Top 10 Mac Photo Editing Software

January 02, 2020
18 min to read

Top 10 Photo Editing Programs
Free Photo Editing For Mac
Top 10 Mac Photo Editing Software 2017
Photo Editing On Mac

Most free photo editors available on the App Store are quite basic, offering just a limited number of filters and allowing you to easily and quickly liven up your photos before posting them on social media.

This list begins with the best free photo editing software before moving on to the online photo editors out there. 10 Best Photo Editing Software 1. Adobe Photoshop CC. Adobe Photoshop CC is one of the best photo editing software for both Mac and PC. This tool has become the industry standard for editing photographs and images.

But if you’re an aspiring or professional photographer, you probably need a more powerful app with a broader set of tools to use your creativity to the fullest. Besides, you probably use your Mac for photo editing because working on a large screen makes it possible to adjust the slightest details.

1. Apple’s Photos (Built-in app)

Apple’s Photos app is included for free on all recently released Macs. It does a good job at organizing your photos, but its collection of photo enhancement tools leaves much to be desired. Hopefully, our selection of the best free programs for photo editing on Mac will help you choose the right app to suit all your creative needs.

2. Luminar (7 days trial)

Luminar is another full-featured photo editor that’s popular with both Mac and Windows users. It can work as a standalone app as well as a plugin for such popular programs as Apple Photos.

Luminar uses Artificial Intelligence to enable sophisticated yet quick photo enhancements. Among these AI features are Sky Enhancer, which adds more depth and detail to the sky in your photos while leaving other areas untouched; Accent AI, which analyzes a photo and automatically applies the best combination of different effects to enhance your image; and Sun Rays, which allows you to place an artificial sun and adjust the lighting to your liking or make the sun rays already in your photo look even more incredible.

Luminar has over 60 filters you can apply to your photos to enhance them in a moment. Luminar also provides a set of powerful tools for cropping, transforming, cloning, erasing, and stamping, along with layers, brushes, and many more incredible features. Luminar supports the Touch Bar on the latest MacBook Pro, making photo editing even more effortless and pleasing.

3. Photolemur 3 (Free Version with watermark)

Photolemur is a relative newcomer on the photo editing market but it has all the chances to win the favor of beginner photographers and hobbyists. Running on Artificial Intelligence, Photolemur is a completely automatic photo enhancer, meaning that it does all the editing for you in no time. It has the simplest interface, with only a few buttons and sliders to adjust the enhancement to your liking and view the before and after results.

All you need to do is choose a photo (or a few) that you want to improve, drag and drop or import them using the Import button, and let the program make enhancements. After it’s done, you can compare the edited version with the original image by using the before–after slider and, if you want, adjust the skin tone or even enlarge the eyes using additional sliders. Pretty easy, huh?

Photolemur also offers a number of impressive styles to touch up your photos and give them a sophisticated and professional look. With this app, you don’t need to stuff your head with photo editing nuances and terms. Just run Photolemur and watch the magic happen!

4. Aurora HDR (14 days trial)

As you probably can tell from the name, Aurora HDR is designed to help photographers enhance their HDR photos, making them even more detailed and beautiful. It’s an ideal tool for editing your photos, with an extensive collection of more than 20 tools including details, tone, mapping, color, glow, and vignette. Each tool has its unique selection of controls to adjust its effects.

Aurora HDR enables you to work with brushes, layers, and masks, and provides a number of automatic AI tools for recognizing and removing noise, enhancing colors, lighting, and details, improving clarity, and adding contrast to dull areas while leaving other areas untouched.

Aurora HDR does a great job dealing with difficult lighting situations and creating full-of-life images while being easy to use.

5. Pixelmator (Trial 30 Days)

Pixelmator is a photo enhancer beloved by many Mac users, as it offers a good combination of a modern and simple interface, the ability to work on multiple layers, and powerful features that take photo editing to a whole new level. With so many editing tools, brushes, and effects, you can enhance your photos to your liking. You can choose between two versions of Pixelmator – standard and pro – depending on your needs. The standard version is great for basic photo editing with its selection of essential tools and filters, while the pro version is packed with extra brushes, tools, and effects that let you push your creativity to new boundaries. You can decide which version is suitable for you according to what features you’re looking for in a photo editing app.

6. Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020 (Trial link)

Photoshop Elements isn’t as affordable as other photo enhancers for beginner photographers. But luckily there’s a trial version available, so you can check it out before deciding whether this app is worthy of your money. Photoshop Elements acquired many powerful features from Photoshop, only Elements is simplified for amateur photographers and enthusiasts. It includes a good number of effects and filters, plus automated editing options for improving lighting, color balance, and exposure, and even opening closed eyes and reducing the effects of camera shake.

In addition to all of these awesome features, Photoshop also offers editing modes for beginners, intermediate users, and experts. Beginners will probably prefer Quick mode, as it focuses on essential tools to quickly enhance your photos by improving color, lighting, and other basic settings. Guided mode provides intermediate users with step-by-step guidance with more professional features like artistic effects, skin tone correction, and background replacement. Expert mode gives you full access to the app’s really powerful editing features and is ideal for creating stunning images.

7. Affinity Photo (Free Trial)

Affinity Photo’s interface may seem overwhelming at first, especially for novices, but when you come to grips with it you’ll find that the app is just what you’ve been looking for. Its numerous professional tools, effects, and filters encourage you to get creative with your photos. Among the coolest features Affinity Photo has to offer is a before and after view to compare the original photo with its edited version.

Affinity Photo works with 15 file types, including common ones like PDF, PSD, JPG, and GIF as well as some less popular ones. The app amazes with its abundance of basic and top-notch editing tools, allowing you to tweak your photos using all possible kinds of instruments. Affinity Photo allows you to edit HDR photos, apply artistic filters and effects, play with masks and layers, and create breathtaking compositions by combining several images in one. If you find its interface a bit much and are afraid of getting lost in all those advanced tools, you should probably look for something more suitable for your level. But Affinity Photo is worth mastering.

8. Google Photos

Google Photos is a popular cloud storage service for photos and videos. It can’t boast countless masterly tools like other photo enhancers that we review in this article, but it includes some fundamental features like filters, color adjustment sliders, and transformation tools.

Although Google Photos may not be that helpful when it comes to editing photos, it does a pretty good job at storing high-resolution images and videos with 15GB of free online storage, compared to iCloud’s mere 5GB (which you can upgrade to 50GB for a monthly fee). If you’re planning to go on a trip and take plenty of photos, then it might be smart to sign up for Google Photos to use that extra storage space when you come back.

9. PhotoScape X (Free)

A relatively new photo editing app, PhotoScape X has been gaining popularity with many Mac and PC users since its release in 2008. Its interface is simple but unconventional, with a number of tabs running along the top of the window. Each is responsible for a specific stage of editing. The Viewer tab allows you to browse and organize your photos. After you pick a photo, you can switch to the Editor tab, which includes a broad set of instruments, filters, and effects and a useful feature that enables you to compare the adjusted photo with the original.

The next tabs, including the Batch tab, mainly concentrate on editing and renaming multiple photos at once. The GIF tab allows you to easily create an animated GIF from a group of selected photos.

The downside of PhotoScape X is a lack of selection tools, so all changes are applied to the whole image rather than to a selected part.

10. Gimp (Free)

Gimp is a free open-source photo editing app that has been on the market for over 22 years and is available for Windows, Mac, and even Linux. Unlike many free apps, Gimp doesn’t have any ads or in-app purchases. Its grey interface might seem a little old-fashioned and it may be a bit sluggish when it comes to complex effects, though.

Gimp offers a vast collection of advanced tools that hardly any free photo editor can boast. It has numerous enhancement options such as clone and heal brushes, layers and channels, accurate selection tools, a number of transformation instruments, and, of course, color adjustment controls. Gimp is one of the most powerful tools for enhancing photos and is beloved by so many users for its price (free) and versatility. But if you can’t come to grips with Gimp’s interface, it may be worth paying some cash for a more user-friendly program.

There is a common desire for most an individual to make their images outstanding and they would like to post on their social wall for everyone’s view. Knack of getting likes and loves for your picture boost up your confidence level and make you feel happy whenever you check out your social networking account. I am sure you must be looking for a photo editor for PC to create a unique effect on your images. Get ready to discover innovative softwares in the field of photography. Select appropriate photo editing tool as per your requirement by analysing the below discussed data. Just scroll down to explore.

Part 1. Best Simplest Photo Editor Software for PC

You would have listed out some of the features to be available in the photo editing tool in order to consider it as a good one. All your requirements will not be fulfilled by a normal photo editor other than Wondershare Fotophire Editing Toolkit. This article enlightens your knowledge by providing you with reliable information regarding the photo editing software. Wondershare Fotophire Editing Toolkit is the best and simplest photo editor for PC amidst the competitive market.

Enables you to apply more than 200 effects to your photos to make them better.
Crop or cut pictures to the size to meet any of your need.
Help you to remove any unwanted objects from your photos.
Allow you to use the Creative Blur to refocus your photos in a click.

Key Features:

Now work on with multiple images using the batch processing strategy implemented in the Wondershare Fotophire photo editing tool.
Effectively blend the two layers using the blend mode control .
Straighten your images and optimize it with the help of straight line features.
Color your pictures appropriately with the color correction option.
Create a professional look for your images by adding incredible effects on it.

How to use Wondershare Fotophire Editing Toolkit on PC

Take a quick look at the below steps for better understanding about the image editing process using Wondershare Fotophire Editing Toolkit

Step 1: Set up this tool in your device by following the installation wizard. Tap the icon soon after the successful download. The Wondershare Fotophire Editing Toolkit window loads with the open scree.

Step 2: Let us make use of a sample picture. Select “Samples” at the top of the screen and proceed.

Step 3: Click the “Photo2.jpg” file and begin your magical and creative works. The image gets loaded in the editing platform.

Step 4: Choose the “Crop” option and slice the images as per your desire.

Step 5: View the changes between the original and processed image by tapping the “Before and After” button displayed at the bottom in the screen.

Step 6: It is high time to add rocking effects on this picture. Click the “Effects” option at the top right and I have chosen my favorite effect ‘Nocturnal’. Scroll down to witness the changes.

Step 7: Work on the “Tone Curves” by switching to the “Adjustment” option on your top right in the screen. Balance the “R,G and B” values in the tone curve and carry out necessary changes in the image.

Step 8: Now, record the edited image in your local drive by tapping the “Save” button at the top center of the screen. Choose appropriate memory location and save the file.

Part 2. Another 9 Best Photo Editor Software for PC

Let us explore other photo editing tools for PC and find out their features in detail. It would greatly assist you in choosing the right type of product. Each and every photo editing toolkit is unique and it is developed creatively to satisfy the needs of the customers without any compromises.

1. Phase one Capture one Pro 11

URL: https://www.phaseone.com/en/Online-Store.aspx

Price: $373.79

It is a reliable photo editor compatible with Windows and MAC systems. This software assists the users to create a professional image through raw processing. The tethering option enhances the photographers to work efficiently on the images without any difficulty.

Pros

Uninterrupted image processing .
Reduces the noise during the process.
Adjustments in the pictures are updated swiftly without any time delay.

Cons

Not compatible with some of the camera raw formats .
There are no sources of mobile apps on this platform .
Expensive photo editor.

2. Serif Affinity Photo 1.6

URL: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/desktop/full-feature-list/

Price: $57.3

Serif Affinity program increases the quality of the image through layering and masking techniques. The filter effects and retouch features are highly notable. You can make use of the tools to bring about a different vision on the pictures quickly.

Pros

Mapping tools are very effective and accurate.
All sorts of image editing are possible using the built-in tools .
Sophisticated filters are implemented for best results.

Cons

No informative guide available to use the tool optimally.
The controls are scattered and difficult to identify .
Unlimited features sometimes lead to confusion .

3. Alien Skin Exposure X3

URL: https://www.alienskin.com/exposure/

Price: $149

This program is available for a free trial but if you want to enjoy the other features, then you have to purchase it.Alien Skin Exposure X3 photo editor app offers quality technical support and there is a money back offer for unsatisfied customers.

Pros

Immediate response from the technical team of Alien Skin Exposure X3 .
Possible to create a black and white image processing .
More than 500 presets are available .

Cons

Have to face challenges while importing the image from other platform for the editing process.
It is not possible to combine images while carrying out blending process.
Preview option is not available.

4. Skylum Luminar 2018 'Jupiter'.

URL: https://skylum.com/

Price: $81

Skylum Luminar provides the customers with 45 effective filters to bring about fabulous changes in the image. The work flow is seamlessly uninterrupted. The special filters are available which analyse the image and apply appropriate effects automatically without any manual interference.

Pros

Quick editing process is feasible.
65 presets enlighten your image .
Design amazing pictures without much effort.

Cons

Absence of cataloguing tools.
Low quality output for raw conversions.
The controls are not well organized in the app .

5. ON 1 Photo Raw 2018

URL: https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/

Price: $79.99

This program helps you to make use of the layer in the image without the photoshop.The retouching process seems to be effortless in this platform. Awesome photo restoration is possible with the controls like clone and heal, removal of blemishes, objects etc.

Pros

The amazing skin tone correction is possible .
Inbuilt HDR software to fasten up the merging process.
This app offers a LUT support .

Cons

Needs improvement in the raw processing .
Poor interface features .
The response of the controls occurs with a delay .

6. DXO Photo Lab

URL: https://www.dxo.com/us/photography/photo-software/dxo-photolab

Price: $129

It is an advanced photo editing tool, and it is designed to meet the expectations of the professionals.The U point technology has been implemented to enable non destructive work flow.

Pros

Flexible adjusting tools.
Automatic repair features.
The smart lighting control works on every detail in the picture.

Cons

Only the basic version is available for free of cost but to enable the amazing controls you have to pay for it.
Poor lens corrections .
Lack supporting properties for Fujifilm X-trans files.

7. GIMP

URL: https://www.gimp.org/

Price: Free

GIMP performs well on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. You can carry out high quality photo manipulation with creative artworks. It is built up with scripted frameworks supporting various programming languages such as C, C++, Pearl, Python, scheme etc.

Pros

Provides multiple features with photo enhancing properties.
It has a file manager to organize the processed files .
Comprises of various customization controls .

Cons

Basic patterns and it is not attractive for professionals.
Does not support all image formats.
Bug found in the latest versions.

8. Photoscope

URL: http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php

Price: Free

It is a Korean product with basic features. The newbies can have great fun working on the images because the controls are fewer with clear instructions.

Pros

Fast editing process.
Color picker is a remarkable tool .
Easy raw processing conversions.

Cons

Issues with the installation process.
Very slow response when you click the controls .
This software forces the installation of Google Chrome .

Top 10 Photo Editing Programs

9. Fotor

URL: https://www.fotor.com/

Price: Free

It is a cloud based photo editing tool with the advanced HTML 5 technology. Designed templates are available to serve the needs of the user. Countless tools and funny stickers engage the user in a creative manner.

Pros

The design tools are really handy and easy to work .
Basic design skills are sufficient to use this app .
User friendly platform .

Cons

Tweak effects is not available in this application.
Font sizes are determined automatically without the intervention of the user.
Flashing ads distract the editing process.

Part 3. Tips or Tricks When Choosing the Best Photo Editor Software for PC.

Look for its compatibility related to the operating system .
The controls, filters and presets should be clear .
Easier sharing of the processed images in the social network.
The app should provide sufficient feed for your creativity.
Huge collections of patterns and color combinations are necessary.

Free Photo Editing For Mac

Conclusion: