• Free Easy Photo Editing Program
• Best Mac For Photo Editing
• Easy Photo Editing Program Like Photoshop
• Best Free Photo Editing Programs
• Easy Photo Editing Program For Mac

Sure, it’s mostly for editing your photos and doesn’t make an exceptional alternative to Photoshop (with a distinct lack of layers, selection marquees and in-depth RAW editing), but for quick edits and touch-ups on your Mac you don’t necessarily need to download any additional software. Affinity Pro photo editing software was earlier released only for Mac users but the latest update has covered the Window devices too. It consists of wide range of editing tools and extends support to almost 15 popular file formats.

What Kind of Photo Editing Software Do You Need?

Whether you merely shoot with your smartphone or you're a professional photographer with a studio, you need software to organize and edit your photos. We all know that camera technology is improving at a tremendous rate. Today's smartphones are more powerful than the point-and-shoots of just a few years ago. The same can be said for photo editing software. 'Photoshopping' pictures is no longer the exclusive province of art directors and professional photographers. Whether you're shooting from an iPhone XS or a DSLR, if you really care how your photos look, you'll want to import them into your PC to organize them, pick the best ones, perfect them, and print or share them online. Here we present the best choices in photo editing software to suit every photographer, from the casual to the professional.

Of course, novice shooters will want different software from those shooting with a $50,000 Phase One IQ3 in a studio. We've included all levels of PC software here, however, and reading the linked reviews will make it clear which is for you. Nothing says that pros can't occasionally use an entry-level application or that a prosumer won't be running Photoshop, the most powerful image editor around. The issue is that, in general, users at each of these levels will be most comfortable with the products that are intended for them.

Note that in the table above, it's not a case of 'more checks mean the program is better.' Rather, it's designed to give you the quick overview of the products. A product with everything checked doesn't necessarily have the best implementation of those features, and one with fewer checks still may be very capable, and whether you even need the checked feature depends on your photo workflow. For example, DxO Photolab may not have face recognition or keyword tagging, but it has the finest noise reduction in the land and some of the best camera- and lens-based profile corrections.

Free Photo Editing Options

So you've graduated from smartphone photography tools like those offered by Instagram and Facebook. Does that mean you have to pay a ton for high-end software? Absolutely not. Big mac stats. Up-to-date desktop operating systems include photo software at no extra cost. The Microsoft Photos app included with Windows 10 may surprise some users with its capabilities. In a touch-friendly interface, it offers a good level of image correction, autotagging, blemish removal, face recognition, and raw camera file support. It can even automatically create editable albums based on photos' dates and locations.

Apple Photos does those things too, though its automatic albums aren't as editable. Both programs also sync with online storage services: iCloud for Apple and OneDrive for Microsoft. With Apple Photos, you can search based on detected object types, like 'tree' or 'cat' in the application (Microsoft Photos now offers this feature, too). Apple Photos also can integrate with plugins like the excellent Perfectly Clear, appeasing power users who lament the company's discontinuation of the prosumer-level Aperture program.

Free Easy Photo Editing Program

Ubuntu Linux users are also covered when it comes to free, included photo software: They can use the capable-enough Shotwell app. And no discussion of free photo editing software would be complete without mentioning the venerable GIMP, which is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It offers a ton of photoshop-style plugins and editing capabilities, but very little in the way of creature comforts or usability. Other lightweight, low-cost options include Polarr and Pixlr.

How to Edit Your Photos Online

In this roundup, we've only included installable computer software, but entry-level photo shooters may be adequately served by online photo-editing options. These are mostly free, and they're often tied to online photo storage and sharing services. Flickr (with its integrated photo editor) and Google Photos are the biggest names here, and both can spiff up your uploaded pictures and do a lot to help you organize them. They even approach the two entry-level installed programs here, but they lack many tools found in the pro and enthusiast products. The latest version of Lightroom CC includes a good deal of photo-editing capabilties in its included website, too. Other notable names in web-based photo editing include BeFunky, Fotor, and PicMonkey.

Image Editing for Enthusiasts and Prosumers

Most of the products in this roundup fall into this category, which includes people who genuinely love working with digital photographs. These are not free applications, and they require a few hundred megabytes of your disk space. Several, such as Lightroom and CyberLink PhotoDirector, are strong when it comes to workflow—importing, organizing, editing, and outputting the photos from a DSLR. Such apps offer nondestructive editing, meaning the original photo files aren't touched. Instead, a database of edits you apply is maintained, and they appear in photos that you export from the application. These apps also offer strong organization tools, including keyword tagging, color-coding, geo-tagging with maps, and in some cases face recognition to organize photos by what people appear in them.

At the back end of workflow is output. Capable software like Lightroom Classic offers powerful printing options such as soft-proofing, which shows you whether the printer you use can produce the colors in your photo or not. (Strangely, the new version of Lightroom CC—non-Classic—offers no printing capability at all.) Lightroom Classic can directly share photos to sites like Flickr and SmugMug. In fact, all really good software at this level offers strong printing and sharing, and some, like ACDSee and Lightroom, offer their own online photo hosting.

The programs at the enthusiast level and the professional level can import and edit raw files from your digital camera. These are files that include every bit of data from the camera's image sensor. Each camera manufacturer uses its own format and file extension for these. For example, Canon DSLRs use CR2 files and Nikon uses NEF. (Raw here simply means what it sounds like, a file with the raw sensor data; it's not an acronym or file extension, so there's no reason to capitalize it.)

Working with raw files provides some big advantages when it comes to correcting (often termed adjusting) photos. Since the photo you see on screen is just one interpretation of what's in the raw file, the software can dig into that data to recover more detail in a bright sky, or it can fully fix an improperly rendered white balance. If you set your camera to shoot with JPGs, you're losing those capabilities.

Enthusiasts want to do more than just import, organize and render their photos: They want to do fun stuff, too! Editors' Choice Adobe Photoshop Elements includes Guided Edits, which make special effects like motion blur or color splash (where only one color shows on an otherwise black-and-white photo) a simple step-by-step process.

Content-aware tools in some of these products let you do things like move objects around while maintaining a consistent background, or remove objects entirely—say you want to remove a couple of strangers from a serene beach scene—and have the app fill in the background. These edits don't involve simple filters like you get in Instagram. Rather, they produce highly customized, one-off images. Another good example is CyberLink PhotoDirector's Multiple Exposure effect, which lets you create an image with ten versions of Johnny jumping that curb on his skateboard, for example.

Most of these products can produce HDR effects and panoramas after you feed them multiple shots, and local edit brushes let you paint adjustments onto only specific areas of an image. Affinity Photo has those features, but its interface isn't intuitive, and it lacks management and lens profile corrections. Capture One, Paintshop Pro, and Lightroom have those and even more precise tools for local selections in recent versions. For example they let you select everything in a photo within a precise color range and refine the selection of difficult content such as a model's hair or trees on the horizon.

Professional Photo Editing Software

At the very top end of image editing is Photoshop, which has no real rival. Its layered editing, drawing, text, and 3D-imaging tools are the industry standard for a reason. Of course, pros need more than this one application, and many use workflow programs like Lightroom, AfterShot Pro, or Photo Mechanic for workflow functions like import and organization. In addition to its workflow prowess, Lightroom offers mobile photo apps so that photographers on the run can get some work done before they even get back to their PC. Those who need tethered shooting (taking pictures in the software from the computer while it's attached to the camera) may want Capture One, which is offers lots of tools for that along with its top-notch raw-file conversion.

Photoshop offers all and more of the image editing capabilities in anything mentioned above, though it doesn't always make producing those effects as simple, and it doesn't offer a nondestructive workflow, as Lightroom and some others do. Of course, some users with less-intensive needs can get all the Photoshop-type features they need from other products in this roundup, such as Corel PaintShop Pro. DxO OpticPro is another tool pros may want in their kit, because of its excellent lens-profile based corrections and unmatched DxO Prime noise reduction.

Photoshop is also where you find Adobe's latest and greatest imaging technology, such as Content-Aware Crop, Camera Shake Reduction, Perspective Warp, and Detail Enhancement. The program has the most tools for professionals in the imaging industry, including Artboards, Design Spaces, and realistic, customizable brushes.

Another advantage of pro-level photo editing software is that you can take advantage of third-party plug-ins such as the excellent Nik Collection by DxO. These can add more effects and adjustments than you find in the base software. They often include tools for film looks, sharpening, and noise reduction.

Some users have taken umbrage at Adobe's move to a subscription-only option for Photoshop, but at $9.99 per month, it hardly seems exorbitant for any serious image professional, and it includes a copy of Lightroom, online services like Adobe Stock, and multiple mobile apps. It definitely makes the app more affordable for prosumer users, too, when you consider that a full copy of Photoshop used to cost a cool $999.

If you're an absolute beginner in digital photography, your first step is to make sure you've got good hardware to shoot with, otherwise you're sunk before you start. Consider our roundups of the Best Digital Cameras and the Best Camera phones for equipment that can fit any budget. Once you've got your hardware sorted, make sure to educate yourself with our Quick Photography Tips for Beginners and our Beyond-Basic Photography Tips, too. That done, you'll be ready to shoot great pictures that you can make better with the software featured in this story. Click the links below for to read the full reviews.

Best Photo Editing Software in This Roundup:

• Adobe Photoshop CC Review

  
  MSRP: $9.99
  

  Pros: Multitude of photo correction and manipulation tools. Slick interface with lots of help. Tools for mobile and web design. Rich set of drawing and typography tools. 3D design capability. Synced Libraries.

  Cons: No perpetual-license option. Premium assets aren't cheap. Interface can be overwhelming at times. Lacks support for HEIC.

  Bottom Line: Adobe continues to improve the world's leading photo editing software. The 2018 edition adds a new auto-select tool, raw camera profiles, loads of font and drawing capabilities, and support for the Microsoft Surface Dial.

  Read Review

• Adobe Lightroom Classic Review

  
  MSRP: $9.99
  

  Pros: Excellent photo management and organization. Camera and lens-based corrections. Brush and gradient adjustments with color and luminance masking. Face detection and tagging. Plug-in support. Connected mobile apps.

  Cons: Although improved, import is still slow. Initial raw conversion is slightly more detailed in some competing products.

  Bottom Line: Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom remains the gold standard in pro photo workflow software. It's a complete package, with top-notch organization tools, state of-the-art adjustments, and all the output and printing options you'd want.

  Read Review

• Adobe Photoshop Elements Review

  
  MSRP: $99.99
  

  Pros: Many powerful image-manipulation tools. Strong face- and geo-tagging capabilities. Excellent output options. Auto-tagging and powerful search options. Helpful guidance for advanced techniques.

  Cons: Large disk footprint. No HEIF support on Windows. No chromatic aberration correction or lens geometry profiles. Lacks many social sharing outputs. No local help system.

  Bottom Line: Adobe Photoshop Elements, our favorite consumer-level photo editor and organizer, adds AI-powered auto-curation, an open closed eyes tool, and new Guided Edits.

  Read Review

• DxO PhotoLab Review

  
  MSRP: $129.00
  

  Pros: Clear interface. Best-in-class noise reduction. Excellent autocorrection based on camera and lens characteristics. Haze remover. Geometry corrections. Powerful local adjustments.

  Cons: Few workflow tools. Highest noise-reduction setting can require long waits.

  Bottom Line: Though it's still not a complete photo workflow solution, DxO PhotoLab can deliver image results beyond what's possible in other photo software.

  Read Review

• Corel PaintShop Pro Review

  
  MSRP: $79.99
  

  Pros: Photoshop-like features at a lower price. Powerful effects and editing tools. Tutorials. Good assortment of vector drawing tools.

  Cons: Interface can get cluttered. Ineffective chromatic aberration removal. No face or object recognition. No Mac version.

  Bottom Line: Corel continues to add new photo editing possibilities to its PaintShop Pro software, making it a worthy Photoshop alternative at a budget-conscious, one-time price.

  Read Review

• CyberLink PhotoDirector Review

  
  MSRP: $99.99
  

  Pros: Friendly yet powerful interface. Effective noise reduction. Cool multiple-exposure and faux HDR effects. Body shaper and other powerful editing tools. Layer support. Cool AI styles. Tethered shooting support.

  Cons: Not enough lens-profile corrections. Inadequate chromatic aberration correction. No geotag maps.

  Bottom Line: Photo workflow and editing program CyberLink PhotoDirector offers a smooth interface and powerful capabilities. New in this version are multiple-exposure effects, more layer options, and a video-to-photo tool.

  Read Review

• Phase One Capture One Pro Review

  
  MSRP: $299.00
  

  Pros: Excellent raw file conversion. Pleasing interface. Fast import. Good photo-adjustment toolset. Keyword tagging tool.

  Cons: Some usability quirks. No online-sharing features. No face recognition. No panorama or HDR merging capabilities.

  Bottom Line: Phase One Capture One offers pro and prosumer digital photographers excellent detail from raw camera files, and local adjustments including layers, but it trails in organization tools.

  Read Review

• ACDSee Photo Studio Professional Review

  
  MSRP: $99.99
  

  Pros: Full set of image editing tools. Good performance. Lens-profile-based geometry correction. Face recognition and geotagging. Good skin-improvement tools. Responsive performance. Cloud storage integration.

  Cons: Interface not as polished as others. Lens-profile-based image correction tools less effective than the competition's. Weak noise and chromatic aberration tools.

  Bottom Line: ACDSee's pro-level tool offers many powerful photo organizing and editing tools, but it falls short of competitors in raw camera file conversion and usability.

  Read Review

• Exposure Review

  
  MSRP: $149.00
  

  Pros: Pleasing interface. Lots of nifty effects and filters. Fast image transfer. Layers and local adjustments. Good printing options.

  Cons: No auto-correction tools. Weak lens-profile corrections. No chromatic aberration correction. No face or geo-tagging.

  Bottom Line: Photo-workflow application Exposure is similar to Adobe's Lightroom. It boasts lots of filter effects, but it's missing some key capabilities, such as automatic image correction.

  Read Review

• Skylum Luminar Review

  
  MSRP: $69.00
  

  Pros: Pleasing interface. Good automatic photo fixes. Lots of filters. Local adjustments with brush and gradients. Curves. Multiple workspaces and catalogs.

  Cons: Some speed and reliability issues on Windows. No Library search. Some standard controls are buried. No face recognition or keyword tagging.

  Bottom Line: Skylum Luminar offers effective automatic photo enhancement, a modern interface, and some unique filters and adjustment tools. Its organization capabilities, however, fall short of the competition's.

  Read Review

Photos capture the precious moments of our lives. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to take high-quality pictures on the first try – it’s not often that you actually want a random passerby or a misplaced finger to feature in your photos. And you know that good lighting would really enrich the colors in your pictures. And then there are the photographs that tend to fade and yellow with time. To fix these problems, you need Movavi Photo Editor for Mac – a simple program that’s equally good both for beginners and professionals.

Don’t waste your time trying to figure out how to use complicated desktop applications for photo processing. Download our easy-to-use photo editing software for Mac: it will enhance your images faster than many other image editing apps!

• Erase Unwanted Objects

• Enhance Image Quality

• Restore Old Photos

• Retouch Portraits

Erase Unwanted Objects with Photo Editor for Mac

Get Rid of Excess Stuff in Your Photos

No need to avoid shooting photos in crowded places. Take photographs wherever you want and then just remove unwanted objects, random people, trash, or bad graffiti from your digital images with Movavi’s photo software. The Object Removal tool uses great care to cover all those little flaws in just a couple of minutes!

Download Movavi Photo Editor and check out all the features of the program.

Enhance Image Quality

Make Your Photos Come Alive

Is overcast weather dulling down your photographs? Don’t panic! Mac Photo Editor will automatically amp up the brightness and contrast in your image at the touch of the Magic Enhance button. You can also change the settings manually to achieve the desired effect. See how the image adjustment works by dragging the slider under the picture.

Magic Enhance

Looking for a way to restore photos taken decades ago?

Movavi Photo Editor with its advanced image editing tools quickly removes fold lines, stains, and other small defects from old photographs that you’ve scanned. You can also automatically add color to your black-and-white photos. The program uses a smart fill algorithm to analyze and repair parts of the image that have suffered from aging. Just click the Restore button and wait for the image editor to do the photo processing for you!

Retouch portraits

Improve Your Look in an Instant

Professional photo retouching can be easy and fun. What’s more, it’s affordable with our user-friendly photo editor for Mac. Try new makeup or dye your hair. Remove skin blemishes or slim down your face. Get a Hollywood smile with the Teeth whitening tool. The only limit is your imagination!

Try All the Features of Movavi's picture editor for Mac OS

White Balance

Best Mac For Photo Editing

Adjust the lighting in images. Make the photos in your library look natural.

Effects

Apply a range of creative and subtle filters to create different looks.

Text

Insert captions and titles, add decorative elements.

Sharpness & Details

Adjust clarity in blurred images and bring out textures.

Retouching

Remove blemishes, smooth out wrinkles, get rid of shine, and correct red-eye.

Crop, Rotate, Resize

Improve composition, straighten the horizon, shrink images for the Web.

Color Correction

Make your colors richer while keeping skin tones natural-looking.

Easy Photo Editing Program Like Photoshop

Makeup

Airbrush digital eyeshadow, mascara, and lipstick onto your portraits.

Inserting

Combine images and image elements to make collages.

Noise Reduction

Use presets to reduce digital noise in low-light photos.

Reshaping

Alter face shapes and silhouettes, sculpt noses, enlarge eyes.

Change Out Backgrounds

Replace the background, make it transparent, or set any color as the new background.

Looking for a quick and easy way to edit pictures? Install Movavi Photo Editor on any Apple personal computer compatible with Mac OS versions 10.7–10.13, for example, OS X Lion, OS X Yosemite, OS X El Capitan, macOS Sierra. The app is so easy to learn that you don’t even have to know the basics about how to edit photos on Mac. You can get to work on your MacBook Pro or Mac mini right away.

Best Video Software for the Mac How To Run MacOS High Sierra or Another OS on Your Mac Best Graphic Design Software the Mac Stay Safe with Best Free. Best programs for mac. Make the most of your Mac - install Microsoft Office suites or run Windows. Buy online with fast, free shipping.

About

System Requirements

PHOTO EDITOR + PHOTO MANAGER

Edit your favorite photos and quickly organize images

PHOTO EDITOR + PHOTO MANAGER

Edit your favorite photos and quickly organize images

PHOTO EDITOR + PHOTO MANAGER + SLIDESHOW MAKER

Edit photos, organize images, and create great slideshows

PHOTO EDITOR + PHOTO MANAGER + SLIDESHOW MAKER

Best Free Photo Editing Programs

Edit photos, organize images, and create great slideshows

Easy Photo Editing Program For Mac

PHOTO EDITOR + PHOTO MANAGER

Edit your favorite photos and quickly organize images

PHOTO EDITOR + PHOTO MANAGER

Edit your favorite photos and quickly organize images

PHOTO EDITOR + PHOTO MANAGER + SLIDESHOW MAKER

Edit photos, organize images, and create great slideshows

PHOTO EDITOR + PHOTO MANAGER + SLIDESHOW MAKER

Edit photos, organize images, and create great slideshows

Leave us your email, and we'll send you the link to download the program to a computer.