While AI art generators are the flashy new toy, AI image editors are normally more useful. Instead of turning some 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 nearly 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. 

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. Again, it's a broader list than the best AI photo editors, but you'll still find the same kind of tools. 

19 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 beta even features Generative Fill, which allows you to replace selected areas of your images with AI-generated content. 

DALL·E 2

Platforms: Web

Pricing: 115 image credits can be purchased for $15. 

DALL·E 2 kicked off the boom in AI art generators, but it can also be used to edit your images. You can upload photos and either use AI to extend them (a feature called outpainting) or replace parts of the image with AI-generated content (a feature called inpainting). While it's not as powerful an editor as Photoshop, it's still fun to use. You can read more about how to use DALL·E 2 to edit your images.

You can also connect DALL·E 2 to thousands of other apps using Zapier, so you can automate your AI images. Here are some examples.

Clipdrop

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Pricing: Free for watermarked or limited resolution images; from $9/month for unlimited usage.

Clipdrop is a suite of AI image editing tools from Stability.ai, the developers of Stable Diffusion. 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, and more. 

Canva

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Pricing: Free with limited access to AI tools; from $12.99/month for Pro with more AI tools and higher usage limits.

Over the past year, design app Canva has added a whole host of new AI features, including text-to-image generation, a magic eraser that removes unwanted objects, and a magic design mode that automatically creates a design from your chosen color profile, mood, and a few other options. It's not quite as powerful as some of the more dedicated apps, but if you use Canva, they're pretty useful. 

Luminar Neo

Platforms: Windows, macOS

Pricing: From $9.95/month for the Explore plan; from $14.95/month for the Pro plan that includes additional AI-powered features like noise removal and upscaling.

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. 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 four AI-powered tools: upscale, denoise, sharpen, and recover faces. All four are basically designed to improve the quality of low-resolution or blurry images. 

Lensa

Platforms: iOS, Android

Pricing: Free to save one image per day; 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 $7.99/month for Premium with all features. 

Pixlr is one of a number of very similar AI image editors that can automatically select subjects, cut out backgrounds, and remove other objects. It stands out for being one of the cheapest good AI image editors.

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 UI and wide availability on different platforms. 

BeFunky

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android

Pricing: Free for basic features, from $11.99/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 $9.99/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 PhotoRoom 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 256 megapixels. It uses a credit system where one credit allows you to process one image.

Claid

Platforms: Web

Pricing: From $49/month for Small Team plan with 500 credits.

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. 

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. 

YouCam Enhance

Platforms: Web, iOS

Pricing: Free with a watermark; Premium starts at $4.99/week.

Another similar web-based AI image editor, YouCam Enhance is designed to automatically sharpen and upscale low-resolution images, remove unwanted objects, and recreate wide-aperture lenses for a portrait mode effect.

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. Strangely, the one platform where Slazzer doesn't have an app is iOS. 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 $0.32 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 and Topaz Photo AI are both aimed at photographers, 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. 

• If you're looking for AI art generators, check out our favorites.

Related reading:

• 10 AI image generation examples for the workplace

• 6 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