- Free Photo Editing Software For Mac Like Lightroom Download
- Davinci Resolve
- Photo Editing Software For Mac
Today, photos have become the primary medium in our lives. Since our phones are always with us, we take dozens of photos a day for a variety of purposes, from selfies that we share with friends to payment receipts we need to remember to the images we plan to use for blog posts or websites.
This proliferation of photography and a wide range of use cases for images in our lives now means that not only professionals need to make all those photos look great. Sometimes we want to crop our shots or adjust the shadows or apply a specific filter or even watermark them for online sharing.
Open source photo editing software, on the other hand, can be up to par with the paid options. Most of the software above offer the same features as Adobe Lightroom. Some, like GIMP, have more features than Lightroom. If you are looking for free-to-use photo editing software, be sure to check out the above. Apart from that, this free photo editing software that comes with most Apple devices also has image cataloging and searching functions. In terms of presets and filters, Apple Photos offers a few. While the selection is not as wide as other free photo editing software, the app can still get the job done with ease.
Adobe Lightroom is undoubtedly the most popular photo editing software out there. Millions of creators and photographers rely on Adobe’s solution to craft perfect photos with a blend of editing.
We know we should be able to tweak the photos we take in some sort of Mac image editor. But how do we choose the right one?
How To Pick The Best Photo Editing Software For Mac
With smartphones in every pocket, photo editing software for Mac has exploded in recent years. Not only there are default tools that come pre-installed with macOS, you can now find a free photo editor for Mac for all the basic photo enhancements as well as the best photo editor for Mac when it comes to advanced retouching. In general, any good photo editor Mac frees up a lot of your time by automating certain repetitive tasks.
Photo editors differ wildly by their pricing, features, ease of use, speed, and specific goals they help you with. That’s why there’s no one answer to what’s the best free photo editor for Mac. It depends on what you need to do and how much time you want to spend learning. You can pretty much do any photo adjustments you want in GIMP, which is free, but maybe paying a little bit for the tool you’re going to use every day and which is going to save you hundreds of hours makes sense.
On that note, let’s go through some of the best paid and free photo editing software for Mac and mention which use cases each one fits really well.
Preview
You don’t have to go far to find a decent free photo editor for Mac. Preview might just do the trick! It comes with your macOS and is the default app for opening any images.
What most people don’t know is that Preview lets you crop and rotate images as well as adjust levels, exposure, shadows, saturation, and much more.
To access Preview’s editing capabilities, just click the Show Markup Toolbar icon in the top menu.
Price: Free
Apple Photos
When you start to hit the limits of Preview in terms of editing photos, there’s another app, which is often called the best free photo editor for Mac — Apple Photos.
Apple Photos also comes preinstalled with macOS and is the natural continuation of iPhoto and Aperture. It has robust editing capabilities, letting you adjust curves and selective colors, as well as apply quick filters and do overall retouching work.
To work on an image in Apple Photos, just open it and then click Edit in the top menu. Switch between Adjust, Filters, and Crop at the top to change the editing mode you’re in.
Price: Free
Luminar
Luminar is an AI-powered photo editing software that can help you perfect your shots with simple tweaks and fixes suggested by mighty AI algorithms. Use the app’s tools to analyze your photo and adjust its basic settings, fix portrait imperfections, remove noise or unwanted background items, enhance details and colors, add dramatic elements like augmented sky or sunrays. Save your editing settings to use on future shots or implement Luminar’s own preset looks for defined, polished results.
Price: Free for Setapp members
Adobe Lightroom
When you need a tool for a high-volume professional production, there’s still nothing that can really beat Adobe Lightroom. First released in 2007, Lightroom has become a true staple of every photographer’s workflow.
You can imagine Lightroom as an all-in-one solution. It has everything you need to process and store a large collection (from tags to stars to comments) and at the same time features in-depth retouching tools and custom filters that can be quickly applied to batches of images at once.
The downside? Lightroom is expensive, not easy to pick up, and very taxing on your machine. So if your goal is mastering photo production, Adobe Lightroom is more or less a must. Otherwise, you have plenty of other options.
Price: $9.99 a month
Emulsion
Free Photo Editing Software For Mac Like Lightroom Download
What if you want the best photo editing software for Mac for casual use but don’t like Apple Photos for some reason? You don’t have to go far to find a great substitute — Emulsion does exactly the same tasks (and even has its own library), just in a different way.
Emulsion is fast, lightweight, and easy to learn. It’s a fully-fledged photo editor and manager that covers all aspects of photo retouching and can be used by amateurs and professionals alike. Emulsion can handle large quantities of photos with ease, letting you sort and edit them in a continuous and seamless workflow. In addition, it features GPS and equipment data, and can even take all your portraits by names.
Price: Free for Setapp members
Adobe Photoshop
If you’re looking for the ultimate Mac image editor that would truly allow you to bring your photographs to the next level, it would probably be Adobe Photoshop.
Nothing is more iconic in the retouching world than Photoshop. First released in 1990, Photoshop has continued to be the most comprehensive and advanced photo editing software for Mac. It’s not perfect though — it requires a lot of computing power, is difficult to learn, doesn’t have a photo organizer, and is the most expensive tool on the list. But if you need to reimagine your images, Photoshop will help you get there.
Price: $20.99 a month
Pixelmator Pro
As one of the new Mac image editors, Pixelmator Pro quickly gained a loyal following among those who want access to powerful retouching tools without sacrificing either speed or ease of use.
Pixelmator Pro offers non-destructive photo editing, with full support for RAW photos (even the new AppleRAW), a wide variety of presets, and automatic enhancements based on machine learning. You can even use Pixelmator Pro to draw and illustrate as it comes with an impressive set of vector tools for unlimited creative expression.
Price: $39.99
Affinity Photo
Since Adobe Photoshop has moved from a one-time license to a subscription model, lots of professionals started to look for alternatives. And many found the perfect one in Affinity Photo.
Affinity Photo is essentially what the best photo editing software for Mac would look like if you designed it from the ground up, without all the legacy features that Photoshop has to carry over from one version to the next. Affinity Photo is lightning fast, can handle massive files (over 100 MB), zooms at 60 frames per second, and is able to edit PSD files. It’s not cheap, but it’s available as a single payment rather than a continuous subscription.
Price: $49.99
PhotoBulk
Truth is, you don’t need your best free photo editor for Mac to do everything — it’s ok to use a combination of tools as long as you know why you’re using them. For example, almost none of the standard photo editing apps are great at processing images in bulk. But PhotoBulk is.
PhotoBulk is an essential tool for high-volume photo editing. Whether you want to resize, rotate, or watermark multiple images (hundreds, even), PhotoBulk can take on the task with ease. It will compress, rename, and reformat anything you throw at it — and it will do it fast. You don’t even need to learn how to use PhotoBulk. Just select any necessary adjustments on the left, load up all your images on the right, and click Start.
Price: Free for Setapp members
As you can see, the world of photo editing is vast and very diverse. There is something for everyone. If you want the best images without lifting a finger, try Luminar’s AI capabilities. If you need a powerful editor, use Emulsion. And if you need to process hundreds of images at once, you can’t go wrong with PhotoBulk.
Best of all, Emulsion, Luminar, and PhotoBulk are all available to you absolutely free with a seven-day trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 210 productivity-enhancing Mac apps. Try each Setapp app today at no cost and see how you can reinvent your photo production system and much more.
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.
Davinci Resolve
Best Photo Editing Software for Mac in 2021
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
- Aurora HDR
- darktable
- Photopea
- Bonus: Photoscape X
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 2.0 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 Apple M1 Macs, 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 adjustments 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 De-noise 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
8. Aurora HDR
If you work with HDR or High Dynamic Range photography, Aurora HDR 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 a better dynamic range. What it means is that your photos will have a 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, Aurora HDR is the best tool out there. Aurora HDR is made by the same developers who make Luminar and hence I found that both apps had more or less the 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.
Photo Editing Software For Mac
Get AuroraHDR 2019:$99
Best Free Raw Photo Editing Apps for Mac
9. 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 Online Photo Editor for Mac (Free Photoshop Alternative)
9. Photopea
Photopea is an excellent photo editor for Mac if you don’t want to use a native app. Photopea is a web app that brings almost all the features that Adobe Photoshop has for free. Standout features include content-aware fill, filters support, layers support, a huge selection for brushes, and more.
The app also supports all popular image formats along with app-specific formats, including PSD, XD, Sketch, XCF, RAW, and more. If you have used Adobe Photoshop in the past but want to move on due to its high-cost, this is the perfect solution for you. It even supports most keyboard shortcuts that Photoshop uses.
It also has dozens of PSD templates that you can use to create thumbnails for videos, profile avatars, cards, and more. The only major drawback of this app is that the UI looks a bit dated. But for a free online photo editor, this rocks. If you are looking for a free Photoshop alternative, I urge you to give this app a try. If you find the app interesting, you can get started by visiting its learn page.
Bonus: Photoscape X
Photoscape X is another excellent free app for editing photos on the Mac. While the app does have a pro version that costs money, the free version is more than enough for most users. Apart from the usual tools like resize, crop, rotate, merge, and more, you also get access to pro tools such as color adjustments, filters, de-noising, batch editing, and more.
The interface of the app is functional. So, while it won’t win any design awards, you will find it easier to use. You get the main panels at the top. Here, you can choose between collage, edit, view, GIF, and more. I like that panels are separated depending on tasks. This helps in keeping the side panel, which hosts all your editing tools, clean.
The app supports most of the popular image formats, including RAW. I did find that the app took a bit more time to process large files, but overall, my experience was good enough to include this on the list.
Get Photoscape X:Free, in-app purchases
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.