Paint.NET

When editing photos on your computer, you never know the features you might need and users often overdo it and use advanced tools such as Adobe Photoshop to perform basic operations such as brightness/contrast adjustments and cropping. A better approach would be to have a tool that can do both: from simple to complex!

Paint.NET is a good example. The tool is available for free. You can choose to donate money on their website or purchase the paid app for Windows 10 on the Windows Store. Paint.NET supports layers which can be used to edit the photo by editing parts of it. There are also many features you already expect such as various adjustments (brightness, contrast, hue, curves, saturation, and levels).

Some special effects include sharpening, distortion, red-eye removal, or blurring the image. For users looking for even more features, they can always download more extensions from within the app. Its user interface is not so modern. Options such as Colors, History or Layers appear in independent windows. This is neat since you can move them around easily but it takes away from the overall appearance.

Paint.NET also remembers all the changes you have made to the image and you can undo your way back to the beginning if you want! The app is great but it can't replace Adobe Photoshop for many different purposes. It's a light version of GIMP for users who prefer the simpler approach!