MCSkinEdit

MCSkinEdit is a graphical editor for making avatar skins for the popular Minecraft game. Initially released back in 2009 by Patrik Swedman, this graphical tool allows just about anyone to understand how Minecraft skins work and how they can create their own custom skin from scratch. 

Despite being in its early alpha stages, MCSkinEdit is among the most popular Minecraft-related tools with several million downloads across different versions. At its core, SkinEdit is simply an image editor that works in a low-pixel environment. It features a real-time 3D preview of your skin - making it far better than most Minecraft skin editors available. 

The latest version also features the dodge and burn tools, as well as the flood fill tool for convenience. If you are playing Minecraft and wish to customize your skin, but are a novice when it comes to graphical tools and photoshops, then there is no better tool for you than this free application. Note that MCSkinEdit requires Java installed to work.

Manual Installation of 3D Previewer

Although not originally needed, you can no longer download some components of the program automatically. To use the real-time 3D previewer feature you need to download SkinTest2 and place skintest2.jar in the same folder directory as MCSkinEdit.jar. If you are having any problems, launching the program as an admin once fixes most of the issues.