Best Free Easy Photo Editor For Mac

Photos are part of people’s lives in modern times. They can be taken from cell phones, computers & cameras. Organizing and fixing them according to personal tastes can be tricky. Luckily, there are many applications that can assist Mac lovers with these tasks.

Easy Photo Editor

Best Photo Editor Overall Best for Editing Novices Best Budget Pro Photo Editor Best for Sharing Photos Best Free Editor for Mac Users Best Open-Source Photo Editor Product. With the best photo editing software for Mac 2018, it is actually possible to create perfect photos. Choose one of the photo editors above and you will not be disappointed. All of them come with free trial periods whose lengths differ from one to the other. 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. Whether you shoot with a smartphone camera or a DSLR, you need software to get the most out of your images. Here's what you need to know to pick the best photo editing software. 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.

Here below is a picture of 5 best tools in 2019, each of them with different features, which allow readers to choose according to their needs.

1. Photos

Photos is a photo management and editing app developed by Apple Inc. Its great characteristics are simplicity and ease of use. Even its name is a beautiful and direct indicator of its usage.

This Mac photo editing software has been available since 2015 for OS X Yosemite 10.10.3, and since 2016 for tvOS v.10.

This app has several easy-to-use editing tools, such as filters and Smart Sliders. In addition, it has the Markup tool, which can add text, shapes, and create sketches and signatures. Other extra tools include Light, used to reveal hidden details; and Revert, used to compare with the original version.

However, where Photos surpasses all other Mac photo editing software is in its integration with iCloud Photo Library. This excellent facility allows users to fill in their libraries, and not their devices. This is done by keeping photos and videos in sync with other Apple devices, such as iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. This integration works in such a way that for example, a photo taken by an iPhone is immediately available on other devices.

As an organizer, Photos uses moments, which can be used to create collections and years. Moments are combinations of time and location metadata attached to the photo. Moreover, features such as face recognition, allow users to create groups by a person, and many more.

The editing and organizing abilities are wonderfully complemented by themes, which enable users to create calendars, photo books, and other creations.

The app also includes tools for professional quality printings. On the downside, many Apple fans have criticized the absence of some features, which were available in the previous iPhoto and Aperture.

Overall, this powerful and intuitive tool has been designed with the modern-user needs in mind: great integration, easy editing, and professional photo management tools. Definitely, Photos must be included among the best photo editing software for Mac.

2. Luminar

Luminar is an all-in-one photo editor with excellent RAW editing capabilities. It is aimed at both beginners and professionals alike, thanks to its intuitive and customizable interface that has something for everyone.

Other than providing advanced image editing tools like noise reduction and selective adjustments, Luminar contains 45 filters that are all geared to achieve professional-quality images in a single click. These are paired with over 60 presets that can each be used as a base on top of which users can make their own adjustments.

Luminar is also very quick at what it does, up to 6 times faster than other image editors of its calibre. It’s also available as a plugin for software like Lightroom and Photoshop, providing users with unmatched flexibility in the way they edit their photos.

As a result, Luminar is quickly becoming the preferred image editor for photographers at various levels of expertise. It is especially recommended if you are new to the world of photo editing and need something that lets you get to grips with advanced editing tools and allows you to take your editing to the next level when you are ready.

3. Fotor

Fotor Online Photo Editor is packed with features that make creating beautiful images as easy as executing a few clicks on your computer. It is free to use and also offers a modestly priced Pro version with enhanced capabilities.

Getting started with the photo editor requires you to sign up for a free account. Once that is complete, you have access to a wide variety of tools that enable you to edit your photos and design stunning collages and images using their large selection of templates.

You begin an editing session by importing the photograph of your choice from your computer, Dropbox, Facebook, or the Fotor Cloud. Within the editor, you can modify any aspect of the photo that you desire, including size, coloration, brightness, and contrast to name just a few.

Taking advantage of the large selection of templates lets you easily create photo cards, invitations or leaflets. Add clip art to your creations and choose from hundreds of fonts to achieve the exact design you want.

A great feature of this tool is the ability to beautify a photograph by taking actions like eliminating wrinkles and blemishes. You can always look your best by touching up your photos before posting them.

Fotor provides users with informative tutorial videos which walk you through the process of editing your photos and creating graphic designs. This makes it easy to discover the features that will make your images stand out from the crowd. You should add Fotor to your photo editing toolbox today.

4. Pixelmator

Pixelmator is a photo editing for Mac app developed by two Lithuanian brothers and based on a combination of open source and Mac OS X technologies.

This software has many features, including more than 40 tools for selection, painting, retouching, navigation, color correction, and color management, GPU-powered image processing, pixel-accurate selection, and more. Just for color correction, it has 16 tools and more than 50 filters.

This set of powerful tools allows users to edit photos, sketch, draw, paint, and add shapes and more than 160 effects. Thus, the tool allows not only photo processing but also graphics creation, such as logos, etc.

The app works on a layer-based image editing technique, where different layers can be arranged and grouped for processing.

The combination of technologies used includes Open GL, Core Image for Mac’s graphics card, Open CL for parallel computing, and 64-bit architecture. The result is a noticeable fast image processing.

Overall, Pixelmator is a great Mac photo editing software that can produce stunning results in the hands of the gifted artist.

5. GIMP

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.

Its main strength is in its scripting language Script-Fu, which can be used to automate repetitive tasks. Scripting can also be done through Perl, Python, and Tcl, by using an external interpreter.

In addition, it also excels at a large number of file formats that the program can handle, such as BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF among others. The app can also import PDF files and raw formats of many digital cameras.

GIMP works through a set of layers, each containing several channels. These layers are used to add effects and filters, edit images using brushes, and other choices. Within these set of features, Path tools stand out, as they can create vectors, which can be used in complex selections.

This photo editing for Mac app also has the advantage of being capable of handling colors in a variety of ways, such as RGB, CMYK, Water-color formats, and hexadecimal formats. CMYK is very useful when working with printers.

GIMP also has a set of Smart tools, that although not so easy to use, may become very handy for the expert user. Among them, is the clone tool, which copies pixels; the healing brush, used to correct tone and color; and the dodge and burn tool, which can lighten (dodge) and darken (burn) pixels.

However, according to many users, this Mac photo editing software falls short in ease of use.

Overall, GIMP is the best free photo editing software for Mac, and presents a good alternative to those users looking for a sophisticated tool that is free, and are capable of overcoming its complications.

6. Adobe Photoshop Elements

Adobe Photoshop Elements is a raster graphics editor for entry-level users. For this, it has most of the features available in the professional version, but in a simplified manner.

The app can create collages, slide shows, calendars, scrapbook pages, and cards. It can also organize, manually or automatically, based on subjects like birthdays, cats, etc. Added to this, it lets the user share pictures via the main social Internet sites, such as Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and more.

This Mac photo editing software lets users make changes varying from quick-one-click fixes to artistic creations.

In brief, Adobe Photoshop Elements is a great tool for those photo enthusiasts that don’t want to get into very technical stuff.

Interested in recovering your deleted or lost photos? Download Disk Drill

Data recovery for free
Your Companion for Deleted Files Recovery

If you’re a Mac-using professional photographer, you’re probably already paying $10 a month for Adobe Creative Cloud’s Photography plan, which includes Photoshop and Lightroom. But what about the rest of us, who occasionally edit images but not enough to justify a $120 annual bill? Are there any free Mac image editors?

A few, but none without compromise. Most of the options either don’t offer that much power, or don’t have the best user interfaces. But if you’re willing to put up with limitations, or put in the time to learn something that’s not necessarily intuitive, you can edit your photos for free. Here are the best choices.

GIMP: Feature Complete With a Steep Learning Curve

Free Easy Photo Editor Download

In terms of features and flexibility, open source stalwart GIMP is the best free Mac image editor you can find. This layer-based editor supports most file formats, and has all of the tools you need to touch up photos: adjustments for things like color balance and contrast, yes, but also filters and simple drawing tools. You can customize the user interface, putting tools you use regularly front-and-center and burying the tools you don’t.

You just need to find those tools, and figure out how they work. Experience with software like Photoshop won’t help much, because GIMP does things its own way, and expects users to figure those ways out on their own. There’s going to be a learning curve, and it’s going to involve a lot of Google searches. If you’re the kind of person who likes thinking about design, you might end up wondering what exactly the creators were thinking. The GTK interface also doesn’t feel 100% at home on in macOS, and that may turn some diehard Mac users off.

So there are downsides, but they might be worth it, because this is a full-blown photo editor that’s completely free. No ads, no gimmicks: just open source software that you’re free to use as you like.

Fotor: Quick Photo Tweaks From a Simple Interface

If you’re not concerned with flexibility, and just want to quickly make a few changes to your photos, Fotor might be what you’re looking for. This simple app gives you access to a bunch of one-button adjustments. When you load a photo, you’ll see the “Scenes” toolkit, which allows you to choose from one of several lighting adjustments.

Best Free Camera Software For Mac

There’s not a lot of fine-tuning: just click a button and decide if it looks better. There are similarly simple tools for adjusting the focus, adding text, and cropping your image.

Again, if you’re looking for a full-blown photo editor, this isn’t it. But it’s free, with one tiny ad in the bottom-right corner. It’s worth a look.

Preview or Photos: Built-In Basic Editing Tools

RELATED:Use Your Mac’s Preview App to Crop, Resize, Rotate, and Edit Images

Not everyone realizes this, but you can use macOS’ built-in Preview app to edit images. Just open any image, then click the toolbox icon. A second toolbar of icons for editing images will show up.

From here, you can add simple shapes and draw. You can also adjust the color and contrast levels by clicking Tools > Adjust Color in the menu bar. It’s not the most complete photo editor on the planet, but it gives you access to the basics without any third party software.

RELATED:How to Edit Your Pictures with Your Mac’s Photos Application

If you organize your photo collection using the built-in Photos tool on your Mac, you can also edit images in Photos. Just open any photo, then click the “Edit” button, which looks like a bunch of sliders.

This will open a variety of editing tools, which let you do things like choose filters, adjust the lighting, or crop the image.

There’s nothing like layer-based editing here, but it’s easy to use and built into software you’re probably already using, so give it a shot.

Paintbrush: Basically Microsoft Paint for macOS

If every one of these options seemed too complicated for you, and all you want is the ability to doodle with your mouse, check out Paintbrush. This open source application is basically paint.exe for you Mac, and it’s glorious. I used it to supplement my wife’s photo, I think it really highlights the nuance of her art.

Use this tool to make similar masterpieces, and not a whole lot more.

Paid, but Worth a Look: Pixelmator

RELATED:The Best Cheaper Alternatives to Photoshop

Pixelmator isn’t free, but it is a great cheaper alternative to Photoshop. It doesn’t offer all the features of Adobe’s premier image editor, but it offers a lot of them, and with a beautiful user interface that won’t hurt your head to use.

You’ve got layer-based editing, advanced effects, and a native user interface that even supports newfangled features like the touch bar. Pixelmator costs $30, but there’s a one-month free trial. That should be more than enough time to figure out if it fits into your workflow.

If none of these tools quite work for you, it might be time to look into some of the other paid, but cheaper photo editors on the Mac. You’d be surprised what you can get for under $100.