GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the best free photo editor around. It's packed with the kind of image-enhancing tools you'd find in premium software, and more are being added every.
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- The mac photo editing app supports more than fifteen file types and formats, including PDF, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, RAW and some other less popular ones as well. Photoshop Elements. With complete control over Image composition (from the contrast to brightness), Photoshop Elements is one of the Best Photo Editing Software for Mac.
- PhotoDiva is a breeze to master, even with no portrait photo editor experience. Transform your photography with intuitive sliders and free one-click effects. The face editing software detects facial features like lips, eyes, and cheeks. Now you can sculpt, beautify, and add color without making tedious selections in Photoshop.
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While the stock Photos app on Mac packs a few photo editing tools, it is not meant to replace a robust and professional photo editing app. If you want your photos to look good, you need to start looking at third-party photo editors that offer more features and control. I understand that extensive photo editing is not for everyone as most of the people don’t want to spend hours editing their photos. But that’s the beauty of having options. You can choose as intensive or automatic photo editing app as you want. You can even get photo editing apps for Mac that can enhance your photos with a click. I have tested and collected a list of 8 best photo editing apps for mac, both free and paid to help you on your photo editing journey.
Best Photo Editing Software for Mac in 2020
Different people have different requirements when it comes to photo editing and not one app is the best for everyone. That’s why, to make things easier for my readers, I have divided the 8 photo editors into different sections. The sections are not totally exclusive because as these photo editing software come with a huge set of overlapping features. That being said, the sections will help you get a clear idea of what you are looking for.
- Affinity Photo
- Luminar 4
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC
- Pixelmator Pro
- GIMP
- Fotor Photo Editor
- Photolemur
- AuroraHDR
- darktable
Best Pro Photo Editors for Mac
1. Affinity Photo
The first photo editing app on our list is something that I am using for the last two years and is one of the two photo editing apps that rely upon. The app features professional tools and supports almost all the know file formats including JPG, TIFF, PNG, GIF,PDF, PSD, and RAW photos. It comes with all the basic photo editing tools that you can expect from a pro photo editing app such as red eye removal, cropping, selection, painting and drawing tools, color correction tools, masks, filters, layers, and more. It also features an uncluttered UI with clearly marked tools which are both easy to find and use. Affinity Photo also brings support for extensive keyboard shortcuts which makes the photo editing more enjoyable and fast once you put some time into learning the software.
While there is a bit of learning curve, which is understandable, the developers offer tons of written and video tutorials which is more than enough to get anyone started. I am also fond of its non-destructive photo editing approach which keeps the original photo intact until you manually override it with your edited photo. There’s also support for extensive history and users can easily undo/redo changes up to 8000 steps.
Finally, it also offers an Apple Photos plugin allowing you to do minor adjustments right inside the Photos app. The only missing feature here is a Digital Asset Management or DAM which means you can not use it as a photo repository, something Adobe Lightroom users will surely miss. If that’s not a concern for you, I can recommend this app without any hesitation.
Get Affinity Photo:Free trial, $49.99
2. Luminar 4
Luminar 4 is a full-fledged pro photo editing tool for Mac which is also the easiest to use. Since I switch from Affinity Photo to Luminar, I have more than halved the time I used to spend on photo editing without any drop in quality. That is a deal that I am going to take any day. The before and after photo that you can see in the Affinity Photo section took me around 5 minutes to edit, while the picture you are seeing below took me just one click. It is because Luminar 4 comes with a set of more than 60 filters, some of which even use artificial intelligence, to enhance your photos with just a click.
The filters use a set of pre-configured presets that change depending on the subject of the picture. In my experience Luminar 4 works best for portraits and scenic shots. Luminar 4 also lets you adjust the presets if you don’t like the results. You have access to all the photo editing tools such as masks, layers, gradients, color correction, and more. You can use them to make manual changes to your photo just as you do with any other pro photo editing app. The filters allows you to get quite near to your end result with just one click. From there, you can make the minute adjustments to get your perfect photo. One of my favorite features of Luminar 4 is its before and after slider. I can instantly visualize the changes that I have made and compare the edited image to the original image.
Luminar 4 also has a built-in DAM. You can organize, rate, browse, and sort photos just like you can do on Adobe Lightroom. Like Affinity Photo and other pro photo editing apps mentioned in this section, Luminar 4 is a beast when it comes to photo editing. However, it’s a beast that can be easily tamed and used to perfection without creating any problem for us. Whether you are a professional photo editor who needs to save time or an amateur who wants to learn professional photo editing, Luminar 4 is a great photo editing tool for either use-cases.
Get Luminar 4:$89.99
3. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC
No photo editing app list can be complete with mentioning Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC as it is one of the most powerful photo editing app that you can get on your Mac. Apart from the obvious photo editing features, the biggest benefit of using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC is that it comes with a fully functional Digital Asset Management or DAM which allows users to not only manage their entire photo catalogue but also upload it to cloud so they can access it from anywhere. That is one of the biggest strength of Adobe Lightroom and if that is something you want, currently, there’s no better app out there.
Coming back to the photo editing tools, the Adobe Lightroom CC is packed with them. It might not be as easy as Luminar but it doesn’t lag behind when it comes to power. You get access to all the usual tools including blend, blur, layers, color correction, color matching, and more. I love its easy-to-use sliders that give users complete control over the light and color properties of their photos. It also lets you shift focus and sharpen your photos to highlight your subject or reduce distraction in the image. My biggest problem with Adobe Lightroom CC is its subscription-based pricing system which makes this only viable for people who are using this to earn money. If you are just using the app for yourself, both Affinity Photo and Luminar will serve you better as far as return of investment is concerned.
Get Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: $9.9/month
4. Pixelmator Pro
Pixelmator Pro is another pro photo editing tool for Mac which you should try. The app not only brings an extensive collection of tools for editing and retouching photos but it also allows you to paint, create graphics design, add effects, and do so much more. However, since we are focusing only on photo editing software for Mac here, we will keep our interested limited to those features only. I used Pixelmator Pro for about a month and I found that it has everything that you might need from a photo editing software. In fact, the new 1.5 update of Pixelmator Pro also brings a ton of other features that you won’t find on most of the photo editing tools on this list. For example, it now supports multi GPUs (looking at you Mac Pro) and RAW editing workflows with the new Pro Display XDR.
Pixelmator Pro comes with a new ML-Enhance mode which uses artificial intelligence trained on a catalog of 20 million professional photos, to automatically fine-tune 37 individual color adjustments. Just like Luminar, this feature gives you a great starting point for making fine-tuned adjustment to your photos. That said, the ML-Enhance, only has one pre-set and I like Luminar’s approach far better. I do like the new ML Denoise feature which removes noise and image compression artifacts from photos. Not many photo editing apps for Mac can boast of this feature. I quite enjoyed using Pixelmator Pro and if you don’t like any of the above-mentioned software, you should give a chance to Pixelmator Pro.
Get Pixelmator Pro:Free trial, $39.99
Best Free Open Source Photo Editing Apps for Mac
5. GIMP
GIMP is Adobe Photoshop for people who like open-source software. GIMP or GNU Image Manipulation Program is packed with features and allows you to make pro-level editing of your photos. Since it is an open-source app, it is completely free of charge. That said, GIMP also comes with the problems that most open-source app suffer from which is to say that it’s UI looks old and is not at all user friendly. In fact, GIMP is one of the hardest image editing apps you will find on this list. You will need to spend quite a bit of time in learning its ins and outs and only then will you be able to take full advantage of its potential.
I found GIMP to be too hard for my taste. I remember one time I mistakenly made a change to its workspace and it took me almost 15-20 minutes to get it back to the version I was familiar with. That being said, thousands and thousands of Mac owners are using GIMP everyday for their photo editing needs, so, I might be an anomaly here. Once you put in enough time to learn GIMP, you will find that it has all the features that you need now and might need in the future.
Get Gimp:Free
6. Fotor Photo Editor
If you are looking for a free yet accessible photo editing software, take a look at the Fotor Photo Editor. It might not be as powerful as GIMP but it is fairly easy to learn which makes this a great image editing app for beginners. The app supports importing and exporting of a wide range of image formats including TIFF, JPEG, and PNG, and even RAW files. When it comes to features, Fotor brings enough tools that you won’t find it dragging you down unless you are a pro user.
One of my favorite tool of Fotor is batch processing.It allows me to apply preset conditions to images in batches thereby saving me a lot of time. Other features of Fotor include effects, borders, the ability to create collages, tilt-shift, and more. To explain simply, Fotor is basically an easier and watered-down version of Lightroom, Luminar, or other pro image editing apps for Mac on this list. While the app is free, recently it has also released a Fotor Pro version which brings more features and costs $39.99/year. You can compare the free and paid version of Fotor by clicking on this link.
Get Fotor: Free
Best One-Click Photo Editing App for Mac
7. Photolemur 3
I thought long and hard whether I should include this app on the list or not as the app technically doesn’t allow you to edit photos. Still, I know that there are users who don’t want to spend time on editing photos but also want their photos to look decent. Well, if you are one of those people then this is the app for you. To use, Photolemur, all you need to do is drag and drop pictures on it. You can do it in batches or one by one. Once you drop images on it, it will apply AI to identify scenes, colors, and faces and enhance them automatically.
Remember, you will not have any control over the retouching what-so-ever. However, in my testing, the app produced respectable images in 90% of the cases, hence, it made the list. The one place it fails 100% of the times is when you already have high-contrast images with popping colors. Apart from that, it works fairly well. I will say it again, it’s not a photo editing app which you should use if you want total control. However, If you really don’t want to spend even a minute on learning to edit and editing your photos, this is your best option.
Get Photolemur 3:$35
Best HDR Photo Editors for Mac
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8. AuroraHDR 2019
If you work with HDR or High Dynamic Range photography, AuroraHDR 2019 is the best app you can get. For those who are not familiar, HDR combines multiple images (low exposure, medium exposure, and high exposure) to create an image with better dynamic range. What it means is that your photos will have better ratio of light and dark. Your iPhone already does this if you have this setting turned on while you are taking pictures. However, In a more traditional sense, a photographer takes three photos in different exposures and combines them in an HDR photo editing app to get the best results.
For that work, AuroraHDR 2019 is the best tool out there. AurorHDR 2019 is made by the same developers who make Luminar and hence I found that both apps had more or less same user interface with a focus on different photo editing styles. Remember, if you don’t work with HDR photos manually, you really don’t need to get this app. That being said, I used it with same photos that I use on other photo editing apps and the results were quite impressive. This app is definitely not for everyone, but some of you might enjoy using this.
Get AuroraHDR 2019:$99
Bonus: Best Free Raw Photo Editing Apps for Mac
darktable
If you read the article thoroughly, which I hope that you did, you will know that all the pro photo editing apps that I mentioned above, including Lightroom, Luminar, Affinity Photo, and Pixelmator Pro support RAW files so it wasn’t really necessary to create this section. Especially because if you are a professional who works only with RAW photos, you must be already using quite pricey RAW photo editor. Still, I was so impressed with this app that I didn’t, not want to include this on my list, especially when it’s completely free to use.
In fact, the description on its website articulate things about this app far better than I could so I will just post it here, “darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual light-table and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable light-table, and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.” If this is something you need, you should click on the link to download it right now.
Get darktable: Free
Best Image Editing Apps for Mac: Final Thoughts
While all these photo editing apps are good, you will find that some of them suit you better than the others. For me, Luminar and Affinity Photo work the best and hence I am still sticking to those two. But you should choose the one that fits your editing style and needs. If you find this article informative, comment below to tell us which photo editing app you found to be the best for you.
![Photo Photo](/uploads/1/1/8/5/118524792/313379358.jpg)
Availability and affordability of the good quality Smartphone camera and digital camera enables the people to click pictures of every moment of their life. People now are very active in clicking pictures and uploading them on their social media accounts to update their friends about the happenings in their life. Uploading the original pictures can be less interesting and you may not get as many likes as you expect. Using the best quality of photo editing tools makes your photos attractive and grabs everyone’s attention on your posts and the profile pictures. These days, various types of photo editing softwares are available for desktop and mobile users.
Part 1. Top 15 Free Photo Editor Software in 2018
People are constantly sharing digital pictures and images for the personal and the professional reasons. They not only have to regularly update their social media profiles but also to keep their professional image high. Using the photo editing software empowers you to gain attention from others. There are so many types of free photo editor software so you are required to first make the comparison between the best ones. It helps you to choose the best one for transforming your pictures and images for the better.
1. Adobe Photoshop
URL: https://www.adobe.com/in/products/photoshop.html
It includes tutorials and templates for editing the pictures easily. The full gamut of this software makes your picture attractive. Along with this, 90 creative filters for images add impressive effects to your pictures. This program is little bit hard to use because it is developed for the professional photo editor only. Adobe Photoshop is not just a photos editor even you can prepare your own photos from scratch as well. It supports windows operating system.
2. Picasa
URL: https://picasa.google.co.in/
It is another free photo editor program which allows the desktop and laptop users to edit, share, print, find and organize the photos easily. It organizes all your pictures in a single album to make it easier for you to locate your photos for editing without any trouble. This photo editor supports PSD, GIF, JPEG, BMP and movie files. This program is now owned by Google and the system version is not available for the installation from the official site but still you can download and use the previous versions from software provider websites.
3. Photoscape
URL: http://x.photoscape.org/
This photo editing software is available for download for Windows 7, 8 and 10 and Mac. It offers multiple photo editing tools that make your picture interesting. One addition feature which it offers is creating your own animated GIFs which can be shared online. In this program you easily find whatever you need to edit the photos. You can edit using the available tools such as batch editing, crop, create gif, make college, RAW images editing, screen capturing etc.
4. GIMP
URL: https://www.gimp.org/downloads/
If you are looking for the professional photo editing software for free then GIMP is the best one. You should try this software as a retouching program, image renderer, Paint software and image format converter. It allows the users to make use of extensions and plugins to make your photos more impressive. This is a cross platform program and available for mostly all types of operating system. This is open source as well so you can get the source of the program directly from the website and edit it as per your need.
5. Paint.net
URL: https://www.getpaint.net/features.html
Users who want to get the simple user interface in their free photo editing software should get this photo editor. It offers plugin support as well for recomposing the photos. It supports many file formats. Blurring, red-eye removal, sharpening, noise, distortion, and embossing tools are there to make your photos attractive. This program is also a fully featured open source available for the windows OS. The interface of this image editor program is same as the Microsoft paint.
6. Photo! Editor
URL: http://pho.to/editor/features/
If you want to optimize and fix your digital images then this software is the best to use. Cropping feature and light adjustment facility, caricature tool and color adjustment features are also available. You can turn your photo, add or remove objects and make complex adjustments to get the professional looking photos. This program can help you to fixing the Red eye, enhance photos color, makeup, Crop or give brightness to your photos. This is a free program can be used without any charge.
7. Raw Therapee
URL: http://rawtherapee.com/#
It supports raw files and allows the editing with the attractive user interface. White balance, color panel and many other editing features are available. Advanced color handling with non-destructive editing can be done with this software. Batch editing and parallel editing facility is also provided by this software. In this software you can get mostly all advanced photo editing features for editing photos on the system right away.
8. Photo Pos Pro
URL: http://www.photopos.com/PPP3_BS/Default.aspx
This smart photo editing software offers an array of editing tools with novice layouts. The basic editing tools are color enhancing, erasing, history, layers and filters. Add the stunning text effects, frames and collages can be created. Poor photos can be fixed by easily with the powerful user interface. This program offers different types of tools to edit the photos so you can’t get everything in a single software.
9. Luminar
URL: https://skylum.com/luminar
It is the trendy image editing tool for windows in 2018. The intuitive interface makes it easier for the users to edit single photo, batch editing, splitting tool and similar face search tool as well. It is compatible with Windows and Mac. It is the high performance photo editing software that completes the editing work faster. Luminar is developed by skylum officially which is known as the best photo editing software maker company just like Adobe.
10. Corel PaintShop Pro 2018
URL: https://www.paintshoppro.com/en/pages/camera-raw/
Standard red eye removal, color enhancing and customization tools are available on this software. It also offers geo-tagging support and dual monitor mode which is helpful in graphic designing as well. Automatic image correct feature and dozens of brushes, textures and backgrounds are available. This program is developed for the most professional photo editor people and mostly it is used by the people who do work like making flex boards and designing logos.
11. On1 Perfect Effects
URL: https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/
With the 170 filter effects and multiple photo editing tools, this is one of the popular software among the professional photographers. If you want to try it for free, download Perfect Effect 9 version. various stackable filters, presets and textures are there to make your photos better. This perfect photo editor software helps you to edit the photos very easily as compared to the other software. You can use this program on Mac and windows. There is no need to pay monthly subscription.
12. PortraitPro
URL: http://www.portraitprofessional.com/
This software is free for editing the portrait pictures. Skin tones, blemishes and wrinkles from the face can be edited with its advanced editing tools. Various makeup tools are also there which make your photos look the best. This software also has the face detection technology. This program enables you do makeup control, enhance the mouth very easily to give professional look to the photos. There is free program testing is available for this program so you can use it before buying the premium version.
13. Inkscape
URL: https://inkscape.org/en/
It is the photo editing program that is loaded with the advanced features of photo editing. It offers cloning, copy/paste styles and multiple text along with basic editing tools. Images can be created with the help of pencil tool and several manipulation tools are there to modify the photos. Fillers and strokes can also be used with multi-line text support. There is broad file format compatibility and powerful text tools available for the people who like to edit the photos.
14. Image Tuner
URL: http://www.glorylogic.com/image-tuner.html
It is the free image editor for Windows PC. It offers watermarking and changing over, batch resizing and other editing features within few clicks. Social media profiles can also be resized and edited with the help of this tool. Photos from one file format can be converted to any other. You can easily colorize, rotate, and flip the photos using this software. There are lot of effects available to apply on the images and it works perfectly on windows 10.
15. Pixia
URL: https://pixia.en.lo4d.com/
This is the best free photo editing software for Windows PC which is helpful in saving images in various formats other than GIF. Overlays, layers, concealing, features are available with this software. Full color graphics with masking and layer functions are available for manipulating the images. This program is developed for those people who are very creative and always like to create something new different from others.
Part 2. Top 10 Free Photo Editing Apps in 2018
Smartphone is not only used for making calls or sending messages but there are many more purposes. One of the most popular uses of Smartphone these days is uploading and sharing edited pictures. There are various types of photo editing apps which are helpful in editing the pictures and instantly sharing them on your social media account. Using such types of apps is more convenient as you can edit the images anywhere without opening your computer. Here is the list of top 10 photo editing apps that you can download in your smartphone.
1. Google Snapseed
URL: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.niksoftware.snapseed
Platform: Android/iOS
Price: Free
It is the best free picture editor app that can make many of the desktop software’s at shame. It is loaded with several numbers of features. It allows the modification to the depth, curve and brightness of field that makes your pictures attractive. This app is developed by Google for photo editing and you can easily edit the photos on the android and iOS devices directly instead of the desktop.
2. Prisma
URL: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prisma-photo-editor/id1122649984?mt=8
Platform: iOS 8.0 and later / Android 4.1 and later
Price: Free
It is compatible for Android and iOS devices and the drawing’ and ‘painting’ filters are there. Additional filter options are available in the in-a pp purchases. Once you have edited the photos using this app on your mobile you can share the pictures easily through email, sms, whatsapp, Facebook or Instagram. This is easy to use and supports mostly all images formats.
3. Adobe lightroom
URL: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adobe.lrmobile
Platform: Android / iOS
Price: $9.99 per month for subscription
It is the image manipulation app that is designed to build your photography skills faster. There are a large number of digital images can be edited, viewed or organized by this app. It offers 1 TB of cloud storage as well so that cloud backup of images can be created. This app gives you a very powerful solution to edit the images on the Android and iOS mobile devices directly. There are one tap preset available to edit the images in one tap.
4. Aviary
URL: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aviary.android.feather
Platform: iOS / Android
Price: $9.99
It is best free photo editor app that offers great reliability in editing pictures. Manual adjustments for the color, brightness, contrasts and saturation can be done using this app. Cropping and resizing option also available there to resize the size of images for Facebook or other social media sites. Playful stickers and overlays are also available for this app. This app also offers in app purchases to remove ads and get few additional features.
5. AirBrush
URL: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magicv.airbrush
Platform: Android 4.1 and up
Price: $1.99
This photo editing app for Android is best for you to keep editing your photos in batches. It can easily make the quick fixes for blemishes on your face, reshaping, teeth whitening and, adding filters. Easily take away pesky imperfections. This app offers love photo filters to apply on images and mostly it is used by the youngsters to edit and make the images.
6. Fotor Photo Editor
URL: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.everimaging.photoeffectstudio
Platform: iPhone / Android
Price: up to $3.33 per month
This app is available for free with the in- app purchase options. It allows basic editing with over 100 of filters to choose from. It allows the users to make the collage as well and share it online in the real time. It offers you wide range of effect to apply on images and you can easily edit the photos because interface of the app is very easy to use for everyone. College photo making option is also there so you can use up to 9 photos to make college.
7. PhotoLab
URL: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=vsin.t16_funny_photo&hl=en
Platform: Android
Price: Free/ 9.99$ (for essential version)
To add an artistic touch to your images, download this photo editing app on your Android device. It allows the users to use more than 640 filters, frames and effects to make your photos outstanding. It offers realistic photomontages. PhotoLab app works fast that’s why you can easily edit the photos in seconds and make the perfect one. There are many frames available to give the final touch to your photos.
8. VSCO
URL: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vsco.cam
Platform: Android / iOS
Price: $19.99 USD per year subscription
It is the great photography mobile app available for download for free. Subtle one-tap presets with various adjustment tools. This app provides photo sharing platform with the high quality camera for clicking HD pictures. VSCO app is actually a community of people just like the Instagram so you can use this app to edit photos and to connect with different people as well.
9. Filterstorm Neue
URL: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/filterstorm-neue/id728479183?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D8
Platform: iOS / Android
Price: Up to 14.99 USD
This Photo editing app for iOS is integrated with advanced settings. Clone tool, tone mapping, channel mixer and masking tool can be used in this app to make the pictures attractive. This app comes with every tool that you must have to edit the photos. There are more than 100 effects available in the app to edit the photos and make them cool.
10. Pixelmator
URL: https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/pixelmator/id924695435?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D8
Platform: iOS
Price: Up to $29.99
It is one of the free photo editing apps that is ideal for the iOS devices. With the help of this app, you can create impressive pictures. Retouch and distort tools can be used. There are dozens of beautiful frames available to use with the images. If you are facing the issue of color cast with the images then you can instantly remove and set the accurate white balance to your images.
Part 3. Recommended Photo Editing Program for Desktop Users
Wondershare Fotophire Editing Toolkit is one of the most interesting and the useful photo editing programs for desktop users. It is loaded with amazing features that can transform your pictures. This is the fast and efficient free photo editing software for the computers. It offers more than 200 effects to make the pictures or images perfect. If you are looking for the photo editor free download then Wondershare Fotophire is the best option. Photo editing, cutting and erasing are the key features of this photo editor. It also features the photo maximization and photo focus to give the professional touch to your photos. More than 100 styles of photo frames are provided by this software. You can easily turn your photos into an art piece by getting the full control of the overall intensity.
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You can Get Wondershare Fotophire Editing Toolkit for Mac Here.
The most important feature for which you should try this software is that it is available for 7-day free trial. Thus, you can use this software for the personal or business purposes both.