The top AI image editors

While AI art generators are incredibly impressive, AI image editors can be a lot more useful in most situations. Instead of turning a text prompt into an image, AI image editors allow you to improve, retouch, and otherwise edit your own images. If you want to improve the photos you post to social media or feature on your website, you want an AI image editor.

I've been a photographer for more than 15 years and have spent a huge amount of my writing career covering every aspect of the process. In that time, dozens of AI-powered image editors with various different features have been developed. I've already shared my picks for the best AI photo editors, but this list is broader, with the goal of showing off the different approaches that these tools can have.

Of course, this isn't a complete list of every AI image editing app, but it's the ones you should keep your eye on.

The top AI image editors

What do AI image editors do?

While AI image generators take a text prompt—like "a painting of a monkey in a spacesuit on the moon"—and turn it into an actual image, AI image editors don't really have a singular feature set. Different AI image editing tools do everything from automatically removing the background from your image, to changing the light source of a photo, to just making a few simple tweaks. 

One thing that makes assembling a list like this challenging is deciding where to draw the AI line. Apps like Instagram, Apple Photos, and Google Photos have had auto-enhance buttons that improve the lighting, contrast, and colors of your images for years—but I don't think they really count as artificial intelligence. Similarly, automatically removing a background with a single click requires some level of AI, while making you select your subject by hand before doing it doesn't really count. Some AI image generators also allow you to use a photo as a base image and then turn it into something totally new.

So, on this list, you'll find incredibly powerful apps that can totally overhaul your images, AI art generators that can also edit parts of your photos, and niche tools that can supersize your images or remove backgrounds with just a click.

23 AI image editors you can use right now

Adobe Photoshop

Platforms: Windows, macOS, iPad

Pricing: From $19.99/month as part of the Photography Plan that also includes Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. 

Adobe Photoshop is the premier AI image editor. Adobe has pioneered AI image editing features like content-aware fill, automatic subject and background selection, and intelligent auto-adjustment to things like light and color. The latest version has features like Generative Fill and Generative Expand, which allow you to replace selected areas of your images with AI-generated content.

Clipdrop

Platforms: Web

Pricing: Free for watermarked or limited resolution images from some tools; from $11/month for unlimited usage.

Clipdrop is a suite of AI image editing tools originally built by Stability.ai, the developers of Stable Diffusion, but now owned by Jasper. You can use it to uncrop your images, remove backgrounds, remove other parts of your images, turn doodles into images, upscale your images, remove text from an image, change how your photos are lit, swap faces, and more. There's also an API.

Canva

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Pricing: Free with limited access to AI tools; from $15/month for Pro with more AI tools and higher usage limits.

Over the past two years, design app Canva has added a whole host of new AI features as part of Magic Studio, including text-to-image generation; tools that can remove unwanted objects, move them around, or even replace them with AI-generated content; and a Magic Design mode that automatically creates a design from your chosen color profile, mood, and a few other options.

And with Zapier's Canva integration, you can automate your image workflows. Build automated systems across your apps, like automatically creating designs based on form submissions or uploading assets based on spreadsheet entries. Here are some examples to get you started.

Picsart

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Pricing: Limited free plan; from $13/month for Picsart Plus with some AI features.

Picsart is a Canva-like design studio. Its AI features aren't as powerful, but it still has things like a background remover, an object remover, an image expander, and an image enhancer. It also integrates with Zapier, so you can automatically remove image backgrounds or upscale images from the other apps you use most. Here are some pre-made templates to get you started.

Luminar Neo

Platforms: Windows, macOS

Pricing: From $79/year

Luminar Neo is an AI-powered image editing app aimed at photographers. What that means is that while there's a bit of a learning curve, it's incredibly powerful, and you have a lot of control over how the various effects are applied. You can use it to enhance the sky, water, or overall look of an image, replace or remove different elements, and radically change how your photos look. If you're looking to use AI to edit photos, it's one of the best apps to use.

Topaz Photo AI

Platforms: Windows, macOS

Pricing: $199

Another AI image editor aimed at photographers, Topaz Photo AI consists of multiple dedicated AI-powered tools that can do things like upscale, de-noise, and sharpen your image, recover face details, remove objects, adjust lighting, and balance colors. All the tools are awesome at improving the quality of any image, and are especially good with low-resolution or blurry images.

Retouch4me

Platforms: Windows, Mac

Pricing: From $124 for individual plugins; from $20/month for Cloud Retouch.

Retouch4me offers a series of AI-powered retouching tools for portrait, wedding, and fashion photographers that integrate with Adobe Photoshop. While the tools work great, they are very much priced for professionals. For example, Retouch4me Dust and Retouch4me White Teeth cost $124 each—and there are 14 plugins. Cloud Retouch doesn't have the upfront cost but requires an ongoing subscription.

Lensa

Platforms: iOS, Android

Pricing: Free to save 1 image/day without some AI features; from $2.99/week or $4.99/month.

Although Lensa is probably best known for its Magic Avatars, the rest of its AI-powered features are really good and make it one of the best mobile AI image editors. Magic Retouch can automatically tune up portraits, its AI Eraser can remove objects, and it can remove backgrounds, replace skies, and more. 

Pixlr

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Pricing: Free for limited AI use; from $1.99/month with no ads and 80 AI credits; from $7.99/month for Premium with all features and 1,000 AI credits.

Pixlr is one of a number of very similar AI image editors that can automatically select subjects, cut out backgrounds, remove other objects, and change how your images look. It stands out for being one of the cheapest good AI image editors, and it also has a built-in AI art generator.

Fotor

Platforms: Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android

Pricing: Free for basic features, from $8.99/month for AI features.

Another of the similar AI image editors, Fotor also has a built-in AI art generator. It stands out for having a nice interface and wide availability on different platforms. 

BeFunky

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Pricing: Free for basic features, from $14.99/month for AI features.

Another of the collection of similarly-featured AI image editors, BeFunky also offers solid design tools. If you want to turn a photo into a sketch and use it in a collage, it's worth a look. 

Photoroom

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Pricing: Free for limited AI features; from $12.99/month for Photoroom Pro with all features. 

Photoroom bills itself as a magic photo studio. Its tools, like background removal or replacement, batch editing, and object removal, are designed to help you create better product images for eCommerce platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Depop. 

You can use Photoroom with Zapier to connect it to thousands of other apps and automate your AI image editing. Here are some examples of how that might work.

Let's Enhance

Platforms: Web

Pricing: Free for 10 image credits; from $12/month for 100 credits/month. 

Let's Enhance can automatically edit, upscale, sharpen, and color-correct your images with a single click. Most impressively, it can scale your images up to 500 megapixels. It uses a credit system where one credit allows you to process one image.

Claid

Platforms: Web

Pricing: From $19/month for the Essentials web plan, or pay-as-you-go for the API.

Claid was developed by Let's Enhance to allow eCommerce stores and other businesses to automate the process of creating and editing product images using AI. AI Photoshoot can create product images from nothing, while the AI-powered image enhancing and editing allow you to turn average images into great product shots.

Claid integrates with Zapier, too, so you can automatically correct color, add or remove backgrounds, and upscale images from the other apps you use most. Here are a couple of templates to give you an idea of what you can do.

Hotpot

Platforms: Web

Pricing: Credits start at $12 for 1,000.

Hotpot is another collection of AI image editing tools, including an art generator, a headshot generator, a photo upscaler, object and background removers, and more. It uses a credit system, though how many credits any tool costs depends on what you're trying to do and how large the image you're editing is. 

PhotoEditor.AI

Platforms: Web

Pricing: Free for limited features; from $9.99/month for Pro.

PhotoEditor.AI is yet another collection of AI tools. As well as an art generator, there's a photo upscaler, background remover, clean up tool, and more. The app itself is surprisingly nice to use.

Phot.AI

Platforms: Web

Pricing: Limited free plan; from $19.99/month for Pro.

Phot.AI is another similar collection of AI image editing tools. It includes object and background removers, a photo restorer, and lots more. At the moment, each tool is accessed individually, but there is a Design Studio currently in beta.

Freepik

Platforms: Web

Pricing: Limited free plan; from $24/month for the Individual Plan.

Freepik is an asset marketplace with images, graphics, vectors, and more. In addition to offering millions of assets available for download, it has built-in AI image editing tools like a background remover and image resizer that work with your images, as well as any you find through Freepik.

YouCam

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Pricing: From free to $4.99/week

YouCam offers a series of apps, including YouCam Perfect, YouCam Enhance, and YouCam Makeup that use AI to do things like remove unwanted objects or people, upscale your images, or virtually apply make up. Worth noting: the user experience isn't great, and different apps require different subscriptions, so it can get expensive if you want to use every tool.

remove.bg

Platforms: Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and more

Pricing: Free for low-resolution images; uses a credit system that costs between $0.11 and $1.99 per image depending on how many you buy at once.

remove.bg is a tool that does one thing and one thing well: remove (or replace) backgrounds from your images. While you can use it through the web app, it's also accessible basically everywhere. There are desktop apps, mobile apps, plugins for Photoshop, Gimp, and Figma, an API, and you can even connect it to Zapier, so you can automate your image editing workflows. Here are a couple of examples.

Slazzer

Platforms: Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more

Pricing: Free for low-resolution images; uses a credits system that costs between $0.11 and $0.60 per image depending on how many you buy at once.

Another AI-powered background remover, Slazzer also integrates with a wide variety of platforms and apps, including Photoshop, Figma, and Sketch. Here are some examples of how you can connect Slazzer to thousands of other apps using Zapier.

VanceAI

Platforms: Web, Windows

Pricing: Uses a credit system that costs between $0.018 and $0.049 per image depending on how many you buy at once; Windows version starts at $39.90/month.

VanceAI is another set of AI-powered tools, including image upscaling, sharpening, and enhancing, and JPEG artifact removal. It can also automatically repair and colorize old or damaged photographs. 

Palette

Platforms: Web, Windows

Pricing: Free for low-resolution images; uses a credit system that costs between $0.38 and $1.99 per image depending on how many you buy at once.

Palette uses AI to colorize old black-and-white images. Unlike some other tools, you can choose from multiple different color interpretations and even tweak them using a written prompt. You can also connect Palette to all your other apps with Zapier. Here are some pre-made workflows to get you started.

Which AI image editor should you use?

With so many different (and similar) AI image editors to choose from, it can be hard to know what to use. Here are a few suggestions:

• Photoshop is the most powerful tool overall, but it has the steepest learning curve. If you're serious about AI image editing, check it out. Otherwise, it's a pass.

• Luminar Neo, Topaz Photo AI, and Retouch4Me are all aimed at photographers and priced accordingly, but offer a lot of control and power.

• Tools like Let's Enhance, Claid, remove.bg, and Slazzer can use AI to automate aspects of your image editing workflow. 

• Lensa is a great mobile option.

• A lot of tools offer pretty similar features, so feel free to try a few out. 

• Or take a look at these AI art generators.

Related reading:

• AI image generation examples for the workplace

• Examples of real businesses using DALL·E for visual content

• How to create logos with AI and Zapier

• How to generate blog images with AI and Zapier

• How to write effective AI art prompts

This article was originally published in July 2023. The most recent update was in August 2024.