If you sometimes want to edit photos or other images, design a nice card or invitation for a festive occasion, you don’t need to buy an expensive and complicated photo editing software. Icecream Photo Editor is an easy-to-use (desktop) photo editor that’s completely free.
It seems too good to be true and yet it is. Icecream Photo Editor desktop software is completely free and no ads will ever be shoved down your throat. There are also no popups, watermarks, restrictions or annoying features that are not available until you pay. There is not even a pro version. Is this a free competitor to Photoshop or Lightroom? No, it definitely isn’t. After all, content makers stay away from jobs that a home user might get lost in.
Download the software. The package works on Windows 11, 10, 8.1 and 7 and allows you to edit images in jpeg, png, gif, tiff and bmp formats. owners SLR cameras Those who want to capture images in the raw format should look elsewhere, as this file format is not supported by this software.
user interface
The first thing you notice when you open the program is its user-friendly and uncluttered interface. You can instantly drag an image onto the workspace to get started. Or you can use one of three buttons: to navigate to the desired photo, to start a new one from scratch, or to open the gallery. On the right, the sidebar shows photos you’ve recently worked on or recently added to the gallery.
Workspace and image information
In the editor, the tools are at the top. The button names appear when you hover the mouse pointer over that button. When you select a tool there, the options associated with the selected tool appear in the right bar. For example, if you choose the Blur (drop) tool, you’ll get sliders on the right to adjust the blur brush properly.
The second button opens the gallery. Use the arrows to move to the next or previous photo in the gallery. The info button is important. This will open a popup indicating the resolution, file size, and file format. It also tells you when the photo was taken and when it was last modified.
Using the slider, you can select how much to enlarge the image. If you zoom in too hard, use the hand tool to move the image over the work surface. In addition, there is another button for viewing the image in a full window.
Also important is the button with the symbol 1:1. With this, the program enlarges the image so that 1 pixel of the image file corresponds to 1 pixel of the computer screen. This is the only correct way to correctly judge the sharpness of the image.
forward, backward and reset
The first three buttons at the top are used to move forward or backward in the list of operations you have performed. with the first button, cancel downloadTake a step back. When you go back in the edit history, you can use the second button, re, use to move forward again. the third button, Re-SetYou can use it to undo all edits and return to the original image.
Built-in photo manager
The program has a built-in photo manager, the so-called Gallery, which even allows you to manage the entire photo library of your Windows device.
When you open the Gallery, select the folder in the upper left whose contents the Gallery will display. This content appears in boxes, the size of which you can control via a slider. This way you can select an image to rotate, delete or print without having to open the editor. Only when you select an image and press the green button release Click, the editor will appear. There is also a search function, but it only works based on the file name, not the content, as is the case with Google Photos.
This gallery is useful for quickly finding the right image in a specific folder, but it’s not really an image manager since you can’t tag images or keywords.
Image optimization
Does the image look a little faded, but you’re not sure why? In that case, try the magic wand button: Image optimization (image improvement). In the options bar, use the green button first Automatic optimization (Auto Optimize), after which Icecream Photo Editor tries to improve the exposure and the colors themselves.
Then you can go to two functions: a light (exposure) f color (color). For example, you can use the sliders to specify how dark the dark parts of an image, file shadowsYou must become. If you want to quickly take a black and white photo, drag the slider saturation (saturation) all the way to the left. bee color You can make the colors warmer and cooler, or add a specific hue.
chopped off
Composition can make or break an image. On rare occasions it may be necessary to place the subject in the center of the frame, but you will usually get a more interesting composition by placing the main object in the shot off center. The image composition optimization tool is the cropping tool, which is short here cropped he is called.
When this tool is selected, subtle blue guide lines appear dividing the image into nine equal regions. These lines apply the “rule of thirds”. This is a basic rule for optimizing composition. Drag the handles on the outside of the image until the item you want to draw attention to is at the intersection of these guides, and then click Progressing.
You will also see the selection menu in the options bar an average (Ratio) Crops the image to common aspect ratios. This way you can quickly crop a 4:3 image to 16:9 format for example.
Zoom in and out
Developer Icecream also has a separate image resizing tool, image resizer. The Image Resizer license costs €19.95, but with the free Icecream Photo Editor you won’t need Image Resizer at all, unless you want to collate images on a large scale.
In Photo Editor you use the button Resize Then enter the width and/or height. If you have the option Maintain the original aspect ratio activated (keep original proportions), the program will respect the aspect ratio anyway, so you only have to indicate one dimension. In addition, at the bottom there is an option Resize the image Another drop-down list allows you to select the most common standard dimensions.
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Why not display it in a beautiful photo frame?
filters
Like any photo editor, Photo Editor has a set of filters, divided into five categories here: commonAnd Color filtersAnd textureAnd creative And classic. If you like a filter and want to use it regularly, you can mark it with an asterisk. This puts it in an additional category favorite.
There are filters to age a photo with scratches and creases, to convert a photo to black and white, to give a photo a cool look and more … By the way, you can apply several filters on top of each other.
photo stack
Suppose you want to make a greeting card, then you start from file / new file. in the popup window New image Then select the dimensions in pixels and choose the background color. When you select a checkerboard pattern instead of a color, that means you’ll switch to a transparent background. You can then place one or more images on that background via the button Add image. Then you can select the option in the options bar picture Select and navigate to the image you want to put in the background. This way you apply different images on top of each other.
At the bottom right, the panel shows the stacking order of these layers. by a eye Clicking away hides the layer. If you click on the same eye again, the layer will reappear. You can also grab this layer with your mouse pointer and drag it up or down in order. When you click on a stacked image, it becomes active and a small image appears croppedtool in the upper left corner, which you can use to crop this image.
coverage and angles
But you can do more with stack images. In the Layers panel, select the image. Now it is possible to change the opacity of the image using the slider blackout (cover). In addition, you can adjust the shape of the image. Do you want the image to fit into a rectangle, circle, triangle or star?
When you capture a corner point of such a specific image, you can scale the image. If you add controlHolding down the key, the image retains its original aspect ratio while scaling. bee rounded corners Determine whether the corners of the image should become cliffs. In addition, you can apply a shadow that will make the photos look really stacked.
text layers
The program also has a dedicated text tool for adding short texts to a digital map or poster. When the text tool is selected, all the options for shaping that text appear in the right bar: font, font size, color, and alignment.
The eyedropper is useful in a color picker, where you can “suck” a color from a background image to use as a text color. This way you get a harmonious interaction between the text and the image. You can also adjust the opacity of the characters steplessly, so that you can see the background through. If desired, you can provide the text with a border and drop shadow.
Each time you use the text tool, you create a new text layer. This also means that you can temporarily hide the text layer and change the order of the text layer.
Disappears
with the tool blur (Blur) You have a brush to blur specific parts or objects in the image. In the options bar, select the brush width and blur intensity. This way you can, for example, make sensitive information unreadable on screenshots.
With some practice and patience, you can also use this to blur the background. You should then regularly brush size (brush width) to make the blur precisely match the subject you want to focus on.
photo collage
Finally, a nice option is hidden behind the button collage maker. This will first select a collage template. The template already contains image boxes that you click to select the image you want to insert into that box.
bee frame size Control the width of the horizontal and vertical dividers. These dividing lines are black by default, but nothing to stop you from adding Frame color Choose a different color for these lines.
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