GIMP is an open source free photo editing software for Mac. Its name means GNU Image Manipulation Program, and it is a raster graphics editor developed by volunteers worldwide. GIMP can be used for image retouching and editing, drawing, conversion between different image formats and more. If you could create your own photo editing software, it would work like this. Whether it’s quick corrections, delicate retouching, or immersing yourself in complex fine art with hundreds of layers, Affinity Photo has you covered. Mac App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.
If you could create your own photo editing software, it would work like this. Whether it’s quick corrections, delicate retouching, or immersing yourself in complex fine art with hundreds of layers, Affinity Photo has you covered.
Jun 30, 2015 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.
Trusted by professionals
- Dec 18, 2019 Affinity Photo is a past Apple Mac App of the Year Winner and the professional tool has everything you’d expect in a premium photo-editing product. Use it to edit and retouch images as well as create multi-layer pieces. The professional corrections and adjustments tools rival any other app out there and it has a great noise-reduction filter.
- Best Free Photo Editing Software for Mac 2020 1. GIMP 2.10 GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and is one of the best free photo editor apps that you'll get.
- Organize your collection into albums, or keep your photos organized automatically with smart albums. Perfect your images with intuitive built-in editing tools, or use your favorite photos apps. And with iCloud Photos, you can keep all your photos and videos stored in iCloud and up to date on your Mac, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and even your PC.
Affinity Photo has become the first choice for photography and creative professionals around the world, who love its speed, power and precision. Born to work hand-in-hand with the latest powerful computer technology, it’s the only fully-loaded photo editor integrated across macOS, Windows and iOS.
Raw Editing
HDR Merge
Panorama Stitching
Focus Stacking
Batch Processing
PSD Editing
360 Image Editing
Multi Layer Comp
Smart Object Support
Digital Painting
Performance and power
The raw power under the hood of Affinity Photo will leave you amazed at how quickly you can work. Watch your edits render in real time and dive into the huge toolset, tailored to the demands of a professional workflow.
- + Live, real time editing
- + Massive image support (100+ Megapixels)
- + Super smooth pan and zoom at 60fps
- + Open and edit PSD and PSB files
- + PSD smart object import
Support for Nik Collection 2.5 by DxO
Support for one of the most powerful photo editing plug-ins.
Flawless retouching
Whether you want to make quick corrections, or spend time on a detailed retouch, Affinity Photo has a complete set of retouching tools and dedicated features to help.
- + Smooth and retouch skin with frequency separation
- + Dodge, burn, clone, patch and blemish removal tools
- + Dedicated liquify workspace for sculpting features
- + Remove unwanted objects with the magical inpainting brush
Incredible live filter layers
Effects like blurs, lighting, distortions and perspective corrections can all be applied as non-destructive live filter layers. This means you can erase away from them, mask them, reorder them and adjust parameters at any time. It’s a completely new way to work.
- + Add filter effects non-destructively
- + Apply to single layers or over a whole layer stack
- + Mask and erase areas after they have been applied
- + Live full resolution preview at all times
Full RAW Development
Shoot in RAW and enjoy an end-to-end 16-bit, super smooth experience in Affinity Photo. Bring out all the details, and control those finer corrections to take that perfect shot to another level.
- + Professional lens corrections
- + Adjust exposure, blackpoint, white balance and much more
- + View histograms, blown highlights, shadows and tones
- + View and edit EXIF information
- + Best in class noise reduction and hot pixel removal
- + Import XMP files (metadata only)
- + Edit metadata
- + Batch copyright and rights information
Breathtaking compositions
With support for limitless layers, Affinity Photo provides a full library of adjustments, effects and live filters, all of which can be grouped, clipped, masked or blended together to create incredibly complex image compositions.
- + Unlimited layers
- + Layer effects
- + Live blend modes
- + Mask & clipping layers
- + Vector and text tools
Beautiful brushwork
Affinity Photo’s super smooth brush engine and advanced dynamics offers the most fluid and natural painting experience available.
- + Huge library of brushes included
- + Create custom brushes with advanced dynamics
- + Combine multiple brushes together in a single stroke
- + Full support for Wacom and other graphics tablets
- + Full support for Apple Pencil (iPad version)
- + Import .abr brush files
Faultless photo stitching
Get perfect panoramas every time with Affinity Photo’s advanced stitching algorithm, including automatic image alignment and full perspective corrections.
Refined selections
Achieve a level of accuracy you never thought possible with Affinity Photo’s advanced selection refinement algorithms. Whether cutting out objects, creating masks or selectively applying adjustments, you can make extremely precise selections – even down to individual strands of hair – with ease.
- + Selection brush & magic wand
- + Marquee and lasso tools
- + Advance selection refinement
- + Paint to select
- + Pen tool
Stunning HDR
Affinity Photo’s HDR algorithm creates incredibly natural-looking images enabling you to unlock the full dynamic range of the scene. You can work natively with the full 32-bit image, or use extensive tone mapping facilities for beautiful results.
- + Unlimited source images
- + Full tone mapping controls
- + Merge directly from RAW
- + Alignment and perspective correction
Focus merge
Expertly merge multiple images taken at different focal distances for detailed macro photography results. Affinity Photo takes care of the alignment and completes a deep analysis to determine the best areas of each image to use.
32-bit workflow
The only photo editing tool to offer full end-to-end 32-bit workflow for working on HDR images, renders, textures or exports from 3D software.
- + OpenEXR and Radiance HDR support
- + Import OpenColorIO configurations
- + HDR / EDR monitor support
Any device, anywhere
The first professional photo editing application with full editing power and 100% file format compatibility across Windows, Mac and iPad allowing you to work with the same file across any device.
Best-in-class PSD Import/Export
PSD Import/Export
PSB Import
Layer Integrity
Plugins Supported
Brush Support
PSD Smart Object import
Buy now €54.99 Free trial
Buy now €54.99 Free trial
This website uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Find out more Editing your photos on your iPhone is one thing, but editing your photos on your Mac can take your photography skills to a whole 'nother level.
Many of us still keep our main libraries on our Macs because of its faster processors, larger storage, and all-around bigger computing power. 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 few more things. However, in all honesty? It's not really meant to be a robust editing app, so If you are looking for something to really finish your photos right, we've got a list of the best photo editors for Mac right here. Let's go!
Affinity Photo
If you're looking for a photo editing app that goes above and beyond for the pricetag, while still allowing you complete creative control over your images, then it might be worth it to take a peek at Affinity Photo.
Affinity Photo supports unlimited layers, groups, layer adjustments, filters, masking, and more: you also have access to tools like dodge, red-eye fix, burn, blemish, clone, and patch (so pretty much Photoshop without all the convoluted bells and whistles). Nondestructive auto-saving makes undoing everything you've done easy, so if you need to start from the beginning, the option is there.
Play, manipulate, edit, and get hella creative with Affinity Photo whether you're a serious graphic designer or someone who's just looking to do some basic editing. Your photography will seriously thank you.
- $49.99 - Download now
Fotor Photo Editor
Software For Retouching Photos
Searching for a super simple, straight-forward photo editing app that's there to help you edit and not confuse you to the point of ripping out your hair? Then check out Fotor Photo Editor!
With this photo editor, you can easily adjust contrast and color of more washed-out photos, add borders, tilt and shift your images, add different text, slap on a few filters, and so much more, all from the easy-to-find toolbox on the right side of the app. You can even create collages of your photography masterpieces!
The BBC once called Fotor Photo Editor 'light Photoshop', and they're kind of right! You can go above and beyond editing your images with Fotor Photo Editor without getting bogged down by more complicated editing buttons and tools.
- Free - Download now
Lightroom
When you look into photo editing software, one of the first things that'll pop up is Adobe's Lightroom, and for good reason! It's essentially a staple in the photo editing community.
Lightroom is great for photographers who need to manage a large image library, and who are prepared to commit to (and pay for) Adobe's cloud storage space. But it is purely a photography tool that's a little outside the regular Adobe design ecosystem. (Creative Bloq)
Pretty much anything you want to do with your photo, you can accomplish with Lightroom. You can blend and merge shadows and highlights, sharpen dull, blurry images so they look crisp and clear, add details and tint colors to make a photo stand out, and so, so much more.
While it is a bit more on the complicated side, people who use the program and know how to navigate it are hooked. Keep in mind, there are two versions of the app — there's the Classic version, which is more preferred, and the 2018 CC version.
If you're hesitant about the program and paying for it, you can download Lightroom free for 30 days as part of a trial period. After that, you can add it to your Photoshop CC subscription for $9.99 per month.
- Free trial - Download now
Pixelmator
Amp up your photo editing skills with a little bit of help from Pixelmator!
This particular photo editing app allows you to combine two different photos into one (while still allowing you to edit over each layer), add shapes, gradients, filters, tints, and more, and completely change and edit your photography to make it fit perfectly to your aesthetic. You can even mask and cut off certain areas of the photo, giving you more creative control over your final image.
Similar to other photo editing apps, you can also adjust contrast, color, saturation level, definition, and so much more.
It's another great alternative to Photoshop, at least according to our managing editor Lory Gil.
- $29.99 - Download now
GIMP
Love Photoshop (or the idea of Photoshop...) but don't want all the complicated components and nonsense that comes along with it? Then it might be worth it to take a peek at GIMP.
Similar to Photoshop, GIMP allows you full control over editing your photos: it's an advanced image manipulation program with detailed customization for color reproduction.
You can add layers to your photos, edit and tweak colors, adjust contrast, crop, adjust saturation, and so much more. If you're someone who admires Photoshop but is terrified of the price (or just thinks it's not worth it) then GIMP might be the perfect pal for you.
- Free - Download now
Best Photo Retouching Software For Mac
Snapheal
Say 'bye-bye' to nasty photobombs, zits, perky distractions, and so much more in your photos thanks to Snapheal!
Snapheal is a little bit unique in the sense that it's more of a 'delete now, ask questions later' app. It's more about cleaning up a photo than it is editing it and adding a whole bunch of layers. The tools can either remove large objects or smaller imperfections depending on the mode. You can even adjust the masking tool, use a magic rope, or clone stamp your way to a new photo.
If you're someone who's a perfectionist when it comes to your photography and you just can't stand that one stupid, distracting blur in the background, then Snapheal is the guy for you.
- $7.99 - Download now
Preview
I know what you're thinking: 'Preview? Really, Cella?'
To which I respond: 'Uh, yeah. Duh, my dude. You use it every day!'
Sure, you can't do a bunch of fancy things with Preview like add filters, adjust contrast, and fix saturation, but you can quickly crop a photo, adjust the color, rotate it, add shapes, texts, and a signature, export as a different format, and more.
Yes, Preview isn't perfect, but it is easy to use and fantastic for making small, fast changes to your photography.
- It's already on your Mac.
How do you edit your photography?
What is your favorite photo editing app for the Mac? Why does it work the best for you? Let us know what your top picks are in the comments down below!
Updated August 2018: All the choices on this list are still the best of the best!
iPhone photography
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