Free photo editing software for Mac 1: The GIMP for Mac OS X GIMP is a popular open-source image editor for Mac OS X and is often considered as the 'free Photoshop' because of its similar interface and features with Photoshop.

1. For a free image editor that lives within your browser (no software download needed), Pixlr is the best free dupe of Adobe Photoshop out there.
2. The best image editors can also turn their hand to graphic design projects — posters, flyers, invitations and newsletters. Read on to find out what to look for, and which package is right for.

Apple Macs are great devices for photo editing, especially for professionals. The Mac’s Retina display, coupled with powerful processors, make for a seamless image editing workflow.

No matter if you’re an amateur looking to enhance your family vacation photos or a professional photographer working under pressure, there are Mac image editors to suit your needs.

Here are the best free and paid image editors for Mac.

The Best Free Mac Image Editors

If you’re looking for a basic editor, you don’t need to buy a fully featured editing suite. A basic image editor is both easy to use and has all the features that you’d need to fix and enhance your personal photos.

1. Photoscape X

Photoscape X is a great basic image editor for Mac you’ve probably never heard of. It’s an all-in-one app that lets you edit RAW images, fix photos, add filters, and more. Using the brush tool you can quickly fix small issues with your photos. Photoscape has a batch mode that lets you resize and rename photos with just a click.

Download:Photoscape X (Free)

2. GIMP

GIMP is an open source project that’s been in active development for over twenty years. It’s often referred to as the best free photo editor. Thanks to its community-based development, it offers professional features that you only otherwise find in paid apps like Photoshop.

GIMP is laid out like a professional editing tool and has a steep learning curve. But it has all the basic and professional features you would expect from a graphic design suite. GIMP’s Layers feature is powerful and you can even use some Photoshop plugins with GIMP. If you’re new to GIMP, use our introductory guide to GIMPAn Introduction to GIMP Photo Editing: 9 Things You Need to KnowAn Introduction to GIMP Photo Editing: 9 Things You Need to KnowGIMP is the best free photo editing app available. Here's everything you need to know about editing photos in GIMP.Read More to learn the basics.

Download:GIMP (Free)

3. Photos

If all you’re looking for is a simple way to manage your photo library on Mac8 Starter Tips for Managing Your Photos Library on Mac8 Starter Tips for Managing Your Photos Library on MacAre your Mac photos a mess? Follow these beginner's tips to get them under control and improve your picture organization.Read More and perform some basics edits to fix or enhance your personal photos, the built-in Photos app will be more than enough.

The Photos app has a good auto-enhance tool, a crop tool, basic image editing, and filter support. Plus, it has a familiar user interface. If you feel comfortable editing photos in the iPhone Photos app, you’ll be right at home on the Mac version as well.

4. Pixlr X

Pixlr X runs smoothly on any modern web browser. If you only need to edit a couple of photos every now and then, it doesn’t make sense to download a feature-rich image editor. Instead, see if Pixlr’s web-based image editor is enough for you.

Pixlr X has all the basic image editing features you’d expect. You can crop, resize, add filters, and easily remove the background from any image. There are a couple of tools for adjusting the visual elements of the picture and you can add text and doodle over images. If you have a stock image, you can use Pixlr X to quickly create a poster or flyer as well.

Visit:Pixlr X (Free)

The Best Paid Mac Image Editors

If you’re serious about photo editing, you’ll need professional tools. A fully-featured photo editing suite will help improve the quality of your work. Because paid apps are designed for professionals from the ground up, you’ll end up saving a lot of time once you get used to the workflow.

1. Lightroom

Lightroom is the default photo editor for professional photographers. Lightroom’s workflow sets it apart. Other than the stellar photo editing features, it also has a simple yet robust image organization feature. And this is why a lot of professionals stick with Lightroom.

If you’re clicking thousands of photos for a project and you need to select a couple of dozen good ones, Lightroom makes the process easy for you. You can skim through thousands of RAW files, mark the important photos, move them to a different directory, edit them in a particular style, save that style as a preset, go back and apply it to other photos, and then finally export the images in multiple formats.

And once you’re done with the project, you can use Lightroom’s library to keep the important photos and back them up using your Adobe Cloud account. For professionals, this is what makes Lightroom’s $9.99/month starting price palatable.

Download:Adobe Lightroom ($9.99/month)

2. Photoshop

Photoshop is a different kind of photo editor. You can think of it as Lightroom’s bigger brother. Photoshop is designed specifically for image manipulation and enhancement. Photoshop is famous for its advanced selection tools, complex layer system, and infinitely customizable brushes.

You can use Lightroom to bring out all of the details from a RAW image file or to enhance an image aesthetically (to fix colors and saturation levels). Once you’re done with that, you can import the image in Photoshop to kick things up a notch. In fact, you can’t edit RAW images in Photoshop without the Camera RAW plugin.

Photoshop is a massive, complex application with over two decades of consistent updates. It has way too many features, but once you master the basics, Photoshop gives you the tools to turn your imagination into reality.

Using Photoshop, you can merge multiple images together, completely change the color palette of an image, and fix parts of an image to make them better (particularly portraits).

Download:Adobe Photoshop ($9.99/month)

3. Affinity Photo

You can think of Affinity Photo as a lightweight version of Photoshop. It has the most common features from Photoshop like the advanced selection tools, brushes, and layer support. Affinity Photos weighs in at 350 MB instead of the 2GB behemoth that is Photoshop. Affinity Photo is also much faster than Photoshop, especially on Macs without a dedicated graphics card.

Plus, unlike Photoshop, you can buy Affinity Photo outright for $49.99. If you don’t like Adobe’s shift towards subscription pricing and increasing dependence on cloud syncing, take a look at Affinity Photo. If you’ve already learned the basics of Photoshop (you can open PSD files in Affinity Photo), it will be much easier to pick up Affinity Photo.

Download:Affinity Photo ($49.99)

4. Pixelmator Pro

Pixelmator Pro is a powerful image editing app that’s designed to be easy to use. It’s an all-in-one tool for image manipulation. Pixelmator Pro is a mix of Lightroom, Photoshop, and Illustrator. It has basic features from all three apps.

You can use it to edit RAW images, enhance photos, fix parts of images, and create posters by adding beautiful text and other elements. Pixelmator Pro can stretch itself from being a basic photo editing app to a graphic design suite, depending on your needs and skillset.

Download:Pixelmator Pro ($39.99)

Other Great Mac Apps Worth Using

There’s something for everyone in the apps listed above. We recommend most people start with Pixlr X and see if that does the trick. However, if you’re looking for a fast, beautiful, and feature-rich photo editor that’s designed for the Mac, Affinity Photo is a great choice.

There are many more great Mac apps out there just waiting to be explored. Take a look at our list of the best macOS appsThe Best Mac Apps to Install on Your MacBook or iMacThe Best Mac Apps to Install on Your MacBook or iMacLooking for the best apps for your MacBook or iMac? Here's our comprehensive list of the best apps for macOS.Read More to discover some of the apps you should be installing on your Mac.

Explore more about: Adobe Photoshop, Batch Image Editing, Image Editor, Photography.

1. I would definitely add Luminar - https://macphun.com/luminar
   It was initially developed for Mac, but they had announced the open Windows Beta just today.
   For Mac, it has really useful and effective tools, even 'AI' enhancement filter, which is a prototype of the legendary 'Make it awesome' button everyone was looking for.
   Take a look at it, you won't regret it!

2. For RAW images editing i would like to recommend 'Raw Therapee', pretty full featured free software, very simular to Adobe Lightroom.

3. Affinity for the Mac is my choice, that is just my opinion. The one time cost
   is well worth it. The app has the 'apple feel', almost intuitive. Apple-Mac
   architecture is not for every one but this paring is a winner.
   There is a tutorial, that is only basic or go to the Tube.
   How about 'Affinity Movie'?

4. I think PhotoScape X is more full-featured than Fotor.

5. Pinta is a worthy mention. I prefer it's UI over GIMP and GIMPShop. It's the cross platform version to Paint.NET. http://pinta-project.com

6. Adobe sales Photoshop CC plus Lightroom for $9.99 a month. Not $19.99.

7. Really! Agreed. Where does the author derive his opinions from?! Affinity is not only excellent as a standalone application, they also have extensions in support of Apple's Photos as well.

   • Agreed. Affinity is very powerful and one of the best looking app to work with :)

8. No Affinity Photo? Really? Where do you live?

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

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

Effects

Free Image Editor For Mac

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.

Makeup

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

Inserting

Combine images and image elements to make collages.

Noise Reduction

Video Editing Software For Mac

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.

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

Best Free Photo Editing Software For Mac

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

Mac Os Image Editor

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

Best Free Image Editor For Mac

PHOTO EDITOR + PHOTO MANAGER + SLIDESHOW MAKER

Gimp

Edit photos, organize images, and create great slideshows

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