Best Free Photo Editors For Mac



Do you still use a high-end DSLR for clicking pictures and capturing mesmerizing moments? Well with the advancements of smartphones, now everyone can be a photographer. But in the curiosity to get that one perfect click will end up taking hundreds of shots.

If you're hunting for the best photo editors software of 2020 - you've come to the right place. Photo editors have become increasingly common, especially on mobile devices for the basic editing of.

In addition to the high-end camera of our smartphones, we still need a good photo editing software to edit and polish our dull shots, and make then Instagram suitable. Mac photo editing apps help you to fix and organize your pictures according to your taste and liking.

If you are looking for a professional photo editing tool to add meaning to your dull pictures and make them aesthetically pleasing then refer to our list of best mac photo editing apps. Learn How to Edit Photos on Your Mac to improve the overall quality and look of your picture.

Fortunately, the market is filled with an ocean of options but to help you pick the best tool in the lot, here we have compiled a well-researched list of some of the best photo editing apps and software for mac. Read ahead to find out the best option according to your needs.

12 Best Photo Editors For Mac in 2020:

Best Mac Photo Editing Software - Free/Trial or Cheap 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. Dubbed by BBC as the lite Photoshop, Fotor is the best free photo editing software for mac! Ranking top in Mac Store in over 80 countries, Fotor is the only image editor you need on Mac! Take your photos where no photos have gone before. Version: 3.4.1 (Support Mac OS X 10.7 or later) User Guide.

1. Adobe Photoshop

By far the best photo editing apps for Mac and Windows devices. It is undeniably the most loved tool in the market and commonly known as a synonym to photo editing software.

Loaded with an ocean of features and high-end benefits it is highly popular amongst the fraternity of artists, photographers, designers, and illustrators. In addition to beginners, it is specifically built to suit the high-end requirements of professionals. The key features of this amazing tool listed below, you name it and Adobe Photoshop will have it.

  • It comes with incredible retouching capabilities and cloning.
  • It can polish your dull images in seconds including the large size images.
  • It includes a great list of selection and masking tools.
  • Adobe Photoshop can support images of multiple formats including PNG, JPG, GIF, and many more.
  • With this incredible tool, you get access to almost 360 editing tools and map support for HEIF files.
  • It uses a non-destructive editing mechanism to enhance the overall appearance and look of your images.

Read More: 15 Best Duplicate Photo Finder & Cleaner Software for Windows

2. Skylum Luminar 4

Known for its array of best filters and HDR, Skylum luminar 4 deserves a spot on our list of best batch photo editing apps. With its affordable pricing structure and image editing capabilities it has gained massive popularity in the last few years.

Best Free Photo Editors For Mac

It is a perfect amalgamation of the features of both Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. Some of the key features of this Mac photo editing tool are:

  • For better user experience it offers 24/7 sales and technical support.
  • It is powered with fast editing tools and functionalities.
  • Loaded with an array of adjustment masks and layers.
  • With its clever editing shortcuts and capabilities, you can effortlessly manage your photographs.
  • It comes with multiple viewing options including a single image view, filmstrip view, and gallery view.
  • Sun rays, AI-powered sky enhancers, and accidental AI are few of its other offerings.

3. Adobe Lightroom

If you are looking for an online Mac photo editing app, then Adobe Lightroom can be a good pick to start with. With its cutting edge technology and photo editing abilities, it enjoys great popularity in the world of photo editing software. It is a cloud-based tool.

It comes with easy to use yet high-end editing features. In addition to this, its interface is quite user-friendly and simple to use.

  • Lightroom can easily sync with several devices.
  • It comes with customizable sliders along with brush adjustment tools and gradients.
  • You also get access to multiple preset filters and professional filters with it.
  • Fixing tools, lens-based correction capabilities, and blurring tools are few of its other offerings.
  • Manage your photo gallery more efficiently with its face detection feature.

4. Skylum Aurora HDR

Next on our list of image editing software for mac is Skylum Aurora HDR. It works well with Windows devices as well and can easily be integrated as an Apple photo extension. With its AI-based neural network, you can create HDR images within seconds.

  • It is loaded with an array of 20+ editing tools to create HDR images.
  • It offers a great way to polish your raw images and leverage their appearance with its 80 unique presets.
  • Enhance the clarity and optimize the contrast of your images with its HDR clarity feature.
  • It can add depth and details to your photo and can also clean noise.

5. Canva

If your search for the best apps for mac photo editing is still going on then Canva can help you. It is a great tool for designing photo templates for both business and personal use. It comes with a clean interface and easy to use editing tools and graphics.

Use it to add various fonts and graphics to your dull images and make them Instagram ready.

  • Works well on both computer system and smartphones,
  • It comes with image cropping, image straightening features along with a speech bubble maker.
  • It is packed with a massive library of graphic designs and images and also supports cloud storage.
  • With Canva you get access to over 8000+ photo templates, icons, photos and pre-designed cards to create visually stunning content.

Read More: 10 Best Photo/Image Viewers for Windows 10 in 2020

6. Vsco

Next on our list of Mac photo editing apps is Vsco. Its advanced effects and stylish photo editing abilities make it highly popular amongst the fraternity of professional photographers.

Add life to your dull images with the help of its preset filters. Highlights, white balance, exposure are few of its editing tools with which you can adjust the color, exposure, and sharpness of your images.

7. DesignWizard

Are you still wondering what is the best photo editor for Mac users, then try DesignWizard. This feature-rich tool is packed with advanced controls and is well known for its high-end image design templates.

In addition to this, it also comes with a massive range of images, graphics, illustrations, and high-quality videos. Along with this you also get access to various marketing tools like sale posters, Linkedin Ads, Facebook Ads campaigns, and much more.

It comes with a clean and convenient interface and works seamlessly well with iOS devices.

8. Capture One

If you have been using Adobe Lightroom, then try Capture One now to enjoy a lot of other unique features. With this incredible photo editing software, you can polish your images within seconds.

Use it ‘s advanced color editing features and masking capabilities to add life to your images.

9. ON1 Photo Raw

Best Free Photo Editor For Macbook Pro

Experience a completely new taste of photo editing with our next pick of Best Mac Photo Editing Apps, ON1 Photo Raw. Its cutting edge capabilities allow you to convert your raw clicks into stunning images without spending too much time and effort.

With its dual-mode feature, you can not only edit but also browse various images. Enjoy live adjustments and preview with this power-packer photo editor software.

Read More: 11 Best Free PDF Editors For Mac in 2020

10. GIMP

Also known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program. GIMP is an open-source mac photo editor app.

Use it to retouch your dull images and create stunning pieces of the original artwork. Apart from this it also allows you to create pro-level graphic design elements. It is a free application and comes loaded with several pre-level editing features.

11. Adobe Photoshop Elements

Best

If you are new to the world of photography and image editing. Choose Adobe Photoshop Elements . It comes with a clean interface and easy to use features.

It is powered with an advanced AI- capability. Use its Guided Edit feature to create memes, part-image sketches, and multi-photo texts.

12. PortraitPro

If you love portrait photography, then Portraitpro is a blessing for you. The software is loaded with all the essential features that you need to create stunning portrait pieces.

Best Free Photo Editor For Macbook

Use its Advanced makeup tool to efficiently transform dull faces. You can also try its wrinkle removing and skin smoothing features.

Wrapping Up

Dive in the world of photography with photo editing apps and software. Each Mac photo editing tool mentioned above has a unique feature to offer alongside the basic features.

Refer to our list and pick the best-suited tool for yourself depending on your need, photography skills, budget, and preferences.

  • January 02, 2020
  • 18 min to read

Best Mac Photo Editing Software

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.

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.





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