tomseditor.com

You can edit an image entirely in your browser with Tom's Editor, a free online image editor that requires no installation. It loads more than 500 formats (including JPEG, PNG, GIF, SVG, PDF, and ITHMB), lets you resize, rotate, and apply filters, and saves your result as JPG, PNG, GIF, DDS, PCX, TGA, FLIF, WEBP, PSD, PDF, PNM, or SVG. This tutorial is for anyone who needs a quick crop, resize, or filter pass and a specific output format, without installing software. If you have many files to convert rather than edit, skip to the batch conversion section.

Before You Start

• A modern browser and the image file on your computer.
• A clear idea of the output format you need (for example, PNG if you need transparency, JPG for photos, PDF for sharing a printable page).
• No installation is needed for the online editor or the online converter.

Edit an Image in the Browser

1. Open the editor and load your image

Go to Tom's Editor and open the editor from the site. Load your photo from your computer. The editor accepts over 500 formats, so unusual files such as ITHMB or SVG can be opened directly rather than converted first.

Expected result: your image appears on the canvas, ready for edits.

2. Resize, rotate, and crop

Use the editor's resize and rotate controls to set the dimensions or orientation you need. Resize before applying filters when you plan to shrink an image, so you judge the effect at the final size.

Expected result: the canvas shows the image at its new size and orientation.

3. Apply filters and effects

The editor offers filters and effects including Sepia, Grayscale, and Instagram-like filters. Preview the effect before committing, so you can compare the original and the styled version.

Expected result: you see a preview of the filtered image and can keep or discard the effect.

4. Save in your target format

Choose the save option and pick your format: JPG, PNG, GIF, DDS, PCX, TGA, FLIF, WEBP, PSD, PDF, PNM, or SVG. The file is saved to your computer as a new file, so your original stays untouched.

Expected result: a new file in the chosen format downloads to your machine.

Format cheat sheet

Convert Many Images at Once

If your task is format conversion rather than editing, use Tom's Editor: Converter. It supports over 500 formats, including JPEG, PNG, GIF, ITHMB, SVG, and PDF, and converts multiple images at once. Drag and drop your files, then click "Convert Now!"

Expected result: all dropped files are converted in one pass, which is faster than repeating a single-file edit for each image.

Troubleshoot Common Problems

• The format won't load. Confirm the file is one of the supported types; the editor lists over 500 formats, but a corrupted or mislabeled file can still fail. Try opening it in a viewer first, or run it through the converter.
• Transparency turns black or white after export. You likely saved as JPG, which does not support transparency. Re-export as PNG or WEBP.
• The image looks blurry or blocky after saving. JPG is lossy; each save loses some quality. Keep a PNG or PSD master and export JPG only for the final delivery copy.
• The PDF export looks different from the canvas. PDF fixes the layout, so check the page size and orientation before saving if the image will be printed.
• The file is too large to share. Resize down in the editor before saving, or export as JPG or WEBP instead of PNG.

When a Desktop Tool Fits Better

Tom's Viewer is a free, portable Windows image viewer and editor (about 1 MB) that supports 300 formats out of the box and over 1,000 with free plugins. It adds screenshots, AVI-to-GIF and GIF-to-AVI conversion, and a built-in image browser with thumbnails. Choose the browser editor for a one-off edit on any machine; choose Tom's Viewer when you work offline, need video/GIF conversion, or edit many files in folders on Windows.

JPEG is a bitmap image format that uses lossy compression to make photographic images much smaller, which is why it is the default format for camera output, web photos, and email attachments. Use it for continuous-tone pictures where small file size matters more than pixel-perfect fidelity. Avoid it for images with transparency, sharp text or line art, or files you plan to re-edit and re-save many times.

How JPEG compression works

JPEG stores an image by discarding detail the human eye is less likely to notice, then compressing what remains. The key mechanism is a quality setting: higher quality keeps more detail and produces a larger file; lower quality shrinks the file but introduces visible artifacts, especially around edges and in smooth gradients.

A useful example: a 4000-pixel-wide photo saved at high quality may look identical on screen to the original but occupy a fraction of the space. Save that same file at a very low quality and you will see blocky patches in skies and "ringing" halos around high-contrast edges.

Because compression is lossy, each save-and-resave cycle discards more data. Treat the JPEG as an output format, not a working format — keep an original or a lossless master if you expect to edit repeatedly.

Where JPEG fits

JPEG vs. the alternatives

• PNG: lossless, supports transparency, better for graphics, text, and screenshots; larger for photos.
• GIF: limited palette, supports simple animation and transparency; poor for photos.
• WEBP: modern format offering both lossy and lossless modes with transparency; often smaller than JPEG at similar quality, but check that your target viewer supports it.
• PDF: a document container, not a photo format; use it when you need pagination or print-ready layout.

If you need transparency or crisp edges, choose PNG. If you want smaller files and your audience's software supports it, consider WEBP. For plain photographs headed to a browser or an inbox, JPEG remains the safe default.

Open, edit, and save as JPEG in the browser

Tom's Editor is described on its site as a free, online image editor that requires no installation and can load images in more than 500 formats, including JPEG, PNG, GIF, SVG, and PDF. The same site offers a separate online converter for batch format changes.

1. Prepare the file. Have the image on your computer in any common format. If it is a PDF or an uncommon format, the editor's broad format support is the reason to try loading it directly.
2. Open the editor. Use the site's "Open Tom's Editor" entry point. No install step is described.
3. Load the image. Bring your file into the editor.
4. Make your edits. The site lists resizing, rotating, and filters/effects such as Sepia, Grayscale, and Instagram-like filters. Applying a filter shows a preview before you commit, per the site.
5. Save in the format you need. The editor can save as JPG, PNG, GIF, DDS, PCX, TGA, FLIF, WEBP, PSD, PDF, PNM, and SVG. Choose JPG for a photographic result.
6. Verify the output. Reopen the saved file and check size and appearance, particularly around edges and gradients, since JPEG quality affects both.

Common snags:

• If the saved file looks blocky, the quality setting was too low — re-save from the original, not the degraded copy.
• If you need a transparent background, saving as JPG will not preserve it; use PNG.
• For many files at once, the site's separate converter accepts drag-and-drop and a "Convert Now!" action, and is described as handling multiple images in one pass.

Deciding quickly

Choose JPEG when the image is a photograph, the destination is a screen or an inbox, and file size matters. Choose PNG when you need transparency or sharp text. Choose WEBP when you control the viewing environment and want smaller files. Choose PDF when the output is a document. And whenever you plan further edits, keep a lossless master so repeated JPEG saves don't compound the loss.

A photo editor is software that lets you change an image after it's captured — cropping, resizing, rotating, applying filters and effects, adding text and stickers, and, in more capable tools, retouching with pro-level controls like Clone and Curves. Online editors such as Ribbet run in a browser and also ship as apps for iOS, Android, Fire, Windows, and Mac, so the same kind of work is possible on a phone, tablet, or desktop. An online editor fits you if you want quick, template-driven edits and don't need a full desktop suite; a dedicated professional program is the better fit when you need deep, repeatable retouching workflows.

Basic edits: the everyday core

These are the tasks most people open an editor for, and they're the first thing to confirm a tool handles well:

• Crop, resize, rotate — fix framing and orientation, and match an image to a platform's dimensions.
• Filters and effects — one-click color and mood changes, from professional to artsy to just fun.
• Text — overlay captions or titles; Ribbet points to a large library of fonts.
• Stickers, frames, and borders — decorative layers for social posts, cards, and prints.
• Touch-up effects — light cleanup of portraits and product shots.

Ribbet describes its basic edits as drag-and-drop simple, which is the right level for social posts, family photos, and quick product listings.

Pro-level tools: Clone and Curves

Basic editing changes the whole image; retouching changes selected parts. Two tools mark the line between the two:

• Clone copies pixels from one area to another — useful for removing a stray object, a blemish, or a distracting background element.
• Curves adjusts tone and contrast along a curve rather than with a single slider — useful when a photo looks flat or you need finer control over shadows and highlights.

Ribbet lists both among its pro tools. Use them when a basic filter isn't enough but you don't want to move to a full desktop editor. For heavy, repeated retouching, a dedicated program with layers and non-destructive editing is usually the better long-term choice.

Collages and templates

Collages arrange several photos into one grid — for family albums, social media posts, or product roundups. Ribbet supports drag-and-drop collage creation and lets you create and reuse your own project templates, so a layout you like can be applied to new photos later. If you post regularly, reusable templates save the most time; if you edit occasionally, the built-in grids are enough.

What to check before choosing a tool

Pricing details aren't specified in the available material, so review the Pricing page directly rather than assuming a free tier covers your needs.

A practical example

Say you sell T-shirt designs. You photograph a shirt, crop and straighten it, use Curves to lift a dull exposure, Clone out a crease or a stray thread, then drop the shot into a saved template with your logo and a text caption. That's a complete product-image workflow inside one browser-based tool — the kind of task Ribbet is built for, per its own description of fine-tuning product photos and designs.

Bottom line

Choose an online photo editor like Ribbet when your work is crop-and-polish, template-driven, and spread across devices. Choose a full desktop suite when you need layered, non-destructive retouching at volume. Either way, verify device support, stock-photo access, and current pricing before you commit.

You can cut most images to a fraction of their original file size without any visible quality loss by doing three things in the right order: resize the image to the dimensions it will actually display at, pick the right format for the content, then apply compression at a quality level that survives a side-by-side check. The single biggest mistake is skipping step one — an oversized image compressed at maximum quality is still far heavier than a correctly sized one.

Why file size and quality are a trade-off, not a fixed setting

Every compressed image is a negotiation between three variables: how many pixels you keep, how precisely each pixel is described, and how much the format is allowed to guess.

• Dimensions decide how many pixels exist at all. Halving width and height removes 75% of the pixel data before any compression happens.
• Quality level decides how aggressively the encoder discards detail it thinks you won't notice.
• Format decides the kind of discarding allowed — some formats throw away color precision, others only remove redundancy.

Because these interact, "quality 80" means something different on a 4000px photo than on a 600px thumbnail. Tune dimensions first, then quality.

Pick the format before you touch the quality slider

Practical rule: photos → JPEG or lossy WEBP; flat graphics and transparency → PNG or lossless WEBP; anything vector → SVG.

The four levers, in the order you should pull them

1. Resize to display size (biggest win, zero quality cost)

If your layout renders an image at 800px wide, serving a 2400px original wastes roughly 89% of the pixels. Resize to the largest size it will ever be displayed at, and add a 2× version only if you need retina sharpness.

2. Choose the format

Match the format to the content type using the table above. Converting a photographic PNG to JPEG or WEBP alone can shrink it by 80% or more.

3. Set the quality level

For JPEG and lossy WEBP, most photographs hold up well between quality 70 and 85. Below ~60, banding appears in skies and blur around text. Above ~90, file size climbs steeply for gains nobody can see.

4. Strip metadata

EXIF data, camera info, and embedded thumbnails can add tens of kilobytes. Remove them unless you specifically need copyright or orientation data — and note that stripping orientation can rotate an image, so verify after export.

When lossy compression is fine, and when it isn't

Lossy is acceptable when:

• The image is a photograph or has natural texture.
• It's decorative or below the fold.
• Slight softening won't be noticed at final display size.

Use lossless or vector instead when:

• The image contains text, UI elements, or thin lines (lossy creates ringing artifacts).
• It's a logo, icon, or diagram — SVG or PNG keeps edges clean.
• It will be edited again later; repeated lossy saves compound degradation.
• It's a screenshot of code or a chart where color accuracy matters.

Compressing vs. resizing: don't confuse them

Compressing reduces the bytes needed to describe the same pixels. Resizing reduces the number of pixels. They're independent, and resizing usually delivers the larger saving. A 3000×2000 photo at quality 95 might be 2 MB; the same photo resized to 1200×800 at quality 80 might be 180 KB. Doing only the quality reduction gets you maybe 40% off; doing both gets you over 90%.

A repeatable workflow

1. Determine the maximum display width in your layout (inspect the element or check your CSS).
2. Export at that width (plus a 2× variant if needed).
3. Convert to the right format — WEBP as a modern default, JPEG as a fallback, PNG/SVG for graphics.
4. Apply quality 75–85 for lossy formats and compare against the original.
5. Strip metadata and re-check orientation.
6. Verify before publishing (see below).
7. Serve the right file with srcset so small screens don't download the large variant.

How to verify quality before you publish

• View at 100% at final display size, not zoomed in — artifacts you can't see at real size don't matter.
• Toggle between original and compressed in a viewer or an online compressor's before/after preview.
• Check the worst-case areas: skies, smooth gradients, sharp edges, and any text.
• Compare file sizes and ask whether the extra kilobytes buy visible improvement. If not, go smaller.
• Test on a mid-range phone, where banding and blur are often more obvious than on a desktop monitor.

Common mistakes

• Compressing a full-resolution image and calling it optimized.
• Using PNG for photographs.
• Setting quality to 100 "to be safe" — it inflates size with no visible benefit.
• Re-saving a JPEG repeatedly, stacking artifacts each time.
• Forgetting that GIF animations are usually better as WEBP or video.
• Ignoring metadata, which can silently add weight.

Quick reference

The order matters more than any single setting: resize, then choose format, then tune quality, then strip metadata, then verify at real display size. Follow that sequence and you'll routinely land at 10–20% of the original file size with no quality your visitors can detect.

A PDF invoice in legal billing is a fixed-format document that presents the fees and costs owed on a matter in a layout that looks the same on every device. It is the digital equivalent of a printed bill: readable, portable, and easy to attach to an email or upload to a client portal. Its main limitation is that it is not machine-readable in the way a LEDES file is, so a client's e-billing system cannot automatically ingest it. PDF works best for flat-fee matters, small or one-off engagements, and clients who do not run an automated billing platform.

What "PDF" means in a legal billing context

When a billing tool offers to send an invoice "in PDF," it is generating a rendered document rather than a structured data file. The distinction matters:

• PDF is a presentation format. A human reads it. Line items, totals, and matter details appear as text and tables on a page.
• LEDES (Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard) is a structured, delimited text format. An e-billing system parses it, validates it against outside counsel guidelines, and routes it for review.
• Email delivery is a transport method, not a format. You can email a PDF, email a LEDES file, or email a link to an online invoice.

These three are often confused because a single invoice can combine them: a LEDES file delivered by email, or a PDF attached to an email. The format is what the client's systems can read; the delivery method is how it arrives.

When a PDF invoice is the right choice

PDF is usually appropriate when the client does not require electronic submission through a billing platform. Common scenarios:

• Flat-fee and fixed-price matters. When the invoice is one or two lines, a structured file adds no value.
• Small businesses and individuals. Clients without an accounts payable system can open a PDF and pay from it.
• Retainers and replenishment requests. A simple statement of the retainer balance is easy to read as a PDF.
• Pro bono or courtesy bills. Where no formal e-billing review applies.
• Backup documentation. Even when a LEDES file is submitted, a PDF is often attached for the reviewer's convenience.

If the client has outside counsel guidelines requiring LEDES submission, a PDF alone will typically be rejected or returned for manual entry. Check the client's billing requirements before choosing the format.

PDF versus LEDES versus emailed invoice: a quick comparison

Core elements of a compliant legal PDF invoice

A PDF invoice should stand on its own. If a client's AP department picks it up with no context, it should still answer who, what, when, and how much.

Firm and client identification

• Firm name, address, and contact details
• Tax or VAT identification number where applicable
• Client name and billing contact
• Invoice number and invoice date
• Client matter number or reference

Matter and timekeeper detail

• Matter name and description
• For each timekeeper: name, initials, and billing rate
• Time entries with date, narrative description, and time recorded in tenths of an hour
• Clear separation of fee earners if rates differ

Fees, expenses, and totals

• Fees subtotal
• Disbursements and expenses, itemized with dates
• Taxes applied
• Prior payments, credits, or trust retainer applied
• Total amount due and currency

Payment terms

• Due date and payment window
• Accepted payment methods
• Remittance details or a payment link
• Late-payment terms if the engagement letter specifies them

A useful test: hand the PDF to someone who has never seen the matter and ask them to confirm the amount due and the period covered. If they hesitate, the invoice is missing something.

Practical limitations to plan around

PDF invoices shift work to the recipient. Someone at the client has to read the document and key the data into their system, which introduces delay and transcription errors. PDFs also cannot be validated against billing guidelines automatically, so a reviewer may reject a line item that a LEDES rule would have caught before submission.

Two habits reduce the friction:

1. Send a consistent template. Clients learn where to find the total, the matter number, and the payment terms.
2. Keep a LEDES version in reserve. If a client later adopts an e-billing platform, you can convert rather than rebuild.

Choosing between PDF, LEDES, and email delivery

Work from the client's requirements backward:

• Does the client mandate LEDES submission? If yes, PDF is a supplement, not a substitute.
• Is the matter flat-fee or very small? PDF is usually sufficient.
• Does the client have no billing system? PDF delivered by email or portal is the simplest path.
• Is the invoice complex with many timekeepers and expenses? A structured format reduces disputes, even if the client accepts PDF.

When in doubt, ask the client's billing contact which format they prefer and whether a PDF attachment is acceptable alongside any required file. That one question prevents most rejected invoices.

Easy Legal Billing supports sending or scheduling invoices in LEDES, email, or PDF formats, which lets you match the format to each client's requirements rather than forcing one approach across every matter.