Best Easy Photo Editor For Mac

Never be afraid to try new ideas. Change your very first edits without undoing the latest ones, and see the results in real-time. Even on another Mac computer. Fotor is best and easy to use online photo editor. It’s a revolutionary photo editor and design maker that is being used by hundreds of users worldwide. Moreover, it’s a free online photo editor with capabilities of edit, collage, and design.

  1. Best Photo Editor For Mac
  2. Best Easy Photo Editor For Mac

Adobe’s Photoshop is now 25 years old and is arguably the pinnacle of photo editing. But, at £8.57/month, it’s also much more expensive than most people can afford, so here are 25 alternatives for 25 years of photoshoppery.

The five best …

Pixelmator - best for Mac

£22.99 - OS X

Pixelmator is arguably the best photo editor on a Mac. It handles even the largest photos with ease, replicates as many Photoshop tools as are generally required, as well as Photoshop file support, and has an excellent heal tool that can interpret what’s around it and fill in detail.

Excellent for quick touching up of photos to detailed manipulation for novices and pros alike. There’s even a very capable £7.99 iPad Pixelmator app with many of the same tools and ease of use that make the Mac app great.

Paint.net – best for Windows

Free - Windows

Paint.net started life as a simple replacement for Microsoft Paint, but evolved with new features such as multiple layers and more advanced photo editing tools. Today it is one of the fastest free photo editors for Windows, with a capable feature set that stops just short of some of the professional manipulation tools.

Excellent for quick edits, crops and the majority of daily photo editing. Best of all, it’s free.

Adobe Lightroom - best for bulk-managing photos

£99 - Windows, OS X

Arguably the best photo manager, Adobe Lightroom has enough tools, even for professionals, to avoid having to open up a separate image editor, including some of Photoshop’s healing and manipulation tools. It also has a solid collection of batch processing and automated correction tools based on lighting, lens and camera models, which makes it fast for most jobs.

Aviary Photo Editor - best for mobile

Free - Android, iOS

Aviary is a solid image editor with very capable image touch-up and resizing tools, now owned by Adobe. It’s straightforward interface makes it easy to use and has more to offer than most mobile editors obsessed with Instagram-style filters.

Autodesk Pixlr - best in the browser

Free - Windows, OS X, Android, iOS and web

Pixlr is a free jack of all trades photo editor with a solid tool set for almost any project. The web app is one of the most fully featured, while its mobile and desktop apps are also solid. Some of Pixlr’s most advanced features require a $15 a year subscription, but it has the backing of Autodesk, making of some of the best computer-aided design tools.

The best of the rest …

PaintShop Pro

£48 - Windows

Photoshop’s long-standing rival. PaintShop Pro is cheaper than its juggernaut of a rival but similarly specified. It lacks some of Photoshop’s most advanced features, and is bettered by some of its newer often-free competitors, but is still a capable editor.

Serif PhotoPlus X7

£79.99 - Windows

PhotoPlus is a solid all-round image editor for Windows from the company that created Affinity Photo for OS X. It has a decent set of tools, including lens correction tools and other favourites of photographers. The only downside is that many of the advanced tools require more manual manipulation than some other programs and therefore it isn’t as beginner friendly.

Photoshop Elements

£79.10 - Windows, OS X

Photoshop’s cut-down cousin Elements has improved dramatically over the last couple of years from a tool to avoid to a photo editor for everyone else. It has many of the same tools as its bigger brother, save for the advanced Content Aware Fill and a few other professional tools. Solid for most tasks, although free or cheaper tools with similar features are available.

Acorn 4

For

£22.99 - OS X

Another excellent image editor for OS X, Acorn is billed as the “image editor for humans”. It’s packed with advanced tools and filters but has a stripped back, simplified user interface that is designed to be familiar to Photoshop users and easy to pick up for notices.

Affinity Photo

Free - OS X (in beta)

Affinity Photo attempts to be Photoshop on a budget, but not dumbed down. It’s fast, packed with advanced tools and is aimed at professionals. Part of that tool set is end-to-end CMYK 16-bit per channel editing, RAW processing and a Photoshop Content Aware Fill-like tool called Inpainting.

Gimp

Free - Windows, OS X and Linux

Despite the unfortunate name – GNU Image Manipulation Program – Gimp is one of the most capable free open-source photo editors available for Windows, OS X and Linux. It has some very powerful tools, but isn’t as user friendly as some others.

Aperture

£59.99 - OS X

Apple’s long-standing photo organiser and editor, Aperture is one of the most efficient ways of tweaking groups of photos, and making and reviewing small adjustments. The magnifying loop tool is particularly effective. It’s simpler to use than many of its competitors and can be used in conjunction with iPhoto.

Apple Photos

Free - OS X

Photos is Apple’s replacement for both iPhoto and Aperture, which will be available in the spring. A preview was made available of the app, which is fast, with enough tools to make photo management and tweaks easy.

Picasa

Free - Windows, OS X

Picasa is Google’s photo manager and editor. It plugs into Google+, but is a solid simple organiser and can be accessed through the app or on the web. It has enough tools to quickly tune photos, with a few fancy filters thrown in.

ACDSee Pro 8

$99.99 - Windows

ACDSee is an Adobe Lightroom analogue with photo management at its heart. It is fast and effective, but has limited metadata sorting and no automatic correction based on lens profiles. It has enough editing tools to improve the odd photo, but some of it can be a clumsy mix of destructive and non-destructive editing.

The cheaper ACDSee 18 lacks some of the more advanced features but could be a good option for photo management.

Preview

Free - OS X

Apple’s built-in image and document viewer for OS X is a bit of a dark horse. Underneath its simple viewing exterior hides a fast and effective image editor that’s perfectly capable of cropping, resizing, reformatting and simple touchups. It is particularly good at editing a bunch of images at once.

Microsoft Paint

Free - Windows

Microsoft’s original image editor. It’s changed a bit in recent years and is still a solid, basic image editor. It’s worth a go for nostalgia’s sake at the very least, or for simple cropping and resizing jobs that really don’t require something as powerful as Photoshop.


Sumo paint

Free - web

A Photoshop facsimile in the browser, the free Sumo Paint is an excellent quick photo editor. Many of the advanced tools are only available in a $19 pro version, but for straightforward touching up of images, resizing and similar the free editor does the job.

PicMonkey

Free - web

PicMonkey is free, browser-based image editor with a solid feature set for simple photo touchups, adding text to images and adding frames. Images can be taken from a computer or various cloud services, including Dropbox and Flickr. A paid-for upgrade removes the ads and gives access to more fonts and effects.

FotoFlexer

Free - web

Billed as “the world’s most advanced online image editor” it has numerous features for most types of editing. Image manipulation tools are just a simple click and drag-a-slider away, but most tools have little in the way of guidance so beginners might struggle. Those looking for more powerful fill features will need to look elsewhere.

Ribbet

Free - web

Ribbet, despite it’s odd name and frog logo, is a quick and easy-to-use online image editor that does most of the editing for you, making it excellent for beginners or simple jobs. A few advanced tools are available, but better options are out there.

Fotor

Free - Windows, OS X, iPhone, Android and web

Fotor is a free image editor that’s available on just about any platform either in app or web app from. It has a good selection of tools, each with an easy-to-use sliding scale of effect. Batch editing is a bonus, as are the filter tools.

BeFunky

Free - Android, iOS and web

A quick and easy-to-use image editor that apes Instagram on the iPhone and Android, but with a few more tools. The web app is similarly simple, and solid for quickly customising photos before sharing them.

Snapseed

Free - Android, iOS

Snapseed is Google’s mobile image editor that’s been sidelined after it was acquired to be integrated into Google+. But the app still works and its tools, filters and easy-to-use touch controls are still some of the best around.

Photoshop Touch

£3.99 to £7.99 - Android, iOS

Photoshop Touch is Adobe’s touchscreen focused mobile variant, but it isn’t nearly as powerful or feature rich as its namesake. It has a selection of photo filters and some decent touchup tools, but it’s biggest selling point is integration with Adobe’s Creative Cloud, which is useful for desktop Photoshop users.

Adobe’s lighter Photoshop Express is also available for free with very basic tools.

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Jul 25,2019• Proven solutions

Many people are looking of free Mac video editing software since they have tons of videos and are eager to edit the videos either for better presentation or preservation. Are there any free video editing software for Mac users that are really good? Many people ask this in forums. Here we compare some great Mac video editors, followed by the detailed information of each editor for your reference, and we also made a comparison table for Mac video editor in terms of video format, pros and cons of the 10 best free video editors for Mac. Check it out!

Updates: Are you also looking for video editors for Windows, Linux, mobile phone, or online? Check our latest post 36 Best Video Editors for All the Platforms.

Part 1: Best Free Video Editing Software for Mac Quick Comparison Table

We’ve summarized the features, pros and cons of these best video editing software for Mac users in the comparison table below. You can choose the best suitable one based on your editing skills and needs at the current stage.

Level Products Input formats Output formats Pros Cons
For beginners Apple iMovie DV, HDV, AVCHD, Apple Intermediate Codec, Motion JPEG/A, iFrame, h.264, MP4, MOV... H.264/MPEG-4, MOV, AVI, DV... Available on iPhone/iPad; Comptiable well with Apple ecosystem Audio is copyrighted
Avidemux 3GP, ASF, AVI, FLV, H263, JPEG, MKV, MP4, MPEG, MPEG4, MPG, and OGM AVI, FLV, M1V, M2V, MKV, MP4, MPEG, MPG, OGM and TS Clean and easy to use interface; Open source software without built-in purchase Exporting process is slack
OpenShot WebM, AVCHD, HEVC... MP4, AVI, MPEG... Provide free built in effects and animations; Support 3D title Buggy at times; Freeze and crash often
ZS4 Video Editor AVI, WAV, Image Files AVI, WMV, WAV, Jpg, Png More than 120 built-in video effects; unlimited tracks User interface is not friendly
HyperEngine-AV AVI, BMP, Cubic VR, DLS, DV, FLC... AIFF, AVI, BMP, DV Stream, FLC, MPEG-4... Includes twelve studio-quality effects; Create slide shows Discontinued to release new version
For semi-pros Kdenlive AVI, MP4, FFmpeg... QuickTime, AVI, WMV, MPEG... Open source software Not friendly for greenhands; Update slowly
Blender STL, ABC, FBX... FBX, DAE, ABC... Fast poly modeling tools; Customizable input Unintuitive layers system; Animation management is not smooth
For pros Davinci Resolve MP4, MOV, MTS, AVI... QuickTime, AVI, R3D, MXF, DPX... Learning curve is not steep; Offer advance color grading Single screen editing workflow is not friendly
Lightworks MPEG-2, AVC, RED R3D, DPX, Apple Pro Res... MPEG4/H.264 Package is lightweight; Only need 3GB RAM to use Effect library is limited
HitFilm Express H.264, AVCHD, QuickTime, AVI, M2T, M2TS, MTS, MXF H.264, Apple ProRes, AVI High level ideo effects compositor No motion graphics feature

From the above comparison table, we can see there are so many pros and cons in different aspects. However, you may want to take look at another software - Filmora9- before you decide to use the one you like. It is anexcellnt Mac video editor that can meet your basic and advanced needs.

Part 2: Best Free Video Editing Software for Beginners: Wondershare Filmora9 for Mac (Video Tutorial)

Wondershare Filmora9 for Mac offers some persuasive advantages over other video editing tools available for Apple Mac. It not only includes basic video editing tools but also provides various advanced video effects for you to apply. Below are some features that can help you understand the best Mac video editor. Download it now to have a try!

  • Supports almost all kinds of video formats, including MP4, AVI, MOV, AVCHD, MKV and more.
  • Complete all classic video editing like crop, trim, cut, split and combine in a few clicks.
  • Make your footage look like Hollywood film with color tuning tool.
  • Make good use of your music with Audio Mixer and Audio Equalizer.
  • Exclusive Action Cam Tool allows you to cut and merge large action cam footages within minutes.
  • Advanced video editing tools like Tilt Shift, Face off, Mosaic, Jump Cut, etc for you to explore.
  • Convert your edited to any popular video format or fit video to mobile devices.
  • Burn your own DVD collection or upload to YouTube and Vimeo instantly.
  • Up to 100 audio and video tracks to organize your project and layer media.
  • Make exciting GoPro/action cam videos with precise speed controls.

How to Edit Videos with Wondershare Filmora9 (originally Wondershare Video Editor)


Import Media Files

Upload media files from your computer or transport from all kinds of cameras, smart phones and elsewhere. Or directly drag-n-drop them to the program.


Edit Your Video

Easily complete basic video editing by clicking the icons above the timeline. Add different video effects and filters to personalize it. For advanced video editing, you can easily create green screen effects.


Save & Enjoy

Save your video in different formats, share via Vimeo, YouTube, burn to DVD and more.

Part 3: Top 10 Best Free Mac Video Editors for Beginners/Semi-pros/Professionals

We’ve done some research and found out the following free video editing software for Mac users. Some of them are for video editing novice, while some free video editing software are for professionals (but if you need to use the professional features, you may need to purchase the Pro version). Hope you can find the right video editor based on your needs from the following list.

Best Free Video Editing Software for Mac [Beginners]

1. Apple iMovie

iMovie comes with every new Mac (OS X) and you don't need to pay extra money for it. The latest iMovie 11 is a great and free video editor for Mac with many great features such as movie trailer, one step effect, audio editing, etc. And in just a few steps, you can share your movies to YouTube or export videos for your iPhone, iPad, etc. However, iMovie is only free if you buy a new Mac. And when getting started with iMovie, you will find it hard to master this software. All in all, iMovie is one of the best free video editing software for Mac users and receives good reputation. You can learn some iMovie video editing tips and trick at how to use iMovie.

Features:

  • Supports editing 4K video
  • You can also use it on iPhone/iPad
  • 10 video filters are for you

Pros: Available on iPhone/iPad; Comptiable well with Apple ecosystem

Cons: Audio is copyrighted, so you need to download royalty-free music by yourself

2.Avidemux

Avidemux is another great free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux and BSD under the GNU GPL license and supports a variety of video, image and audio formats, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4, MOV, ASF, JPG, AAC, AC3, etc. High compatibility with many video formats is the highlight of this free video editing software for Mac. You can also cut ads from a TV recording, or just save a small part of the video.

It also offers some filters to use, such as color correction. You can apply these filters to your video to make it more beautiful.

Features:

  • It supports AVI MP4 and ASF
  • Based on H.264 encoder

Pros: Clean and easy to use interface; Open source software without built-in purchase

Cons: Exporting process is slack, which means it will take longer time

3.OpenShot

OpenShot is a free, simple to use open-source video editor for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It is a good video editor for beginners to learn and train video editing skills. If you just want to mae some basic editing without having to spend too much time, OpenShot can be one of your best choices.

Apart from doing basic video editing, you can also render 3D animation. This free editor for Mac also supports more than 70 languages. No need to worry about the language barrier to stop you from editing video.

Features:

  • You can trim/slice video quickly
  • Show waveforms while editing
  • Offer templates to edit titles

Pros: Provide free built in effects and animations; Support 3D title

Cons: Buggy at times; It freezes and crashes often

4.ZS4 Video Editor

ZS4 Video Editor is a free video editor for Mac which provides media experts with a facility to combine a variety of media types into one (or more) output file(s). Besides Mac, it is also available for Windows and Linux. ZS4 Video Editor comes with over 150 built-in video effects which can help you bring your videos to the next level instantly.

More importanly, you can use it to combine various media files into one, like video, audio and photo. With this all-in-one editor, no more needs to install too many annoying apps.

Features:

  • You can edit photos, videos, and audio files
  • It is easy to use

Pros: More than 120 built-in video effects; unlimited tracks

Cons: User interface is not friendly

5.HyperEngine-AV

Free

HyperEngine-AV is a free video editing software for Mac used to capture, edit, organize process, and export video, audio, and text to create DVD quality movies and slide shows. It comes with twelve studio-quality effects from Arboretum's Hyperprism suite of audio processors. Besides, it offers text features to display credits, section titles, or karaoke lyrics with fully editable font, size, type, color, style, alignment, and scroll direction. Definitely, HyperEngin-AV is really a good free video editor for Mac users.

Features:

  • You can use it to create slide shows
  • Supports capturing desktop and editing video

Pros: Includes twelve studio-quality effects; Create slide shows

Cons: It is discontinued to release new version

Best Free Mac Video Editing Software for Semi-pros

1.Kdenlive

Although the development team has moved full-stream-ahead on Linux, you can still use this excellent free video editor on Mac with packages available via MacPorts. Kdenlive supports almost all popular media formats, and you can easily add the files to software's multitrack timeline.

You can create 2D titles to light up project like aligning texts and rotating. For editing huge size of video file, it offers proxy to make the editing experience smoother.

Features:

  • It allows you to edit several audio and video tracks
  • You can customize shortcuts easily

Pros: It is open source software

Cons: Not friendly for greenhands; Update slowly

2.Blender

Like Avidemux, Blender is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. It's a free 3D graphics application and considered as one of the best free video editor for Mac. It can be used for modeling, rigging, texturing, UV unwrapping, skinning, animating, rendering, water and smoke simulations, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications, animated film, video games, or other visual effects. Blender has lots of advanced features like powerful character animation tools, modifier-based modeling tools, a node-based material and compositing system, Python for embedded scripting and so on.

Features:

  • It is a 3D creation suite
  • It supports CPU and GPU rendering
  • It has various sculpting tools and brushes

Pros: Fast poly modeling tools; Customizable input

Cons: Unintuitive layers system; Animation management is not smooth

Best Free Mac Video Editing Software for Professionals

In our impression, professional-thing costs a lot. But it isn’t true when coming to video editing software like DaVinci Resolve, Lightworks and HitFilm. There are two versions for those video editing software, and the lite version or the free version usually costs no money with limited features which makes them good choice for people who are looking for professional video editing solution to some degree.

1. Davinci Resolve

Blackmagic Design's Davinci Resolve has been growing from an advanced color-grading tool to an video post-production solution. If you are an experienced video maker and want to apply a high quality color correction/grading to your footage, Davinci Resolve's free basic version can be your choice.

Timeline curve function is a powerful feature for you to add keyframe if you want to edit a specific scene. Also it offers full 3D editing particle systems to let you release creativity.

Features:

  • Multi track timeline you can choose
  • Trimming video is easy to use
  • You can adjust constant or variable speed

Pros: Learning curve is not steep; Offer advance color grading

Cons: Single screen editing workflow is not friendly

2.Lightworks

Lightworks is a professional video editing software for Windows and Mac, its free version offers you limited export option. It includes video effects, multicam editing, titling, as well as the multi layered timeline approach which is perfect for advanced video editing needs.

Features:

  • It is a rewarded editor in the world
  • It offers Proxy for 4K
  • Compatible well with Mac

Pros: Package is lightweight; Only need 3GB RAM to use

Cons: Effects library is limited

3.HitFilm Express

HitFilm Express is more like a compositing video editor, compared with Adobe After Effects, it's more easy-to-use and friendly to semi-pros. People who are not familiar with the video editing process may find using HitFilm Express difficult.

Features:

  • Various courses are available
  • It offers Proxy for 4K
  • More than 400 video effects

Pros: High level ideo effects compositor

Best Photo Editor For Mac

Cons: It lacks motion graphics feature

Conclusion

You may have found the best video editor for Mac after reading this article. I’ll try my best to keep the list up to date, but if your favorite free video editor for Mac isn’t listed above, please leave a comment and let me know. This article is for mac version, click here to get more info about free video editing software for Windows.


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Best Easy Photo Editor For Mac

  • Choosing Video Editing Software
  • Video Editing Tips