AI image generators still draw most of the media attention, but in the wings are the Best AI Photo Editors that can take your photo and automatically enhance or improve it in some way.
Not as fun and friendly as AI photo editors, they still remain the more useful one. For the most part, you wouldn’t usually search a picture of a Canadian man on a moose through a maple forest in the style of some long-since-gone impressionist artist. Whereas, it is more important that the photos you to look as good as possible – whether they are selfies or asset photos for the ad. These are the AI photo editors that can make you a good job faster.
I have been a professional photographer for as much as 15 years and have published thousands of image, and the biggest part of my writing life has actually been around photography. Since these AI photo editors (AI features on standard photo editors) have been there I have been testing them and using them.
AI is the most talked-about topic these days; that’s why, after careful research, I can call a few apps making false promises just scams. For instance, a popular example costs $40 per month and others provide a similar, mediocre experience. The only reason given for the pricing on the app’s website is to advertise that it is very AI oriented. I would like to emphasize that paying monthly prices like these for AI photo-editing services is not necessary.
In this article, I spent much more time checking all the offers out there and finally, these are the best AI Photo Editors according to my experience.
What functions does an AI photo editor perform?
AI photo editing has already been with us for quite a while. Take Photoshop: Good to note is that the Content Aware fill was introduced in 2010, Adobe launched the first AI-powered “Neural Filters” in 2020, and many of its most powerful features rely on some level of machine learning. AI art generators unlike the rest of them which depend on a recent breakthrough are based on update to older technologies.
What can they offer then? Among these applications, you can see the following AI photo editing software features:
- Using upscaling and sharpening low-quality or blurry images.
- Detecting whether your photograph is a portrait, a landscape, or other types of snapshots and then suggesting the applicable edits or tools.
- Getting rid of the subject by just one touch.
- Replacing the sky with the other one, and also making the lighting in the rest of the image match.
- Automatically changing light tones and color levels.
- “Smoothing” faces by getting rid of wrinkles, making eyes brighter and doing other beautifications.
- To Colorize or repair old black-and-white picture.
- You can target or cover a subject so you can do direct editing.
And those are only the large few.
Some of these features are heavily machine learning based. You can see how Photoshop’s Generative Fill functions the same way as DALL·E 3 and Stable Diffusion. Genre classification or whether the image is taken as a portrait or a landscape is a bit more complex thing that Lensa can do as it uses more advanced image recognition algorithms.
Really, it does not matter whether on their surface it seems to be all about taking pictures, the principle is the same, artificial intelligence methods such as machine learning power them to make the image editing process simpler. Nevertheless, whatever delineation you make I consider that to be AI image editing.
Image editors are my thing – I have written about them for more than ten years, so I had experience with all 30 apps that were to be reviewed. Moreover, being the list of AI photo editors, I gave the utmost consideration to the user-friendliness and AI features of every app. It means I didn’t have to re-do every Photoshop function, especially the ones encompassing AI.
The procedures I used to review each AI photo editor
Usually, I had to just do a few little adjustments with the different apps to see what kind of changes they produced with sample photos, how they handle low quality photos and how good they are at cutting off the difficult subjects or removing some objects. The remaining apps which didn’t choose are not able to do this and got eliminated.
On the positive note, I played with the ones that did well and edited images more. Ergonomics, usability and pricing was also considered—some mediocre apps in the industry charge Photoshop prices and they were denied because of that.
What are the most important requirements for an AI photo editor?
It is almost as if one can call any kind of auto-image editing feature as AI now. And we cannot say that we are wrong for doing so. Though, there’s a huge gap between these few one-click options that make photos brighter and hold more contrast and those tools that actually assist you and help you work faster and more effectively by suggesting smart solutions and adjustments.
Hence, although there are numerous apps that claim to be AI image editors, it is curious to know which one is the best.
- The new AI enhanced capabilities, for instance, composed of built-in generative AIs, auto subject detection and selection, intelligent upscaling, and mostly powerful and effective tools.
- Full apps that deal with the complete image workflow from beginning to end. Whereas Photoshop and Lightroom plugins are numerous and some quite robust, such as DALL·E 3 and DreamStudio, they lack the full image editing capabilities of a complete editor. I included a toolset that was able to handle a fully-featured workflow.
- Fast, accurate and easy to use experience. Alternatively, the apps had to be potent and the size of the learning curve should be proportional to the extent of their features. Photoshop certainly isn’t easy to master, but its setup and interface are user-friendly once you’ve invested a little time in learning what it does.
- Good results. Almost any AI picture editors I have tested proved to be too strong regarding contrast adjustments and color adjustments, or ineffective in choosing the test subjects, or somehow just failed. This has now been changed because there are so many good AI photo editors available that I just can’t see a reason to incorporate any which are mostly not good enough in the vast majority of situations.
- Customization and control. Editing with just a click of a mouse doesn’t excite me much. Seldom do these edits produce amazing output. In contrast, the best AI photo editors will provide you with the control where you can determine how strong certain edits are and the areas of your image that will be affected. As well, they provide you a manual editing toolsets, so you can edit anything by yourself.
However, there are only several apps like Modyfi which are doing some really interesting stuff with AI. Unfortunately, none of them have the maturity levels required to qualify for the list. Though they have good look the overall usability is not up to par.
After several tests, let me present the top five AI image editors according to my opinion.
In-depth review of the best AI photo editors
Name | Best for | Stand-out feature | Pricing |
Adobe Photoshop | Full-featured photo editing and design | Advanced AI-powered tools; industry leader | From $19.99/month |
Canva | A design app with an AI photo editor | Powerful template-based design with AI extras | Free for limited access; from $12.99/month |
Lensa | Mobile photo editing | Excellent handling of portraits and selfies | Free for limited features; from $2.99/week or $4.99/month |
Luminar Neo | A photo editor truly powered by AI | Deep integration of AI across the app | From $9.95/month |
Pixlr | Easy-to-use online photo editing | Separated AI apps for different editing needs | Free for limited AI use; from $7.99/month |
Full-fledged Best AI photo editor and design app
Adobe Photoshop (Windows, macOS, iPad, Web)
Adobe Photoshop pros:
- One of the most effective AI-assisted tools you can find in any app.
- It is still Photoshop, with all the power and control it offers you.
Adobe Photoshop cons:
- It has never been said that it is easy to figure out how to use Photoshop.
Back to the mid 1980s, Adobe Photoshop has been the industry standard image editing app but, unlike many other 30-something-year-old software, this one always feels fresh and hip. Its AI features were on the Time’s Best Innovations of 2023 list.
I was going to make the point that it’s easier to make the list of the photo editing tasks that Photoshop cannot do than it is for the tasks that it can—until I realized that I cannot actually come up with a list of such things. In a nutshell, Photoshop is the top-notch image editor on the market.
And that covers AI features too. Last year, the Remove Tool took the stage. However, Photoshop has always had a function that enabled the removal of unwanted objects, people and artifacts from your images—and its Patch Tool and Spot Removal Tool performed the best blending—and the Remove Tool takes it to the next level.
I must say that out of all the apps that I have tried, this one is the best as it completely takes out something from an image and replaces it with a generated content that merges with the image. There’s also a Generative Fillet called Generative Fill that can be used to insert or replace particular objects with Adobe’s Firefly AI model. While it’s not quite good enough to cut foreground elements out, but I’ve found that it’s really good at replacing the backgrounds.
It is possible to observe both of these to action in the screenshot above. The original image is the one in the middle. The best thing is that I simply painted him out with grass that matches the whole rest of the image, including bokeh, by just replacing him. I was also able to replace the background with a forest again–matching the depth of field–just by selecting the background and type “a dark forest”. I even got three variations!
Photoshop, like other AI-based tools, has plenty of others. Humanized text: With Generative Expand powered by Firefly, your images can be enriched using AI generated content. Besides Neural Filters, these can do things such as intelligent adjustment of your subject’s facial expression, color palette transfer between two images and artifact removal. The automatic subject and background selection is well-done, and the brightness, color, and contrast adjustment all operate like what you’d expect.
Best of all, Photoshop remains the app it’s always been all in all. Whatever AI filters you have, you get lots of control, and you can go ahead and manually edit them to your image. If the AI is not up to the mark, you have all the tools that you want because after all, you can get around it—even if it takes you a bit longer.
In the recent past, Adobe has been beginning to credit generative features like Generative Expand and Generative Fill as credits. With the limit hit, however, the features continue to work albeit at a slower pace.
Adobe Photoshop pricing: From $19.99/month as one of the Photography Plan options, including Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and 500 generative credits. (Lightroom can be a great image editor on its own, but it does not offer the same deep AI features as Photoshop. Mention it just in case you may want to explore other options.)
Best AI Photo Editor for that it is fully AI-powered
Luminar Neo (Windows, macOS)
Luminar Neo pros:
- AI is not only essential to the whole app experience, but it is the most fundamental block.
- The software is designed for professional photographers, having many options to customize image effects.
Luminar Neo cons:
- It is very expensive for a photo-orientated standalone app.
Luminar Neo was among the first photo-editing tools to implement AI completely. Unlike the rest of the apps, this one surely has the most sophisticated AI integration into its whole app. As expected, there are headline features such as AI-enhanced built-in (which automatically corrects contrast, tone and color), the AI sky replacement (which on the spot makes blown out and gray skies really work), GenErase (which artificially removes objects and elements) and GenExpand (which lets you crop and expand your images).
But, what about the smaller details? Luminar Neo detects the subject of your photo and provides you with presets that can be used as a starting point. The AI crop puts out a good job in cutting out the unnecessary elements without being too tight. Moreover, the AI face and skin adjustments features focus on those parts of the image that have most effect, such as the brighter eyes that need to draw more attention from the viewer or the shining skin that overshadows them.
Luminar Neo is an application almost exclusively for Photographers or people who just love taking the best and enlarged selfies ever. This way, you gain a lot of control over the exact details of how each effect is secured.
Best design app with an AI photo editor
Canva (Web, iOS, Android)
Canva pros:
- With the super power template design plus the artificial intelligence add ons.
- Probably, the simplest to use tool to make the designs reality such as social media posts and CVs and invitations.
Canva cons:
- Image editing software can’t compare with standalone apps.
During the last two years, Canva added a bucketload of new AI features, which makes the already friendly template-based app much better. It’s unparalleled in terms of the variety of content it can create, from invitations to Instagram posts, and the AI features make things even simpler.
Magic Design enables you to input a written prompt and use it to generate a template. I employed “for my dog’s birthday party invite” to make the invitation above.
Magic Media is an AI that generates a text-to-image and text-to-video including the one you want (for example, the dog holding a balloon above), which you can use in your designs.
The Magic Eraser allows to remove unwanted objects from your photos immediately. Simply speaking, it’s not as good as Photoshop’s implementation, but it is good enough for small cleanup tasks.
Magic Edit employs a generative AI to help you change elements of any picture. Do you want a plain cake transformed to the best chocolate cake?Be my guest.
Magic Write is a AI text generator which is easily accessible across the app.
Moreover, there are many other AI features embedded in different parts of the app or grouped together in the Magic Studio. It is interesting that none of Canva’s AI features ever come across as shoehorned in—and it is still one of the best design apps even if you don’t use them. However, you can do that as well if you want to play with AI-assisted composition options or design elements that can be generated using written prompts.
Canva pricing: Free with a limited access to AI tools; from $14.99/month for Pro with more AI tools and higher usage limits.
The most convenient way to edit AI photo is the online one
Pixlr (Web, iOS, Android)
Pixlr pros:
- Completely free that anyone can use without any registration and is accessible worldwide through any browser.
- Theized AI apps separately this way so you can use the pieces that you want.
Pixlr cons:
- The user may find a few aspects slightly rougher than some of the other applications in this listing.
Free photo editing web apps and design tools can be found with most of them offering essentially the same things. Testing has shown Pixlr AI offerings to be the best . Although they make an already great product better, it’s a good image editor you will definitely check out even without them.
Over the course of the last year, Pixlr users have seen a revamp and the option of the majority of the AI features in the remade Pixlr X app.And you know what?It really works. On this screenshot I utilized the AI Cutout feature, which eliminated the original background, and a generative Backdrop feature to create a new, and exciting background. It’s also got good face swap, object removal, and generative fill influences as well as a separate AI image generator.
The latter photo editing tool, Pixlr X, is now referred to as Pixlr Designer for retaining the initial design focus. The picture manipulation Pixlr E is still present, as well as the AI-powered Remove bg and the batch editing Batch Editor is still included. You can switch between them depending on the need that comes up. They are all good in their own way.
But, with Pixlr, cost is the strongest point. Access to a sophisticated editing tool, online or on-the-go, for free! It’s the most inexpensive one among the AI photo editor apps, and you have access to most AI tools in the free plan.
Pixlr pricing: No charge for using basic AI with on three saving images per day; starts at $1.99/month for Plus, with 80 monthly AI credits, unlimited saving, and no ads.
AI-powered photo editor on mobile
Lensa (iOS, Android)
Lensa pros:
- It also excels at portraits and, as you may know, selfies.
- Saving one picture per day on my phone.
Lensa cons:
- Editing images in a small screen is hardly close to the efficiency which is obvious in editing on a laptop or other screen of the large size.
Lensa is most probably the platform widely recognized for the Magic Avatar feature that works by training a Stable Diffusion model with a set of selfies in order to come up with a relevant selection of the strange AI portraits. That part of it works exactly as promised( thousands of glittering stickers, real and imaginary) but it doesn’t necessarily fall under the category of photo editing. Yet, as the rest of Lensa’s AI options go even further to place it among the most suitable mobile photo editors.
It has a Magic Retouch tool that is able to detect portraits and apply either a Sunrise, Day, Street or full Glam Look. It works, and the results are just amazing, especially if you were lazing on the couch in your pajamas with no makeup. There’s also very little AI-powered skin, face, and makeup retouching tools that gives you some control of how you want to enhance the pictures.
As for other features: the AI-powered Suggest a Filter feature was useful enough to choose one out of a dozen options. Among the AI Erasers I have tested the AI Eraser is the best which is, still far short of Photoshop or Luminar Neo. The Background Eraser and Sky Replacement tools all did pretty well even with hard to deal images, and to my taste, I like some of the available options instead of the given image.
All of these mentioned above make it perfect control with regular image editing tools, art styles, effects and everything that emit as good as any other apps I’ve used on a mobile. It provides Lensa an added ability and revealing model of pricing, which makes it a complete package. In the Pro plan, you get everything for free —soon as you create one image per day. And then it’s time to purchase a paid subscription. In case of occasional use, it’s quite generous but may be not enough for daily usage.
Lensa pricing: Only one image is allowed to be saved every day; priced from $2.99/week or $4.99/month; Magic Avatars are sold separately from $3.99.
Now, think of AI art generators
All following tools are created and designed especially for the needs of the image and photo editing process. However only AI image generation top guns can use AI do photo editing.Here are some examples:
- DALL·E 2 can do inpainting, ie, you delete an existing part of the image and ask AI to fill it. It can also work in outpainting, by expanding the existing image. Sorry, at the moment, DALL·E 3 is not equipped with these functionalities.
- With Midjourney, you have the functionality of zooming out (and thus automatically increasing the content of the image), zooming out and adding a new prompt (to expand your image in a certain direction), panning (moving your image in a certain direction), and replacing different elements. Out of all the image editors, this one has the biggest range of amendment tools.
- The Stable Diffusion (through DreamStudio app) gives us the possibility of inpainting and outpainting, but I will suggest that you are better off using the DALL·E 2 which I personally feel that it gives a bit more well arranged options.
So if you need to just mess with the AI as an editor to get a hang of it, an AI art generator will sure do that for you. That is to say, if you really would like to use AI photo editor, take one of the photo editors listed above.
The AI photo editors are expected to change quickly.
We are at the cusp of a massive wave of generative AI features being dropped into photo editing apps. Systems like Photoshop’s Generative Fill and Remove Tool are more dazzling than a regular text-to-image generator because of how seamlessly they work with real images. It’s not about imagining and bringing something to life; it’s about the might of the keyboard to make big changes in a photo with a few keystrokes.
A lot of those features and apps will get a lot more powerful over the next few years and a lot more AI photo editors will come up.