics editor out there, with a huge global client-base. It is a product of Adobe Corporation, and it is supported on both Windows and Mac computer systems.
Adobe Photoshop, to many people, is the established standard in the world of photoshopping and raster image editing.
The software is equipped to edit raster image layers and color patterns, for all the major raster image formats including BMP, JPEG, PICT, PNG, PSD, and TIFF.
It hosts a highly customizable and extensible platform, which is made possible by plug-ins like Camera-Raw, filter plug-ins, color correction plug-ins, 3D effects, special effects, and so on.
Adobe Photoshop hosts a myriad of powerful features, some of which include: Paintbrush, 3D extrusion, Video editing, slicing and cropping tools, frame and shape tools, Symmetry mode, Clone Stamp, etc.
Corel PaintShop Pro
Corel PaintShop Pro, fondly tagged PSP, is a top-rated raster graphics editor, which is specially designed for Windows computers.
However, PaintShop Pro is not just a raster graphics editor, it is also a vector graphics editor. As such, it is an all-rounder, which makes it one of the leading options for millions of digital artists across the globe.
PaintShop Pro’s original build was not designed by Corel; it was instead acquired from a middle-class tech firm in 2004.
The software has gone through a series of development since then, and today, it is comfortably one of the best graphic design and photo editing tools in the market.
PaintShop Pro hosts the latest in AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology, 360o editing, and much more like 4K support Customer support, and free trial.
It also includes Paintbrush, Auto-save, Swift image cropping, Vintage tools, Pic-to-Painting presets, Photo restoration, Layers, Masks, Image filters, Media sharing (via Social media integration), and more.
GIMP
GIMP – GNU Image Manipulation Program – is one the oldest raster graphics editor in the market, having been around for over 20 years now. It is supported on all major computer operating systems.
GIMP is specially built to simplify the art of photo/image editing. It can be employed to retouch any type (format) of photos, and also change images from one format to another.
This makes it ideal for quick editing since virtually all image formats are supported.
GIMP includes Watercolors selector, HSV color selector, Paintbrush, Airbrush, Bucket fill, Blend tool, Clone tool, Smudge tool, Dodge & burn tool, Multilayer support, 150+ image filters, and more.
More advanced features include Animation package (plug-in), Resynthesizer (plug-in), Unsharp mask tool, Multi-format support, Color management extensions (Inkscape & Scribus), and more.
GIMP is an open-source application, developed under GNU’s General Public License (GPL). As such, it is available to all at absolutely no cost.
Pixlr X
If you’re looking for a convenient photo editing tool for raster graphic files, Pixlr X might be perfect for you — even if you’re just starting out. Pixlr X prides itself on being convenient and easy to use, especially when it comes to needing quick photo edits. Pixlr X is also an online tool — so you access it through your browser instead of a downloaded application.
Price: Free
Pixlr X pros:
- Essential photo editing tools for making quick adjustments
- Easy-to-use retouching features to help fix blemishes, remove spots, and more
- Drawing tool to create illustrations or incorporate doodles or scribbles on an image
- Popular photography filters and effects like mosaic, bloom, clarity, glamor, and more
- “Element” feature adds more advanced photo editing opportunities
- Dark and light mode to help with eye strain — or simply your own preference
- Easy-to-use dashboard for ease of access
- Automatically saves files so you never lose any work and can continue where you left off
- Edit photos within Dropbox with the Dropbox extension
- Comes with 6 months of 25 GB on Dropbox for free
- Includes a mobile app on iOS and Android
Pixlr X cons:
- Exists online within a web and mobile app (although, this may be a pro to some worried about storage space for downloadable software programs)
- A newer program, so some features are still in a beta stage
- Requires a Flash player enabled on your web browser
How it compares
Pixlr X is the only online based tool on our list, making it a great raster graphic software program to try out if you’re already running into storage issues. Plus, if you’re looking for a program that will help save time, Pixlr X is a great program to try with its compatibility with Dropbox, auto-saving functionality, and mobile app.
Conclusion:
Raster graphics editors are more popular than vector graphics editor software, because they can be used by anyone that uses a computer since they work with bitmaps. They are also very useful for editing and correcting photos so that they look just right. But many raster graphics editors are only for Windows, or only for Mac. If you’re looking for free raster graphics editors for other operating systems you will have to dig a bit deeper.