Editing your photos on your iPhone is one thing, but editing your photos on your Mac can take your photography skills to a whole 'nother level. Many of us still keep our main libraries on our Macs because of its faster processors, larger storage, and all-around bigger computing power. The Mac is still the best device for serious photo editing, so you need some serious photo editing apps to make an impact. The built-in Photos app on Mac offers several useful photo editing tools.
You can crop, adjust lighting and color, set the white balance, add filters, remove unwanted blemishes, and a few more things. However, in all honesty? It's not really meant to be a robust editing app, so If you are looking for something to really finish your photos right, we've got a list of the best photo editors for Mac right here. Affinity Photo. If you're looking for a photo editing app that goes above and beyond for the pricetag, while still allowing you complete creative control over your images, then it might be worth it to take a peek at Affinity Photo. Affinity Photo supports unlimited layers, groups, layer adjustments, filters, masking, and more: you also have access to tools like dodge, red-eye fix, burn, blemish, clone, and patch (so pretty much Photoshop without all the convoluted bells and whistles).
If your photo editing needs lean more toward restoration or retouching, Snapheal 2.5 (Mac) provides a deliriously simple UI with the ability to remove unwanted objects like magic, or adjust.
Nondestructive auto-saving makes undoing everything you've done easy, so if you need to start from the beginning, the option is there. Play, manipulate, edit, and get hella creative with Affinity Photo whether you're a serious graphic designer or someone who's just looking to do some basic editing. Your photography will seriously thank you. $49.99 - Fotor Photo Editor. Searching for a super simple, straight-forward photo editing app that's there to help you edit and not confuse you to the point of ripping out your hair? Then check out Fotor Photo Editor! With this photo editor, you can easily adjust contrast and color of more washed-out photos, add borders, tilt and shift your images, add different text, slap on a few filters, and so much more, all from the easy-to-find toolbox on the right side of the app.
You can even create collages of your photography masterpieces! The BBC once called Fotor Photo Editor 'light Photoshop', and they're kind of right! You can go above and beyond editing your images with Fotor Photo Editor without getting bogged down by more complicated editing buttons and tools. Free - Lightroom.
Pretty much anything you want to do with your photo, you can accomplish with Lightroom. You can blend and merge shadows and highlights, sharpen dull, blurry images so they look crisp and clear, add details and tint colors to make a photo stand out, and so, so much more. While it is a bit more on the complicated side, people who use the program and know how to navigate it are hooked. Keep in mind, there are two versions of the app — there's the Classic version, which is more preferred, and the 2018 CC version. If you're hesitant about the program and paying for it, you can download Lightroom free for 30 days as part of a trial period.
After that, you can add it to your Photoshop CC subscription for $9.99 per month. Free trial - Pixelmator. Amp up your photo editing skills with a little bit of help from Pixelmator!
This particular photo editing app allows you to combine two different photos into one (while still allowing you to edit over each layer), add shapes, gradients, filters, tints, and more, and completely change and edit your photography to make it fit perfectly to your aesthetic. You can even mask and cut off certain areas of the photo, giving you more creative control over your final image. Similar to other photo editing apps, you can also adjust contrast, color, saturation level, definition, and so much more. It's another great alternative to Photoshop, at least according to our managing editor Lory Gil. $29.99 - GIMP. Love Photoshop (or the idea of Photoshop.) but don't want all the complicated components and nonsense that comes along with it?
Then it might be worth it to take a peek at GIMP. Similar to Photoshop, GIMP allows you full control over editing your photos: it's an advanced image manipulation program with detailed customization for color reproduction. You can add layers to your photos, edit and tweak colors, adjust contrast, crop, adjust saturation, and so much more. If you're someone who admires Photoshop but is terrified of the price (or just thinks it's not worth it) then GIMP might be the perfect pal for you.
Free - Snapheal. Say 'bye-bye' to nasty photobombs, zits, perky distractions, and so much more in your photos thanks to Snapheal! Snapheal is a little bit unique in the sense that it's more of a 'delete now, ask questions later' app. It's more about cleaning up a photo than it is editing it and adding a whole bunch of layers. The tools can either remove large objects or smaller imperfections depending on the mode.
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You can even adjust the masking tool, use a magic rope, or clone stamp your way to a new photo. If you're someone who's a perfectionist when it comes to your photography and you just can't stand that one stupid, distracting blur in the background, then Snapheal is the guy for you. $7.99 - Preview. I know what you're thinking: 'Preview? Really, Cella?' To which I respond: 'Uh, yeah. Duh, my dude.
You use it every day!' Sure, you can't do a bunch of fancy things with Preview like add filters, adjust contrast, and fix saturation, but you can quickly crop a photo, adjust the color, rotate it, add shapes, texts, and a signature, export as a different format, and more. Yes, Preview isn't perfect, but it is easy to use and fantastic for making small, fast changes to your photography. It's already on your Mac. How do you edit your photography? What is your favorite photo editing app for the Mac?
Why does it work the best for you? Let us know what your top picks are in the comments down below! Updated August 2018: All the choices on this list are still the best of the best!
If you’re a Mac-using professional photographer, you’re probably already paying $10 a month for, which includes Photoshop and Lightroom. But what about the rest of us, who occasionally edit images but not enough to justify a $120 annual bill? Are there any free Mac image editors? A few, but none without compromise. Most of the options either don’t offer that much power, or don’t have the best user interfaces. But if you’re willing to put up with limitations, or put in the time to learn something that’s not necessarily intuitive, you can edit your photos for free. Here are the best choices.
GIMP: Feature Complete With a Steep Learning Curve In terms of features and flexibility, open source stalwart is the best free Mac image editor you can find. This layer-based editor supports most file formats, and has all of the tools you need to touch up photos: adjustments for things like color balance and contrast, yes, but also filters and simple drawing tools. You can customize the user interface, putting tools you use regularly front-and-center and burying the tools you don’t.
You just need to find those tools, and figure out how they work. Experience with software like Photoshop won’t help much, because GIMP does things its own way, and expects users to figure those ways out on their own. There’s going to be a learning curve, and it’s going to involve a lot of Google searches.
If you’re the kind of person who likes thinking about design, you might end up wondering what exactly the creators were thinking. The GTK interface also doesn’t feel 100% at home on in macOS, and that may turn some diehard Mac users off.
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So there are downsides, but they might be worth it, because this is a full-blown photo editor that’s completely free. No ads, no gimmicks: just open source software that you’re free to use as you like.
Fotor: Quick Photo Tweaks From a Simple Interface If you’re not concerned with flexibility, and just want to quickly make a few changes to your photos, might be what you’re looking for. This simple app gives you access to a bunch of one-button adjustments. When you load a photo, you’ll see the “Scenes” toolkit, which allows you to choose from one of several lighting adjustments. There’s not a lot of fine-tuning: just click a button and decide if it looks better. There are similarly simple tools for adjusting the focus, adding text, and cropping your image.
Again, if you’re looking for a full-blown photo editor, this isn’t it. But it’s free, with one tiny ad in the bottom-right corner. It’s worth a look. Preview or Photos: Built-In Basic Editing Tools RELATED: Not everyone realizes this, but you can.
Just open any image, then click the toolbox icon. A second toolbar of icons for editing images will show up. From here, you can add simple shapes and draw. You can also adjust the color and contrast levels by clicking Tools Adjust Color in the menu bar. It’s not the most complete photo editor on the planet, but it gives you access to the basics without any third party software.
RELATED: If you organize your photo collection using the built-in Photos tool on your Mac, you can also. Just open any photo, then click the “Edit” button, which looks like a bunch of sliders. This will open a variety of editing tools, which let you do things like choose filters, adjust the lighting, or crop the image.
There’s nothing like layer-based editing here, but it’s easy to use and built into software you’re probably already using, so give it a shot. Paintbrush: Basically Microsoft Paint for macOS If every one of these options seemed too complicated for you, and all you want is the ability to doodle with your mouse, check out.
This open source application is basically paint.exe for you Mac, and it’s glorious. I used it to supplement my wife’s photo, I think it really highlights the nuance of her art. Use this tool to make similar masterpieces, and not a whole lot more. Paid, but Worth a Look: Pixelmator RELATED: isn’t free, but it is a great. It doesn’t offer all the features of Adobe’s premier image editor, but it offers a lot of them, and with a beautiful user interface that won’t hurt your head to use.
You’ve got layer-based editing, advanced effects, and a native user interface that even supports newfangled features like the touch bar. Pixelmator costs $30, but there’s a one-month free trial. That should be more than enough time to figure out if it fits into your workflow. If none of these tools quite work for you, it might be time to look into some of the other on the Mac. You’d be surprised what you can get for under $100.