Flare - Photo Editor 26.4 is on the Windows page today, for Windows 10 (version 1809 or later) and Windows 11, on Intel and AMD PCs and on Windows on ARM. It is free: no account, no subscription, nothing locked behind a purchase.
It is the same editor as Flare on the Mac, with the same tools and the same files, in Windows windows with Windows shortcuts and twelve interface languages.
What you can do with it
Brighten a portrait, take a distracting detail out of a holiday photo, put a logo and some lettering on a product shot. Every change can live on its own layer: pixel, type, shape and smart object layers, groups, masks, clipping and adjustment layers you can reopen weeks later and change. Selections can be as precise or as soft as the job needs, and Select › Subject and Remove Background run on the PC itself.
Brushes, clone stamp, healing, dodge and burn and gradients cover the retouching; Levels, Curves, HSL Curves, Color Wheels and the other adjustments cover the colour; blur, sharpen, noise, distortion, Liquify and the Filter Gallery cover the rest, with a live preview. Colour is handled properly: RGB, CMYK, Lab and Grayscale, 16 bits per channel, colour profiles, a proof preview and a print dialog.
Your work is kept as a layered TIFF, and PSD and PSB files open and save with their layers, so a file from someone else can come in and go back out. Actions, Batch and JavaScript scripts take care of repetitive work.
Three ways to get it
- The installer (.msixbundle): one signed file for x64 and ARM64. Double-click it and Windows installs the right build.
- The portable ZIP: unzip it anywhere and run flare.exe. The installer and this ZIP use the Windows App Runtime 1.8, which is installed automatically if it is missing.
- Classic — no runtime required: the same app in a classic Windows window, for PCs where you would rather not add anything.
Everything is signed by Rainbowfactory Ltd, and copies from this site update themselves: when a new version is out, the app downloads it, checks its signature and installs it when you agree. A Microsoft Store edition is on its way.
What it needs, and what is not there yet
The canvas is drawn by the graphics card through Direct3D 12, so a PC with Direct3D 12 graphics is required; most PCs from the last ten years have it, and an up-to-date driver matters. The Camera Raw window and OpenFX plug-ins are not in this release (RAW files do open, with the standard development), and the features that belong to the Mac — Handoff, AppleScript, Quick Look — are not part of the Windows edition. The Windows page lists the differences by name, and the online User Manual covers the rest.
Privacy
Your pictures stay on your PC. Something leaves the computer only for a feature you use: feedback you send, diagnostic reports (which can be switched off), an AI request, a cloud command you confirm, a one-time model download for the on-device tools, and the update check. There is no usage tracking. The details are in the privacy policy.
This is the first Windows release, so work on copies of your pictures and tell us what breaks through Help › Send Feedback… or on Discord.