PhotoDemon 2024.7

PhotoDemon

PhotoDemon is a free, portable photo editor for Microsoft Windows. It is 100% free and 100% open-source. Its UI is fully themable, with built-in light, dark, and monochrome themes. All tools support real-time previews, custom presets, keyboard navigation, and unlimited Undo/Redo. PhotoDemon provides a comprehensive photo editor in a 18 MB download. It runs on any Windows PC (XP through Win 11) and it does not require installation, administrator rights, or Internet access. You can run it directly from a USB stick, SD card, or portable drive.

The current build provides more than 200 professional-grade tools, including layers, selection tools and digital paintbrushes, content-aware fill and resize, shadow/highlight recovery, perspective and lens correction, and full support for image files from other popular photo editors, including Adobe Photoshop (PSD), Corel Paintshop Pro (PSP), and GIMP (XCF).

You can support PhotoDemon's ongoing development through Patreon or with a one-time donation.

What makes PhotoDemon unique?

Integrated macro recording and batch processing

Complex editing actions can be recorded as macros (similar to Office software). A built-in batch processor lets you apply macros to entire folders of images.

Usability is paramount

Many open-source photo editors are usability nightmares. PhotoDemon tries not to be. Small touches like real-time effect previews, save/load presets on all tools, unlimited Undo/Redo, "Fade last action", keyboard accelerators, mouse wheel and X-button support, and descriptive icons make it fast and easy to use.

Pro-grade features and tools

Extensive file format support, including Adobe Photoshop (PSD), Corel PaintShop Pro (PSP), GIMP (XCF), and all major camera RAW formats
Advanced multi-layer support, including editable text layers and non-destructive layer modifications
Color-managed workflow, including full support for embedded ICC profiles
On-canvas tools: digital paintbrushes, clone and pattern brushes, advanced selection tools, interactive gradients, and more
Adjustment tools: levels, curves, HDR, shadow/highlight recovery, white balance, and many more
Filters and effects: perspective correction, edge enhancement, noise removal, content-aware fill and resize, unsharp masking, gradient and palette mapping, and many more
More than 200 tools are provided in the current build.

PhotoDemon 2024.7 release notes:

Highlights of this release include JPEG-XL support, PDF support (import only, export coming soon!), “magnetic” layer snapping and smart guides, an expanded File > Export menu, improved PSD compatibility, Japanese language support, and much more. Like all PhotoDemon releases, PhotoDemon 2024.7 runs on any Windows PC sold in the past 20 years. All modern versions of Windows (XP through the latest Windows 11 insider builds) are fully supported.

What’s new and improved in this release:

PhotoDemon can now import PDF documents as if they were image files. Each page can be imported to its own layer.
JPEG-XL images (.jxl) may eventually become the next-generation replacement for traditional JPEG images. The JPEG-XL format provides higher quality than traditional JPEGs at potentially smaller file sizes. JPEG-XL also supports a variety of new features, including HDR, animations, and more. If you choose to enable JPEG-XL support, PhotoDemon can periodically look for updated copies of the library. It will prompt you for updates (when interacting with JPEG-XL images) as your PhotoDemon settings allow. This should lead to improved JPEG-XL compatibility and performance over time.
“Magnetic” snapping and smart guides for the Move tool. Precisely aligning layers is now much easier, thanks to the addition of “magnetic” snapping and smart guides.

Additional image format improvements:

PDFs and JPEG-XL images are not the only new formats supported by this release. Additional improvements include:
WBMP images can now be imported and exported. (This format is ancient and not especially relevant in 2024, but Photoshop supports it natively so PhotoDemon should too!)
XBM images can now be imported. (This format is ancient and not especially relevant in 2024, but GIMP supports it natively so PhotoDemon should too!)
Photoshop (PSD) file support continues to improve with every release.
Lossless JPEG (JPEG-LS) support has been expanded and improved.
OpenRaster (ORA) and comic book archives (CBZ) now support Zip64-encoded files.
SVG support has seen a number of performance and feature improvements, and SVGs can now be batch-converted to other formats.
EMF and WMF images now support custom size at import-time (and batch process support).
Icon (ICO) files have seen many improvements, including quality improvements and new features when creating icons from scratch.
WebP images received security and performance improvements.
Like JPEG-XL images, AVIF images also lean on third-party libraries (due to the complexity of the format). PhotoDemon can also auto-update the required AVIF libraries independently from PhotoDemon itself.