PhotoPad vs PTGui

PhotoPad edits and enhances digital photos and images, with tools for cropping, rotating, resizing, retouching, and adjusting color and exposure. Blur and sharpening controls complement its non-destructive editing: users can undo, reorder, or change effects in a layers list. It can also make collages, photo mosaics, calendars, greeting cards, and photo montages. The maker lists AI-assisted super-resolution resizing, object and background removal, and colorizing black-and-white photos. PhotoPad supports RAW editing and formats including JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, and BMP; HDR/exposure blending is also listed. A project can contain up to eight images, and panorama types include wide. Edited pictures can be uploaded directly to Twitter, Flickr, Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive. It is listed for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web, Windows, and as an extension. The free edition costs nothing and is limited to non-commercial use; no signup is required. Desktop requirements are Windows 7 to 11 or macOS 10.5 or later.

PTGui stitches photographs into panoramic images, including spherical panoramas that cover 360° × 180°. It can detect overlap between photos and join multiple rows, including images made with fisheye lenses. Manual stitching, a live preview, and a perspective editor provide additional control. On supported hardware, OpenCL can accelerate stitching with the GPU. PTGui accepts JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and camera RAW source images; listed output formats include JPEG, TIFF, Photoshop, and DNG. The Pro edition adds HDR stitching, masking, viewpoint correction, exposure fusion, and a patch tool. PTGui runs on Linux, macOS 10.15 or later, and Windows 10 build 18362 or later. It processes photos, projects, and templates on the user's computer and primarily works offline; HTTPS is used for optional update checks, license activation, and opt-in crash reports. The fully functional trial has no time limit, but exported panoramas carry a visible watermark. Personal licenses include one year of upgrades. Technical support is through a public forum, not email or telephone.