Free photo editing applications for your mobile devices. Work where inspiration strikes. Creative Cloud image apps are tightly integrated, so you can move back and forth seamlessly between desktop and mobile.
You have a lot of factors to consider when deciding which is the best photo editor for macOS X, and the importance of the various elements will vary from user to user. Because of that, picking a single application must involve compromises as what is right for one user may be too basic, too complicated, or too expensive for another.
Best High-End Photo Editors
If you have a completely open budget, then your best purchase is Adobe Photoshop. It was the original image editor and has been around since the old Apple Mac operating system. It's the industry-standard image editor and with good reason.
It's a hugely useful application with a comprehensive and well-considered feature set. Photoshop is equally well suited for home editing photos and producing creative and artistic raster images. Its development, especially since the introduction of the Creative Suite versions, has been evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Each release sees it become an even more rounded and robust application that runs natively on OS X.
Other photo editors have drawn inspiration from Photoshop. However, few can match the feature set that allows for the flexibility of non-destructive adjustments, easily applied layer styles, and the powerful camera and lens-specific image corrections.
More Affordable Options for Photo Editing
If you have a limited budget, then you can't find cheaper than free, and that is what GIMP is. GIMP is a free and open-source alternative to Photoshop, though the developers deliberately discount this.
GIMP is a powerful and flexible image editor that you can expand with free plugins. However, it isn't able to match Photoshop in several ways, including the lack of adjustment layers to make non-destructive edits to images and the flexibility of layer styles. Nonetheless, many users swear by GIMP and in the right hands, it can produce creative results that can match work produced by Photoshop. Sometimes GIMP can offer tools not available elsewhere. For example, the Resynthesizer plugin gave GIMP users a powerful, content-aware fill tool long before such a feature appeared in Photoshop CS5.
If you don't mind spending a little bit of money, though, you might also want to consider Pixelmator. It's a stylish and well-featured native photo editor for OS X.
Adobe Photoshop Elements is also a good, affordable alternative to the mainline product. It offers most of the features of Photoshop at a fraction of the price. It's certainly worth considering for home users, hobbyists, and even some professional work where advanced features are not needed.
Photo Editors for the Home User
OS X comes with the Preview application pre-installed, and for many users, this will offer enough tools and features to make simple adjustments to digital photos. However, if you're looking for a little more functionality without the steep learning curve of GIMP or Photoshop, Seashore would be well worth a look. And like GIMP, it's available for free.
This attractive photo editor has a clear and intuitive interface and a user guide that will take new users with little knowledge through the concept of layers and image effects. It would be a good stepping stone for a move onto a more powerful photo editor, though it's likely to offer more than enough functionality for a large number of users.
So Which is the Best Photo Editor for Mac OS X?
Trying to decide which is the best photo editor of OS X is a matter of determining which one does the best job of reaching various compromises.
All in all, we have to conclude that GIMP offers the best overall compromise. The fact that it is free means that absolutely anyone with an internet connection can use it. While it isn't the most powerful or best-featured app, it is near the top. Despite that, though, novice users can also use GIMP for simple jobs, without having to embark on the steep learning curve to make full use of every feature. Finally, with the ability to install plugins, it is possible that if GIMP doesn't do what you want it to, someone else may have already produced a plugin that will take care of it.
Your iPhone takes beautiful photos, but the right apps can make them even better. Most photographers accept post-production as a part of their workflow, but a lot of the time our smartphone images miss out on this important step.
There’s no shortage of solid photo editors for iPhone, and plenty of the options are free. Today we’ve rounded up our favorites including basic adjustment apps, quick fixers, whole-image manipulators, and more.
1. Photos
Best for: Quick edits, JPEGs, and sharing.
Your iPhone already comes with an impressive image editor, built right into the Photos app. Launch it, find a photo, and tap Edit in the top-right corner of the screen.
Here you can crop and rotate your image, apply filters, and adjust a wide variety of parameters. Rescue the highlights and shadows, adjust exposure and contrast, or convert to black and white.
Photos has its limitations, however. While it can handle RAW files, it only serves up lossy JPEGsJPEG, GIF, or PNG? Image Filetypes Explained and TestedJPEG, GIF, or PNG? Image Filetypes Explained and TestedDo you know the differences between JPEGs, GIFs, PNGs, and other image filetypes? Do you know when you should use one instead of the other? Fear not, MakeUseOf explains everything!Read More to other apps. That means you can’t make edits in Photos and export your RAW to other apps without first duplicating it.
2. Google Snapseed
Best for: All-round RAW and JPEG editing.
Google’s Snapseed is photo editing powerhouse on both iOS and Android. In 2016 the app was updated to support RAW editing, which makes it probably the best free image editor on the platform.
In addition to several filters, which Snapseed refers to as Looks, there’s a dizzying array of editing tools to choose from. These range from the basics to perspective shifts, selective coloring, instant HDR, and extensive monochrome filters and options.
The app controls nicely too. Just drag left and right to adjust a parameter’s strength, or drag up and down to change the parameter.
Download:Google Snapseed
3. Aviary Photo Editor
Best for: Hands-off photo editing, instant effects, filter lovers.
If you want an app that’ll hold your hand through the editing process, or perhaps just do it all for you, Aviary is a good choice. It features a ton of instant enhancements for specific scenes like night shots and pictures of food.
There’s also a healthy lineup of filters, and a lot more available for download once you’ve signed in with an Adobe ID. Most of the photo editing tools you’d expect are present, including highlight and shadow recovery, tinting, and white balance correction.
There’s also a few extra features that you don’t normally find, like the ability to add text and stickers to your image, and a “whitening” tool for teeth. There’s even a meme mode for adding text at the top and bottom of your images, making this a Swiss Army knife of mobile photo editing.
Download: Photo Editor by Aviary [No Longer Available]
4. Instagram
Best for: Instagram users, tilt-shift effects, filter lovers.
You’ll need an Instagram account in order to use the app, but you don’t necessarily need to post anything. If you only want to use the social media app for its editing tools and filter presets, you can!
Enable Airplane Mode on your iPhone before tapping Share, then wait for the upload to fail. Tap the X to cancel the upload, and you’ll find your image in your device’s Camera Roll.
Instagram’s tools are familiar and efficient. Since it’s the app that started the filter craze, the included presets are pretty good. It’s also one of the quickest way of applying tilt-shift or vignetting to an image. That said, there are plenty of reasons to use other photo editing apps over Instagram filters.
Download:Instagram
5. Adobe Photoshop Fix
Best for: A select few editing tools and quick fixes.
Adobe’s iOS lineup is largely crippled by a reliance on Creative Cloud and no “proper” version of apps like PhotoshopWe Need to Talk About the iPad Pro's App ProblemWe Need to Talk About the iPad Pro's App ProblemAre you a professional who is thinking of picking up the new iPad Pro? Don't do anything till you've read this.Read More for iPad Pro. Lightroom has a good set of editing tools, but if you want to make any real use of it you’ll need to pay for a Creative Cloud subscription.
Photoshop Fix doesn’t try to be a full-fledged photo editor, but it does a select few tasks well. Two standout features are the liquify tool, which allows you to blend and stretch images for subtle or wacky adjustments, and the defocus mask, which is perfect for faking depth of field in your shots.
There’s a healthy range of the usual exposure, contrast, and saturation adjustment sliders, plus spot healing and red eye removal. However, it has no support for RAW editing.
Download:Adobe Photoshop Fix
6. Prisma
Best for: Weird and wonderful transformations.
Prisma is an app unlike any other here. When you load an image in Prisma, it sends that image to a server where it’s converted into a particular style of art. These styles are modeled on great artists like Picasso and Matisse, but also venture into comic book and futuristic territory.
Best Photo Editor Free
You can adjust the strength of the filter, which is fortunate since the app produces a mixture of impressive and slightly-off images. Some filters produce images that really look like computer-generated artwork; others transform images into something weird and wonderful.
Prisma has some of its features locked behind a premium subscription. If you want more styles, unlimited HD renders, and an ad-free experience, you’ll need to cough up $3 per month.
Download:Prisma
7. Lens Distortions
Best for: Faking weather effects and retro lenses.
This app is all about emulating the look of fancy glass, weather effects, and lighting. It also includes some basic photo editing tools, and uses layers to blend various effects together.
In addition to lens distortions, like blurs and flares, the app includes bokeh balls, fog, rain, snow, and shimmering effects. You can adjust the intensity, position, and scale of the effects as you see fit. It’s a great step toward achieving that vintage photography feel on any image that’s already on your iPhone.
To unlock even more effects and filters you can subscribe for $1 per month. You can also expand the various categories by buying packs outright if you’d rather pay once and keep forever.
Download:Lens Distortions
8. VSCO
Best for: RAW capture and editing, filters.
You’re going to either love or hate VSCO’s abstract, minimalist interface. To its credit, the app has improved over the years with better labels on its editing tools and a more straightforward approach to image editing.
It’s also the only app on this list capable of capturing RAW imagesThe Best Apps and Tips for Taking RAW Photos on Your iPhoneThe Best Apps and Tips for Taking RAW Photos on Your iPhoneIt's a feature most iPhone photographers have wanted forever, but you'll need the right app to get the job done.Read More. Tap on the camera and then change the image format to RAW to capture four times as much data every time you press the shutter (if these 12MB RAW file sizes are anything to go by).
Best Photo Editor
The app brings Instagram levels of complexity to RAW editing, with a number of filters included and more available with a VSCO X subscription ($20 per year).
Photo Editor Free
Download:VSCO
The Power to Edit Photos in Your iPhone
If you’re serious about your photography, you should be shooting RAW. Support for the format, which captures and retains more detail than lossy JPEG, means you can push your images further in post-production.
Those who often take videos with their iPhone as well should look into investing in the best iPhone gimbalsThe 5 Best Gimbals for the iPhoneThe 5 Best Gimbals for the iPhoneIf you're after the best gimbal for iPhone, we can help. Here are the top gimbals for mobile videography available today.Read More for more stable video.
Best Photo Editing Free App For Mac
Explore more about: Image Editor, iOS Apps, Smartphone Photography.