Fotor vs Polarr: What Software to Choose

These days, more users than ever are looking for a head-to-head Fotor vs Polarr breakdown, especially if they’re actively involved in post-processing. If you’re one of them as well and would like to discover all the key features, strengths, and weaknesses of both options, then read this in-depth review.

Fotor is an excellent photo editing app with an enormous set of all possible tools. The developers of this app envisioned it as an “All-in-one tool” and strived to pack the editor with everything one might ever need when working with images. That’s why this software is suitable for both photographers and graphic designers.

Polarr is an AI photo editor that provides the functionality necessary for changing profiles, tweaking lighting parameters, adding text, changing the background, cropping, and applying various effects. Additionally, the software lets you instantly share your pictures on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social network platforms. The developers have created this editor specifically for beginner photographers.

What Is Fotor?

fotor logo

Fotor is a simple-to-use software that was developed for editing and improving the quality of digital photos. It supports most existing RAW formats as well as the standard JPEG, BMP, PNG, etc. If your image has lighting problems, you don’t have to adjust the brightness, contrast, colors, and other settings manually. Simply pick the shooting conditions in which the photo was taken and the software will do everything automatically.

If the lighting in the photo is already fantastic, but you would like to add a certain style, then this photo editing software allows you to choose from over 60 different color and lighting effects that will help you do exactly that. You can check out the provided small previews to see the result of applying different effect combinations.

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    Fotor: Pros and Cons

    Convenient UI. During the initial Fotor launch, you’ll be greeted by 3 options: “Edit”, which is meant for editing and retouching, “Collage”, which is packed with templates and tools for creating collages, and “Design”, which provides the features necessary for creating graphic designs for personal, business, or educational purposes

    Super-convenient editing process. The software offers an array of auto-correction scenarios based on the shooting conditions (flash, night, beach, landscape, etc.). Other than automatic corrections, you also have access to manual editing features like brightness, contrast, exposure, and saturation adjustments, among many others. If you want to edit your photos artistically, the filter section contains a wealth of effects, using which you can add a vintage look to your photo, make it black-and-white, or enhance it with all kinds of hipster effects.

    Alternatively, our retouchers make your photos professionally edited. You only need to upload a photo and write your wishes.

    Good export options. The edited photo can be put in one of the available beautiful frames and saved on your hard drive in JPEG, PNG, BMP, or TIFF format. Alternatively, you can send it straight to Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr. I also suggest reading about how this software holds up in the Pixlr vs Fotor battle to learn which option is better suited for beginners.

    Lots of useful tutorials. The web offers an array of articles and video tutorials that are great at explaining how to use Fotor. Their availability is particularly relevant for new users that never tried similar software in the past. YouTube has a special channel created by the developers that will teach you everything: from how to upload photos to proper effect usage.

    Simple and comprehensive collage creation. After you open the Collage tab, you can pick the necessary template and aspect ratio, after which you simply have to open the desired photos, place them, and adjust the image settings.

    Suitable for designers. Fotor isn’t just limited to working with photos and collage creation. With its help, you can quickly create decent-looking posters, banners, event invitations, and Instagram stories. The created image will have a resolution of 5000x7000, allowing you to print out a 50x70cm poster without quality loss.

    Terrific Fotor mobile app. It comes with essential editing functionality, allowing you to tweak the brightness, contrast, saturation, shadows, and highlights. It also has the Curves feature that can adjust the RGB channels together or individually for fine-tuning the highlights, mid-tones, and shadows in your photos.

    Online version doesn’t support RAW files. It doesn’t let you import RAW files or convert them after importing them. Thankfully, this drawback doesn’t exist in the desktop version of the software.

    What Is Polarr?

    polarr logo

    Polarr allows applying a plethora of filters divided into the Modern, Film, and Art categories. If you can’t find a suitable option there, you can easily create your own with this automatic photo editor. This software also offers tools for adjusting the color, clarity, lighting, tones, curves, as well as applying various effects (vignettes, glare, grain), and much more. If needed, you can crop the image, or choose a panoramic and gradient area.

    If you're unsatisfied with the applied changes, you can use the last action cancellation function that allows you to revert edits to the original state. The photo can be saved on your device, shared with your friends via social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, WeChat), or sent via email, SMS, and other file sharing services.

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      Polarr: Pros and Cons

      Intuitive UI. The software’s UI is rather unconventional while remaining convenient and user-friendly. The center of the screen features the imported photo, and on the top, you have the rotation, angling, full-screen, side-by-side comparison, action repeat, and edit cancellation tools. Try comparing Polarr vs Photoshop in terms of UI to determine which option suits you better.

      Terrific option for fast editing. The software’s main purpose is to offer fast working with digital photos. This seemingly simple feature represents a combination of multiple functions since quality image editing involves initial state analysis, choosing appropriate parameters, making the changes, applying corrections, and generating several options. Polarr handles all these tasks exceptionally well, offering you multiple quick edit previews to choose from.

      Lots of different effects. Filters are divided into categories, with each category containing at least 8 filters. Learn the intricacies of the Pixlr vs Polarr battle to determine which software gives you more capabilities for working with filters.

      Ability to save user-defined styles. After you increase contrast and color saturation, you can save those settings in a single click to avoid having to repeat the same actions when you’re editing similar images in the future.

      Convenient style library. The user can upload an image and pick an appropriate style from the library to enhance it. The library offers a plethora of styles divided based on their type and theme. This is the feature that makes Polarr one of the best free Lightroom alternatives out there.

      Well-designed Noise Reduction feature. This feature relies on Curves and Black-and-White Removal and is essential when working with photos that have an overabundance of noise. That said, the quality of the integrated noise-reduction feature isn’t up to par with some third-party options, which is why it can be a good idea to get a Noise Reduction plugin for Polarr.

      Convenient export and import functions. Drag and drop the needed image into the software or simply press "Import". You'll be offered to choose a file from a cloud storage for photos (Dropbox, Flickr, Google Drive, Picasa, One Drive, Evernote) or your PC. To save the photo, press "Export" and check the image settings. If needed, you can change the quality of the file, its size, and name, after which you can save it on your computer or in the cloud.

      Restricted free version. The free version only includes 3 out of 8 filter categories. Additionally, if you plan to use the free version, you’ll probably notice some significant drops in performance.

      Mobile version has several flaws. I advise against relying on the mobile version for performing advanced color and skin tone correction. The app has a poorly designed UI that makes the usage of nearly any tool aggravating and inconvenient.

      Fotor vs Polarr: Price

      fotor vs polarr pricing

      To use Fotor free, simply get the Fotor Basic plan that can be used online, on your smartphone, or PC. If you want to get the web version of Fotor Pro to enjoy the full user experience, you’ll have to pay $8.99 a month or $39.99 a year.

      Meanwhile, the desktop version will send you back $4.99 a month or $19.99 a year. Finally, there’s the Fotor Pro+ plan that includes over 1mil HD stock images for personal and commercial use and is available for a monthly fee of $19.99.

      The primary distinction between the Basic and Pro editions is the lack of ads, additional image effects, and the inclusion of enhanced HDR functionality in the latter version. The free edition of Fotor is better suited for novices and graphic design projects that include cropping, resizing, creating collages, and making subtle edits. However, if you wish to post process photos like a pro, you can’t go wrong with the Pro or Pro+ plan.

      Polarr offers a free edition or can be purchased for a monthly fee of $3.99. There’s no free trial option, but the free version of the app still offers a large selection of filters. If, however, you want to create your own filter, you’ll have to go to in-app purchases and pay about $5 for it.

      Fotor vs Polarr: Who Wins?

      Fotor is a fully functional free Photoshop alternative. It offers a modern, intuitive UI and represents a great choice for users that don’t want to install several programs, as it includes all the features necessary for quality creating collages and working on graphic design projects. The software is not only available in desktop and mobile versions, but as a browser-based tool as well.

      Polarr — this photo editing software for beginners has a broad range of features, a comprehensive UI, and a pleasant design. Polarr allows you to create and edit photos and images with a plethora of filters, styles, and tools. Akin to Fotor, it also has a desktop, mobile and online version.

      While it’s more than capable of enhancing your images with various effects or adjusting the colors, anyone who needs more functions and is debating whether they should get Fotor or Polarr should go with the former option.

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