- The best free photo-editing software Here are 4 free alternatives to Photoshop for all your editing needs By Jon Martindale @jonwhoopty — Posted on November 5, 2018 - 10:04AM 11.5.18 - 10:04AM.
- There are more great image-editing tools than ever before, and they aren't limited to the desktop. We've curated a collection of the best Mac and iOS apps for tweaking, filtering, improving.
- The Best Free Photo Editor For Mac
- The Best Free Photo Editing Apps For Mac
- Best Photo Editors For Mac
- Best Free Photo Editor For Mac Os Sierra
There are dozens of free photo editors out there, so we've hand-picked the very best so you can make your pictures look amazing without paying a penny.
Download Free Mac Image Editor CinePaint from here. ChocoFlop is a free photo and image editor for OS X, that reads and writes all the popular file formats. The license is free until the application is no longer in development. The download page includes more free filters and third party plugins. Photoshop is the best known photo editing software for macOS, but it's far from the only option. There are also some brilliant, feature-packed photo editors for your Mac if you don't need the power of Adobe's industry-standard app.
PDF Editor for Mac allows users to add, edit, or delete headers and footers in a PDF file. Create and export PDF PDF Editor for Mac allows users to create a blank PDF. PDF Editor Mac is a good freeware which you can use to edit PDF files in MAC. While saving in the free version, the PDF file is saved with a watermark in the first three pages of the PDF file. While saving in the free version, the PDF file is saved with a watermark in the first three pages of the PDF file. Mac Software Features. You can also use Apple's own PDF editor Preview to edit PDFs on a Mac, we have tips for using Preview to edit a PDF on a Mac here. Preview Apple. Pdf editor software for mac. Xodo PDF Reader & Editor is the best free pdf editor software available on Windows Store and iTunes. It is not for professional use as it lacks advanced editing tools. But if you want to do some basic editing on your files like marking, adding images, text or drawing over it etc, then go for this tool.
We've spent hours putting a huge range of photo editors to the test, and picked out the best ones for any level of skill and experience. From powerful software packed with features that give Photoshop a run for its money to simple tools that give your pictures a whole new look with a couple of clicks, there's something for everyone.
Many free photo editors only offer a very limited selection of tools unless you pay for a subscription, or place a watermark on exported images, but none of the tools here carry any such restrictions. Whichever one you choose, you can be sure that there are no hidden tricks to catch you out.
1. GIMP
The best free photo editor for advanced image editing
No ads or limitations
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 day.
The photo editing toolkit is breathtaking, and features layers, masks, curves, and levels. You can eliminate flaws easily with the excellent clone stamp and healing tools, create custom brushes, apply perspective changes, and apply changes to isolated areas with smart selection tools.
GIMP is an open source free photo editor, and its community of users and developers have created a huge collection of plugins to extend its utility even further. Many of these come pre-installed, and you can download more from the official glossary. If that's not enough, you can even install Photoshop plugins.
2. Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019
Fuss-free photo editing with automatic optimization tools
Fine manual controls
If you've got a lot of photos that you need to edit in a hurry, Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019 could be the tool for you. Its interface is clean and uncluttered, and utterly devoid of ads (although you'll need to submit an email address before you can start using it).
Importing pictures is a breeze, and once they've been added to the pool, you can select several at once to rotate or mirror, saving you valuable time. You can also choose individual photos to enhance with the software's one-click optimization tool. In our tests this worked particularly well on landscapes, but wasn't always great for other subjects.
If you want to make manual color and exposure corrections, there are half a dozen sliders to let you do exactly that. It's a shame you can't also apply the same color changes to a whole set of pictures at once, but this is otherwise a brilliant free photo editor for making quick corrections.
For more advanced editing, check out Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7 – the premium version of the software with enhanced optimization tools.
3. Canva
Professional-level photo editing and templates in your browser
Includes free cloud storage
Canva is a photo editor that runs in your web browser, and is ideal for turning your favorite snaps into cards, posters, invitations and social media posts. If you're interested in maintaining a polished online presence, it's the perfect tool for you.
Features of Atom • Autocompletion during writing code to help you write code faster and flexibly. https://xchangenew856.weebly.com/blog/best-free-editor-for-python-mac. • Compare and edit code across different files by using multiple panes. • Atom Works across operating systems( OS X, Windows, or Linux). • File system browser to Easily browse and open a single file, a whole project, or multiple projects in one window.
The Best Free Photo Editor For Mac
Canva has two tiers, free and paid, but the free level is perfect for home users. Just sign up with your email address and you'll get 1GB free cloud storage for your snaps and designs, 8,000 templates to use and edit, and two folders to keep your work organized.
The Best Free Photo Editing Apps For Mac
You won't find advanced tools like clone brushes and smart selectors here, but there's a set of handy sliders for applying tints, vignette effects, sharpening, adjusting brightness, saturation and contrast, and much more. The text editing tools are intuitive, and there's a great selection of backgrounds and other graphics to complete your designs.
4. Fotor
One-click enhancements to make your photos shine in seconds
Batch image processing
Fotor is a free photo editor that's ideal for giving your pictures a boost quickly. If there's specific area of retouching you need doing with, say, the clone brush or healing tool, you're out of luck. However, if your needs are simple, its stack of high-end filters really shine.
There's a foolproof tilt-shift tool, for example, and a raft of vintage and vibrant colour tweaks, all easily accessed through Fotor's clever menu system. You can manually alter your own curves and levels, too, but without the complexity of high-end tools.
Fotor's standout function, and one that's sorely lacking in many free photo editors, is its batch processing tool – feed it a pile of pics and it'll filter the lot of them in one go, perfect if you have a memory card full of holiday snaps and need to cover up the results of a dodgy camera or shaky hand.
5. Photo Pos Pro
Advanced photo editing tools packaged in a simple interface
Beginner and advanced modes
Photo Pos Pro isn't as well known as Paint.net and GIMP, but it's another top-quality free photo editor that's packed with advanced image-enhancing tools.
This free photo editor's interface is smarter and more accessible than GIMP's array of menus and toolbars, with everything arranged in a logical and consistent way. If it's still too intimidating, there's also an optional 'novice' layout that resembles Fotor's filter-based approach. The choice is yours.
The 'expert' layout offers both layers and layer masks for sophisticated editing, as well as tools for adjusting curves and levels manually. You can still access the one-click filters via the main menu, but the focus is much more on fine editing.
6. Paint.NET
Looking a little dated, but still a dependable all-rounder
Plugin support
More is not, believe it or not, always better. Paint.NET's simplicity is one of its main selling points; it's a quick, easy to operate free photo editor that's ideal for trivial tasks that don't necessarily justify the sheer power of tools like GIMP.
Don't let the name fool you, though. This isn't just a cheap copy of Microsoft's ultra-basic Paint – even if it was originally meant to replace it. It's a proper photo editor, just one that lands on the basic side of the curve.
Paint.NET’s interface will remind you of its namesake, but over the years, they’ve added advanced editing tools like layers, an undo history, a ton of filters, myriad community-created plugins, and a brilliant 3D rotate/zoom function that's handy for recomposing images.
This is Apple’s free video editing software, and it runs on both Mac OS and iOS platforms, so you can do you video editing just about wherever you go. For hobbyist and amateur filmmakers, Apple iMovie will have approachable tools to help you easily take your footage and edit a video with a clear flow. Book editor software for mac. Video Editing Software for Mac – Accessible to Everyone Add Media Files Import videos from your computer or external device, add images for a slideshow or as cut-ins between video segments. The Mac is still the best device for serious photo editing, so you need some serious photo editing apps to make an impact. The built-in Photos app on Mac offers several useful photo editing tools. You can crop, adjust lighting and color, set the white balance, add filters, remove unwanted blemishes, and a. Ulysses is the best writing app for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. For writers — from bloggers to authors to journalists and more — Ulysses offers the perfect combination of power and simplicity, combining feature-rich writing and research tools amidst a focused, distraction-free writing environment.
7. PhotoScape
Raw image conversion, batch processing and much more
Great selection of filters
PhotoScape might look like a rather simple free photo editor, but take a look at its main menu and you'll find a wealth of features: raw conversion, photo splitting and merging, animated GIF creation, and even a rather odd (but useful) function with which you can print lined, graph or sheet music paper.
The meat, of course, is in the photo editing. PhotoScape's interface is among the most esoteric of all the apps we've looked at here, with tools grouped into pages in odd configurations. It certainly doesn't attempt to ape Photoshop, and includes fewer features.
We'd definitely point this towards the beginner, but that doesn't mean you can't get some solid results. PhotoScape's filters are pretty advanced, so it's if good choice if you need to quickly level, sharpen or add mild filtering to pictures in a snap.
8. Pixlr X
A comprehensive browser-based photo editor for quick results
Stylish design
Pixlr X is the successor to Pixlr Editor, which was one of our favorite free online photo editors for many years.
Pixlr X makes several improvements on its predecessor. For starters, it's based on HTML5 rather than Flash, which means it can run in any modern browser. It's also slick and well designed, with an interface that's reminiscent of Photoshop Express, and a choice of dark or light color schemes.
With Pixlr X, you can make fine changes to colors and saturation, sharpen and blur images, apply vignette effects and frames, and combine multiple images. There's also support for layers, which you won't find in many free online photo editors, and an array of tools for painting and drawing. A great choice for even advanced tasks.
9. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor
A convenient way to correct lighting and exposure problems
Stylish design
As its name suggests, Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a trimmed-down, browser-based version of the company's world-leading photo editing software. Perhaps surprisingly, it features a more extensive toolkit than the downloadable Photoshop Express app, but it only supports images in JPG format that are below 16MB.
Again, this is a Flash-based tool, but Adobe provides handy mobile apps for all platforms so you won’t miss out if you’re using a smartphone or tablet.
This free online photo editor has all the panache you’d expect from Adobe, and although it doesn’t boast quite as many tools as some of its rivals, everything that’s there is polished to perfection. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a pleasure to use. Its only drawbacks are the limits on uploaded file size and types, and lack of support for layers.
10. PiZap
A fun photo editor for preparing your pictures for social media
Templates for social media
Free online photo editor PiZap is available in both HTML5 and Flash editions, making it suitable for any device. You can choose to work with a photo from your hard drive, Facebook, Google Photos, Google Drive, Google Search, or a catalog of stock images. This is an impressive choice, though some of the stock images are only available to premium subscribers, and you'll need to watch out for copyright issues if you use a pic straight from Google Images.
piZap’s editing interface has a dark, modern design that makes heavy use of sliders for quick adjustments – a system that works much better than tricky icons and drop-down menus if you’re using a touchscreen device.
When you’re done, you can share your creation on all the biggest social media networks, as well as piZap’s own servers, Dropbox and Google Drive. Alternatively, you can save it to your hard drive, send it via email, or grab an embed code. You can only export your work in high quality if you’ve opened your wallet for the premium editor, but for silly social sharing that’s unlikely to be a problem.
- Get your videos YouTube-ready with the best video editing software
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Easiest to Dive In | |
Photography Plan | Photoshop Elements |
How We Found the Best Photo Editing Software Programs
5 programs tested
The Best Photo Editing Software Programs
To find the best photo editing software, we pitted the best programs tech-giant Adobe has to offer (Photoshop, Lightroom, and Photo Elements) against three highly commended competitors to find out which one was user-friendly enough for beginners and powerful enough for professionals.
The 3 Best Photo Editing Software Programs
- Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan -Most Powerful
- Serif Affinity Photo -Easiest to Dive In
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 -Best for One-Click Editing
Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan
The most powerful range of photo-editing tools, combining Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.
Pros
Access to Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC
Customizable image editing tools
Easy to learn
Access to Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC
Customizable image editing tools
Easy to learn
Why we chose it
Access to Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC
The Adobe Photography Plan combines two Adobe applications — Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC — into one bundle. Lightroom CC is Adobe’s dedicated photography software. If you’re working with large quantities of photos, you’ll want to take advantage of Lightroom’s organizational system: With it, you can rank photos out of five stars, tag photos, and edit information to keep track of where you took a photo. Subscribing to Lightroom CC (either on its own or as part of the Photography Plan) also gives iPhone and iPad users access to a mobile version of the software.
Photoshop CC, meanwhile, won’t do much to help you stay organized — but it has more advanced tools than Lightroom, like layers, masks, and customizable toolbars.
Customizable image editing tools
Photoshop has over sixty basic tools and customizations to choose from, in addition to its more advanced color, lighting, filter, and 3D tools (among others). These basic tools themselves are customizable, so you can do more than just correct red eyes; you can also specify how large, dark, or light you want pupils to appear. More advanced tools — everything from saturation and contrast to lens correction, liquefy, and RAW photo processing — are similarly customizable. Actions are also processed rapidly, allowing you to quickly assess whether your experiments are working.
Easy to learn
Despite the number of tools (and how easy it is to fall into the rabbit warren of adjustments and filters), we found Adobe surprisingly easy to use. You should expect a learning curve, since Photoshop is intended to be an extremely hands-on program, but Adobe supports you at every step. It has an abundance of online resources — a hidden benefit to choosing a company that’s been in the field for decades — and Photoshop CC particularly impressed us with its tutorials and guidance, helping us learn both terminology (what exactly the clone tool does) and technique (how to create and add to masks).
Hovering over the individual tools in Photoshop's left-hand bar pops up five-second gifs that demonstrate each tool — though you can easily change your settings and remove this feature once you get the hang of things.
Points to consider
Subscription service
Our only complaint about Adobe’s Photography Plan is that it’s a subscription service; you’ll sign up for a year-long contract and pay fees monthly rather than making a one-time purchase. While this subscription is significantly cheaper than the one-time purchase model that Photoshop used to follow (complete with a painful $1,500 price tag), if you cancel your subscription, you’ll lose access to all of the programs and tools, as well as any photos that remain in Adobe’s proprietary format. Make sure you’ve completely exported your library if you decide to cancel your contract.
Photoshop CC | |||
Photoshop CC | |||
Serif Affinity Photo
A cheaper alternative to Photoshop. Not quite as powerful, but a little more intuitive for beginners.
Cons
No organizational tools
No organizational tools
Why we chose it
Easy to use
We were primarily drawn to Serif Affinity Photo because of how easy it was to use. Its customizable control panel initially appears overwhelming, with 22 adjustments options immediately available on your right-hand dashboard. However, each one is neatly packaged so that no matter what you want to do, you can quickly find and open the relevant folder.
Helpful presets
We also appreciated how Serif provides a number of immediate preset options on all of its effects. You can also manually adjust each effect for more control, but the presets offer a nice introduction for beginners.
One-time purchase
One of the keenest edges Serif Affinity has over Adobe’s Photography plan is that it’s a one-time purchase of $50, rather than a $10 or $20 monthly subscription. This means that, depending on your cloud storage needs (in turn based on how many photos you have and their editing needs), Serif Affinity becomes the more affordable plan after five months, possibly as early as three months.
Points to consider
No organizational tools
However, Serif Affinity’s budget plan comes with one significant drawback: It doesn’t offer any organizational tools. If you’re dealing with hundreds or thousands of photos that you need to organize, or would like to sort by place, date, or personalized keyword, you’ll want to consider Adobe’s Photography Plan or take a look at Photoshop Elements 2018.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018
If you value quick, easy results over learning new techniques, this program does most of the work for you.
Pros
One-click editing
Settings for different skill levels
One-click editing
Settings for different skill levels
Why we chose it
One-click editing
If you’re just trying to create, say, annual holiday cards, and the idea of learning new photo editing terms, tools, tricks, and techniques feels daunting, Adobe Photoshop Elements transforms the process into a few simple clicks — with a couple of sliders you can adjust if you’re feeling adventurous. That’s it. Photoshop Elements 2018 gives you high-quality photographs without a technical learning curve, so long as you stay within its predetermined adjustments.
Settings for different skill levels
We love that Photoshop Elements offers three tiers of photo editing: Quick, Guided, and Expert. Quick is simply that — with a few auto-adjustments, possibly a camera filter or picture frame, you can take your photograph from raw image to printer-ready. Guided gives you almost 50 options, where it will walk you through step-by-step the process of adjusting brightness, straightening or resizing a photo, or adding filters. Finally, the Expert mode lays out all of the program’s tools with minimal instruction.
Points to consider
Light on advanced editing tools
Even though the Expert mode of Photoshop Elements is more advanced than either the Quick or Guided modes, it doesn’t compete with our top picks. In addition to its clunky ‘90s-era design, it lacks all of the tools found in Photoshop CC or Serif Affinity Photo. That said, it could be a good introduction when you feel like trying out some additional techniques outside of the guided programs.
How to Find the Right Photo Editing Software for You
Decide what tools you need
Different types of image editing require different tools. No matter what you’ll be doing, you’ll want to know which ones you need for your most common projects — these functions might not be immediately necessary, but they’ll let you tackle tasks a little more complex than wiping away corgi footprints.
- Layers let you combine separate images or edit specific areas of a photograph. These are helpful if you’re trying to remove a photo-bomber from your wedding ceremony on the beach or swapping out the snowy background of your cute dog photo to send him floating through space instead.
- Applying a mask layer is another technique to isolate areas of a photo for specific editing. If you’d like to make changes to the background of your photograph without affecting the subject, or if you’d like to create a cut-out of a tiny dog from one photograph to layer him into a desert landscape in another, you’ll probably use a mask.
- Finally, preset filters let you adjust your photos with a single click. These could either take the form of a typical Instagram filter (you click “Black and White” or “Landscape” and it automatically alters your photo) or auto-adjustments on a tool-by-tool case.
Knowing what types of editing you’ll be using the software for will help you narrow down which tools are essential and which are just nice to have.
Test drive several options
All of our top picks offer a free trial, and we recommend taking full advantage of them. You probably know what you’re going to be using the software for, and now’s a good time to see how each of them perform on the type of image editing you need. Pay attention to the number of tools and effects provided, how easy they are to use, and the organization features of each program.
Determine how much you’re willing to spend
Prices for photo editing software vary a lot, and depending on what you’ll be using it for, you may not need to pay a premium. The most powerful tool on the market, Adobe’s Photography Plan, runs on a subscription model for $10 per month. If you don’t need all of that technical prowess, Serif Affinity will meet all your image editing needs for a one-time purchase of $50. There are even a number of free photo editing software options available if you don’t want to make any investment.
Photo Editing Software FAQ
In most situations, you should edit your photos in the raw camera format as opposed to a standard format like JPEG. The raw files will contain a lot more information about the picture, so you can be more precise in your editing. Once you’re ready to show it to the world, you can then convert it to a shareable format like JPEG or PNG.
You can download and install Photoshop on up to two computers, regardless of the operating system. However, you’ll only be able to use one Photoshop on one computer at a time.
What's the difference between Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom?
Photoshop CC is the more powerful editing tool — you’ll need to manipulate multiple layers here — while Lightroom CC offers sorting and organizing features into its slightly more basic editing capabilities. Both programs offer preset filters as well, so you can adjust your photos to a preset perfection with only a few clicks. Adobe’s Photography plan includes both programs.
The Best Photo Editing Software Programs: Summed Up
Best Photo Editors For Mac
Our Other Software Reviews
Over the years, we’ve put just about every type of software imaginable through the ringer to find the best of the best. Check out some of our favorite reviews below: