AI technology has made a huge impact on the world of photography, there’s no question about it. If you’re working with digital images, artificial intelligence is definitely your ally. Why? Because it can help you make necessary adjustments and improve the overall aspect of your photographs in a truly remarkable way. At the same time, it can help you save considerable time and energy, by automating the editing process.

AI photo editors have transformed how we enhance and manipulate images, making it accessible and efficient for everyone from amateurs to professionals. Powered by machine learning and computer vision, these tools can auto-correct imperfections, suggest creative edits, adjust aspects of an image like lighting, contrast and even background elements with no or minimal user input. They have the ability to recognize faces, objects and scenes and selectively apply effects, giving users precision control without the need for extensive editing skills.

If you’re looking to enhance images with AI, here’s a list of the best tools for the job:

Luminar Neo

Luminar Neo is a desktop editor that uses AI to help you enhance your photos. The program represents a convenient solution, because it addresses both beginners and professionals. This is a great choice for a novice, because it comes with a user-friendly UI and it is equipped with AI-powered tools that automate complicated editing tasks. It is also a viable solution for professionals, because it offers manual controls. If you don’t want to automatically edit your pictures, you can fine-tine each individual image setting with the aid of the integrated sliders.

You can use Luminar Neo as a standalone app for Windows and Mac or a plugin for Photoshop and Lightroom. So what can you accomplish with it? The software places at your disposal a multitude of AI-based tools to bring improvements to your landscape, real estate, wildlife, travel or portrait photos. Among others you can use:

• Accent AI – a single slider which lets you adjust multiple controls like contrast, shadow and highlights.
• Sky AI – replace a dull sky, while also considering the sky’s orientation and water reflections.
• Atmosphere AI – add fog, mist or haze to your images.
• Relight AI – easily brighten dark photos.
• Crop AI – get the ideal composition, crop and perspective of your shots.
• Portrait retouching – numerous AI tools to enhance the skin and face features or apply a dreamy bokeh effect to your portrait shots.
• GenErase – remove unwanted elements from your pictures.
• GenExpand – extend the boundaries of your photographs.

Pros

• The impressive range of AI-based editing options.
• The AI tools work quite well, generating visible improvements.
• It’s accessible to all users, regardless of their proficiency in image editing.
• It comes with numerous presets to instantly improve your images.

Cons

• Some of the photos may seem overprocessed when using the auto mode.
• The standard price of a license is quite high.

Pricing

Luminar Neo is available with a 7-day free trial version. Afterwards you’ll need to purchase a license. At the time of writing this article, the 12-month subscription was heavily discounted from $421 to $69. The lifetime license was also substantially discounted from $577 to $99.

Topaz Labs Photo AI

Topaz Labs Photo AI is a solution that relies fundamentally on artificial intelligence to perform photo enhancements. This AI photo editor has reached its third generation and offers a clean, clearly structured interface to make photo editing as efficient as possible. There’s a central workspace where you can visualize your image in split, side-by-side or full view, while on the right side you’ll find a panel displaying your AI options and edit suggestions. Because once you upload a picture, the program will automatically start analyzing it and then make relevant suggestion to improve it.

Photo AI places at your disposal numerous AI-based tools to optimize your photos. You can use this software to upscale pictures (there’s a maximum length of 32,000 pixels on each side), remove grainy noise artifacts, sharpen a main subject or the entire image, adjust poor lighting, balance colors, eliminate objects or prevent text from being distorted by other filters. The program comes with a Super focus feature, which lets you adjust out of focus photos with the aid of generative AI (the feature is in beta stage).

If you don’t want to make separate changes, you can use the Autopilot. The Autopilot will analyze your photo and automatically apply enhancements to obtain the best possible image quality.

Pros

• Easy-to-use interface.
• More than enough AI tools to choose from.
• One of the best denoising tools, with remarkably-sharp results.
• Useful Autopilot for enhancement suggestions.

Cons

• It’s not the fastest editor. You need to have lots of patience, because the tool takes its time reanalyzing and applying your edits.
• It’s not exactly cheap.
• You can’t save the edited image in the free version.

Pricing

Photo AI offers a demo version, which lets you try the editor for free. You’ll need to purchase a $199 license though in order to save your photos.

Radiant Photo

Radiant Photo is a tool designed to make your photographs… radiant. That wasn’t a tough guess, was it? All joking aside, this is an AI photo editing software created to automatically improve the quality of your images. The philosophy behind this product is simple: let us do all the heavy lifting and step in only if you feel the need to refine the results. The program was conceived by real photographers and is available as a desktop solution for Windows and Mac, as a mobile app for iPhone and Android and also as a plugin for Lightroom, Photoshop and Corel PaintShop Pro.

So how does Radiant Photo actually work? The smart AI behind it will analyze the image, recognize its content and type (whether it’s night or day, portrait or landscape etc.) and apply what it believes it’s the ideal optimization. Basically all you have to do is add your photos, and the software will automatically apply the ideal AI edits to them. You won’t have to click a single button. But if you do want to fine-tune the results, there are two levels of controls based on sliders: Quick Edit and Detailed Edit. You can also access the Color Grade to perform advanced color corrections and the Presets section for one-click improvements.

Pros

• It considerably simplifies the editing process.
• It does an excellent job, significantly improving the image quality even in the automatic mode.
• Quite fast in analyzing and optimizing your photographs.

Cons

• Some might complain about the lack of more advanced AI capabilities, such as background removal, object replacement or image extender.

Pricing

Radiant Photo can be freely tested for 30 days, either as a standalone program or plugin. You can purchase a license for $159.

Fotor

Fotor is an all-in-one image editor. It’s available as an online platform, a mobile app and a desktop solution for Windows and Mac users. You can use it to edit images, design a wide range of graphics, create collages and more. It addresses not only photographers and designers, but also marketers and content creators through its eye-catching templates.

Fotor allows users to edit photos with AI in a simple manner. All you have to do is select the AI photo editor button, upload your image and then select from the AI image editing tools available on the left menu bar. The possibilities are quite vast. You can use the 1-Tap Enhance feature to instantly fix every imperfection in a picture, eliminate or change the background, remove objects with the Magic Eraser, remove text, replace elements, expand and upscale an image, apply a multitude of AI photo filters and effects.

Fotor’s AI capabilities don’t stop here. The platform allows you to upload portrait photos and automatically perform face enhancements. You can get rid of wrinkles or blemishes, whiten teeth or sharpen out-of-focus faces. Additionally you can restore and colorize old photographs.

Pros

• Intuitively-designed platform, easy to work with.
• A comprehensive suite of AI editing tools.
• Excellent results when it comes to upscaling and sharpening images.
• The option to remove/change the background for multiple images at once.

Cons

• Removing objects with the Magic Eraser may sometimes lead to an unsatisfactory outcome.
• The exported photos have a watermark applied to them in the free plan.

Pricing

Fotor offers a free basic version, with limited access to editing tools and a watermark applied to the processed images. To remove limitations you can upgrade to one of the two paid plans:

• Pro: $2.66/month
• Pro+: $5.99/month

Corel PaintShop Pro

Corel PaintShop Pro is an all-round software capable of performing multiple tasks. It can be used by photographers, since it comes with professional tools to improve the aspect of their shots. It is also an option for artists and graphic designers, since it offers drawing and painting tools, textures, patterns and brushes to create unique designs. The program is developed with a variety of distinct workspaces, giving you the opportunity to choose one perfectly adequate to your necessities.

Corel PaintShop Pro has implemented AI and machine learning technology to help you perform one-click and manual picture enhancements. Here’s what this editor offers:

• AI upsampling – upscale low-res images up to 10,000 pixels along the longest edge.
• AI denoise – remove extreme noise from photos with options to customize the intensity.
• AI background replacement – replace an image background using preset backgrounds or your own.
• AI portrait mode – apply a depth of field or bokeh blur effect to the background of your image (unfortunately you can’t change facial features).
• AI style transfer – instantly turn photos into works of art using preset styles.

Pros

• Plenty of AI-powered photo styles available.
• AI Denoise feature generates excellent results.
• A vast library of video tutorials, learning articles and tips and tricks.
• It’s subscription-free and conveniently-priced.

Cons

• It’s available exclusively for Windows users.
• Sometimes it can be slow in carrying out operations.
• No generative AI features.

Pricing

You can try Corel PaintShop Pro for free for 30 days. At the time of writing, a license is available at the price of $47.99.

Picsart

Picsart gives you the opportunity to not only edit images with AI, but also create stunning designs with this technology. No matter if you intend to use it as a photo editor or design studio, you can find it as a web-based tool, as well as an Android and iPhone app. The platform abounds in classic photo editing tools and AI-based ones, and at first you may struggle to find what you need. But once you discover the AI features, the editing and exporting process is pretty straightforward.

Picsart offers numerous options to improve your photos using artificial intelligence, either individually or in bulk. It is equipped with standard features you can find in other software, which means you can make color and lighting corrections, remove the background, erase or replace elements, apply auto-enhancements or AI-based effects. You can extend your image using generative AI, but what’s interesting is the fact that you have the possibility to increase the resolution by choosing from a wide array of social media templates. You can also manually extend a picture by dragging the corner handles as you please.

Pros

• A good base of features to choose from.
• The AI expand, which provides numerous possibilities to extend your original picture.
• The batch processing capabilities, which allow you to enhance using AI up to 50 files simultaneously.

Cons

• The features available in the free plan are quite scarce (can’t even try the AI expand feature).
• The AI enhance option that’s supposed to fix blurry photos doesn’t really make any difference.

Pricing

Picsart offers a free version with limited AI features and storage. To gain access to all the features you’ll need to upgrade to one of the two paid plans:

• Picsart Plus: $5/month
• Picsart Pro: $7/month

YouCam

YouCam is an AI photo editor designed to help you quickly enhance your pictures. You can edit images directly on the website, as well as on the Android and iPhone apps. The online version, the one we tested, comes with a modern interface, with the features on the left sidebar and a before/after comparison view to instantly see how much the original image has changed. All the saving and sharing options are in the top right corner. In general, everything feels in the right place.

YouCam provides a versatile toolset to cater for diverse editing purposes. You can improve the overall quality of your photos by eliminating pixelation, fixing blurriness, increasing sharpness or boosting overall clarity. The AI color correction tool enables you to enhance saturation, shadows and highlights, adjust white balance, contrast and exposure or apply color grading effects. You can also remove noise in old photos, upscale the resolution to 4K and take your portraits to another level with AI-powered face enhancements.

With YouCam you have the possibility to remove, change or blur the background, as well as remove or replace certain elements in a picture using text prompts. There’s also on option to extend an image beyond its borders and make it fit to any aspect ratio.

Pros

• It is equipped with a wide range of AI editing tools.
• User-friendly platform, which ensures an easy navigation.
• The removal tool works quite well, allowing you to erase people or objects without visible outlines.
• It can effectively fix blurry photos and portraits.

Cons

• Limited free version.

Pricing

YouCam uses a credit model. In the free version, you get 2 credits + 5 more if you sign up (1 image may cost 1 or 2 credits, depending on the feature used). You can get more credits by purchasing one of the numerous subscription options. Below we’ve listed some of the alternatives, you can find more on the website:

• 100 credits – $5.87/month
• 200 credits – $6.67/month
• 500 credits – $16.58/month