7 Top Online AI Photo Editors for Making Quick Image Enhancements

Imagine transforming a dull, ordinary photo into a beautiful piece as if it was taken by a professional photographer complete with rich colors, vibrant tones, deep shadows, and striking highlights. How about removing unwanted objects in a picture or replacing the entire background in an image? And you do all these in one or two clicks.

Editing “magic” is not something new for those who dabble in Photoshop. But not everyone has the time, means, or patience to use that software. What we have are similarly powerful photo editors that leverage artificial intelligence and allow just about anyone to perform complicated image enhancements with ease, speed, and consistency.

In this article, we’ll examine some of the leading AI photo editors that you can use for making quick image enhancements even if you have zero editing skills. Welcome to the world of photo editing wizardry!

What is an AI Photo Editor?

This type of photo editor utilizes artificial intelligence technology to evaluate a photo and make intelligent projections on how the said photo should be edited or enhanced. It then gives you the most ideal result or a set of optimum outcomes for you to choose from.

Many conventional photo editing software use AI in one form or another, but they still require you to routinely do manual editing. This is fine if you can spare some hours and have the knack to do fine-grain adjustments. However, such undertaking is the specialty of creative professionals, designers, and veteran photographers.

The many other regular people – students, marketers, bloggers, freelancers – would likely need a more general-purpose solution applicable to everyone else who can’t do advanced, high-level image enhancements. This is the audience that AI photo editors cater to.

AI Technologies Used in Photo Editing

Two types of AI technology are typically applied in photo editing solutions.

• Reactive Machines – These are the most basic form of AI and are preset to do one thing and be good at it. Google’s AlphaGo and IBM’s chess-playing computer, Deep Blue, are reactive machines. In image editing, the AI is pre-programmed to analyze the distinguishing characteristics of an image and churn out a consistent result such as evenly saturated colors or a determined level of vibrance.
• Limited Memory AI – This is a machine learning model that extracts knowledge from facts, information, and stored data that it previously learned. Chatbots and virtual writing assistants are some examples. In photo editing, it learns from your editing actions and decisions so it can more precisely imitate your editing style. It then comes out with results more suited to your taste and preference.

Knowing these, you’ll get to understand how AI works in photo editing and image enhancements. Now, what should you look for in an AI photo editor?

AI Photo Editor Tools and Features

Software of this type comes in different variations. Some are standalone solutions with a particular specialization while others are a collection of various AI tools with a variety of functions.

Ideally, you should go for programs that have features and capabilities you’ll most likely need in your line of work or for your project. Here are tools and features normally carried by AI photo editors.

• AI Image Enhancer – Improve image quality with one click. Turn bland, fuzzy images into stunning pictures with vibrant colors and crisp details.
• Image Upscaler – Increase image resolution in a few seconds without sacrificing quality but giving more defined attributes.
• Object Remover – Get rid of unwanted objects in an image. The AI will intelligently fill in the space with what is in the background.
• Background Remover – Clear out image backgrounds and replace them with other backgrounds, objects, colors, and other elements.
• Digital Make-up/Retoucher – Remove moles, freckles, scars, and other blemishes; also smoothen skin while giving it a natural look.
• Picture Restorer – Refresh old photos like brand new ones by smartly removing stains, spots, creases, blotches, and other marks.
• Picture Colorizer – Transform black and white photos into naturally-colored images.

There may be other features like batch processing, photo-to-art converter, and the latest craze – AI text-to-image generators, among others. Assess your need for having all or just some of them. It’s better if there is a free plan or free trial so you can test drive the program. That said, let’s get to know the leading AI photo editors on our list.

Top AI Photo Editors

1. Picsart

Image credit: picsart.com

Picsart is a cloud-hosted, web-based photo and video editor that takes advantage of AI technology to give you powerful but easy-to-use editing tools. It also has a robust design suite to help you create graphics and various types of content for your events, social media, and marketing needs.

In photo editing, it utilizes AI-powered tools that help you quickly enhance photos by automatically fixing details, adding pixels, and reducing blur. The editor comes with a before-and-after image slider so you can compare how the improved image looks from the original.

Other AI editing features in its lineup include an object and background remover, image upscaler, color blender, double exposure, photo-to-art/cartoon converter, image colorizer, and many more. You can easily transition from editing to designing and vice versa since all the tools are available in one platform.

Key Features

• AI Enhance
• AI Image Generator
• Background Changer
• Background Remover
• Batch Editor
• Canvas Effects
• Image Upscale
• Photo Effects
• Photo to Cartoon
• Photos into Art
• Remove Objects

Pricing

• Free – $0.00
• Gold – $11.99/month
• Team – $14.99/month

Pros

• Beginner-friendly
• Several AI tools and features
• Smooth editing
• Affordably priced
• Large assets library

Cons

• Limited free plan
• Confusing mobile app

Check Picsart Pricing

2. BeFunky

Image credit: befunky.com

BeFunky is an online image editing, graphic design, and collage-making software that can be used by anyone, even those without editing or design backgrounds. It uses the latest AI image editing techniques to give you one-click image enhancements whether correcting poorly taken photos, removing objects, changing backgrounds, or applying photo effects.

Its AI enhancer levels up your selfies and portraits with one-click adjustments that balance exposure, erase blemishes, and even skin tone, among a host of other corrections to give you a vibrant yet more realistic image. There are also tools for image cropping, resizing, layering, and batch editing.

The good thing about BeFunky is that while it gives you lots of automated enhancement capabilities, it still gives you the option to do basic editing. You can do further manual adjustments if you prefer to add a personalized style to the AI-enhanced image.

Key Features

• AI One-Click Background Remover
• AI One-Click Image Enhancer
• AI One-Click Portrait Enhancer
• Batch Edit Photos
• Digital Art
• Photo Effects
• Photo to Art
• Photo to Cartoon
• Smart Image Layer Editing
• Smart Touch Up Tools
• Transparent Background

Pricing

• Free – $0.00
• Plus – $9.99/month ($4.99/month if billed annually)

Pros

• Easy to use and learn
• Many AI tools and effects
• Simple, affordable pricing
• Quickly switch from editing to designing

Cons

• Limited free plan
• No side-by-side, before & after image comparison

3. Fotor

Image credit: fotor.com

Fotor is a comprehensive web-based image editing program that can be used both by newbies and creative professionals. It also has tools for designing graphics, making collages, creating NFTs, and generating AI art. Overall, it’s a very capable software but its AI-driven editing tools are what makes it a standout.

It provides an efficient and fast operation with a one-tap enhancer that can automatically clear blurry pictures, increase image resolution, sharpen photo details, and make colors pop out. The process is as simple as uploading a photo, clicking the one-tap enhance button, and downloading the enhanced image. But that’s just the start since you have a lot of AI tools to play with.

Fotor’s AI editing toolset also includes an AI skin retoucher, background remover, color splash, image overlay, AI photo and funky effects, and AI image enlarger, to name some. All these you can do without expert-level skills. But if you wish to, you can do further basic or advanced fine-tuning to adjust brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, colors, saturation, and many other image attributes.

Key Features

• AI One-Tap Photo Enhancer
• AI Photo Effects
• AI Skin Retouching
• Background Remover
• Batch Edit Photos
• Color Splash
• Image Upscaler
• NFT Creator
• Object Remover
• Photo to Painting
• Photo to Sketch

Pricing

• Fotor Basic – $0.00
• Fotor Pro – $8.99/month ($39.99 if billed annually)
• Fotor Pro+ – $19.99/month ($89.99 if billed annually)

Pros

• Simple to use
• Feature-rich platform
• Powerful automated AI image enhancements
• Option for manual fine-tuning
• Multi-platform (also has Mac/Windows desktop versions & mobile apps)

Cons

• Limited, ad-filled free plan
• Sometimes a bit sluggish

Check Fotor Pricing

4. VanceAI

Image credit: vanceai.com

VanceAI is an online and desktop platform that provides a variety of AI-assisted tools for image editing. You can do one-tap enhancements to denoise, sharpen, enlarge, and adjust the colors of an image. The process is done by AI technology that analyzes an image’s attributes and provides the most optimum outcome.

Deep learning algorithms are also utilized for retaining a high-definition photo’s original resolution while bringing out the best possible details. Image processing is fully automated and extremely fast. Low-resolution photos will take only a few seconds to process and enhance.

Other AI tools that eliminate manual efforts in image editing include an image upscaler, photo restorer, portrait retoucher, and background remover, to name a few. Data security is guaranteed since pictures you upload are deleted from VanceAI’s servers within 24 hours after they have been processed.

Key Features

• AI Photo Enhancer
• AI Image Upscaler
• AI Photo Restorer
• AI Image Sharpener
• AI Make Photo HD
• AI image Denoiser
• AI Background Remover
• AI Portrait Retoucher
• AI JPEG Artifact Remover
• AI Photo Colorizer
• AI Art Generator

Pricing

Online Web Service

Start at

• $4.95 – 100 credits
• $6.95 – 200 credits
• $11.45 – 500 credits
• $17.95 – 1,000 credits

For Windows Desktop PC

For Personal

• Monthly Plan – $19.9/month (License for 1 PC)
• Annual Plan – $79.9/year (License for 1 PC)

For Team

• License for 3 PCs – $179.9 (One-time purchase)
• License for 5 PCs – $249.9 (One-time purchase)

Pros

• Several AI features
• Highly-functional editing & effects tools
• Fast image processing
• Flexible pricing
• Online & desktop versions

Cons

• Needs high system requirements (for the desktop app)
• Requires high-speed internet for online operation

5. Imgkits

Image credit: imgkits.com

Imgkits brings together an assortment of AI editing tools in one web-based platform. It offers some of the easiest, fully-automated tools for processing images online. Beginners who have no skills in photo enhancements and manipulation can use the program to quickly remove a picture’s background and change it with another background or a different color.

Imgkits has also a feature that can seamlessly remove objects, watermarks, date stamps, logos, or texts from a picture and naturally fill up the space with what is on the background. It also carries tools to unblur, defog, colorize, deepen, and correct picture imperfections. All these tools feature a one-click operation for automated processing.

Worth mentioning are a couple of features for social media users. These are the photo-to-cartoon converter for transforming profile pics into avatars, and the Pixar filter for turning portraits into a Disney-like animated character. You have to sign up to use the apps on a very limited basis but every feature is unlocked once you opt for a paid plan.

Key Features

• AI Image Upscaler
• AI Photo Enhancer
• AI Unblur Image
• Image Defogging
• Photo Colorizer
• Photo Restorer
• Photo to Art Converter
• Pixar Filter
• Remove/Change Background
• Skin Retoucher
• Watermark/Object Remover

Pricing  

• Pay as you go – $0.5/image
• Premium Plan – $8.99/month (or $69.80 if billed annually)
• Business Plan – $18/month (or $144 if billed annually)
• Enterprise – Custom pricing 

Pros

• Separate standalone apps
• Quick and precision processing
• Quality output/results
• Unlimited image processing for paid plans
• Affordable pricing

Cons

• Limited free credits to try out the program
• Signup needed to download trial edited image

6. Hotpot

Image credit: hotpot.ai

Hotpot is a collection of AI-powered tools for easy image editing and graphic design. The web-based platform has several one-click editing tools including those for removing objects and backgrounds, restoring old photos, colorizing black and white images, upscaling images, and many others. It’s an ideal solution to spark creativity and come up with speedy results.

Each Hotpot tool is a standalone program that can be used if you have enough credits which can be purchased at a set volume for a given price. These credits will cover the use of any of the tools although some of the tools won’t require any credits for a few image enhancements, just so you can try out the program. However, registration is needed to download your edited image.

Further making Hotpot an interesting platform is its variety of offerings aside from editing and design tools. It also has AI features and services for copywriting, songwriting, book writing, and product writing. This makes it an AI powerhouse for your creative, design, and content requirements.

Key Features

• Art Generator
• Art Personalizer
• Background Remover
• Color Generator
• Face Enhancer
• Headshot Generator
• Object Remover
• Photo Upscaler
• Picture Colorizer
• Picture Restorer

Pricing

• Pay Once starting at $12 for 1,000 credits
• Pay Monthly starting at $10/month for 1,000 credits/month
• Pay Yearly starting at $100/year for 1,000 credits/month

Pros

• High-quality artistic/creative results
• Thousands of customizable free icons
• Ideal for social media content creators
• Flexible pricing

Cons

• No editing options
• More on filters/lacking realistic effects

7. Autoenhance.ai

Image credit autoenhance.ai

Autoenhance.ai offers AI photo enhancement tools but is targeted at a particular set of users – property businesses. The online software company has a data scientist as CEO and a residential property veteran as Chairman who combined their expertise to come up with a photo editing solution most useful to property marketing firms and real estate companies.

Property marketing professionals need to have detailed and rich interior and exterior images of the properties they’re selling. The images should be realistic, natural-looking, and of high quality, since they are to be used in presentations, ads, brochures, and other marketing materials and events.

Autoenhance.ai provides advanced, automated AI tools that can replace sky backgrounds, correct skewed perspectives, and sharpen the image. Its image relighting tool will help you achieve balanced lighting and contrast so that clients can see all the details in a property.

Key Features

• 360 Enhancements (virtual tours)
• Contrast & Brightness Boost
• HDR Merge
• Image Relighting
• Image Sharpening
• Lens Correction
• Perspective Correction
• RAW & JPG Support
• Sky Replacement
• White Balance Correction

Pricing

Pay as you go

• 1 image for $1.50/image
• 15 images for $19.99
• 50 images for $54.99

Subscriptions

• 15 images free/month
• 75 images for $49/month
• 500 images for $154.99/month

Enterprise

• 20,000 images for $2,189.99/month
• 30,000 images for $3,124.99/month
• 50,000+ images – Custom pricing

Pros

• Built for property businesses
• Speedy image enhancements
• Allows further manual editing of the outcome
• Professional-looking results

Cons

• Some tools are not yet functional
• On the pricey side

Should You Rely on AI for Image Editing?

Why not?  But keep in mind you’re merely letting AI algorithms do the heavy lifting to save you precious time and resources. Think of it this way: Human + AI = Optimal Results. That will always be the equation whether it’s an AI photo editor, AI writing assistant, AI website builder, or AI code creator.

You still have to do your part like determining the appropriateness or quality of what it generates, and doing tweaks afterward if necessary. What you’re looking for in this type of solution is efficiency and consistency in image enhancement as well as speed in image processing.

You unburden yourself of the effort and hours invested in the process, whether serious or casual editing. Remember the time you used an eraser tool to remove a photo’s background which took almost an eternity but with a crappy outcome? That can now be done by AI in seconds with impeccable results. You get the point.