• Adobe Photoshop Element is one of the best photo editing software for Mac professionals, as one part of the Adobe Elements bundle. The app is available for Mac 64-bit OS with a powerful experience of artificial intelligence (AI), and “content intelligence” through Adobe-speak, to achieve lovely image and video editing.
• Luminar has been ranked among the best photo editing software for Mac by CleverFiles and Photolemur, among others. What could be improved: Mobile users might consider a mobile.
• Free Yard Design Software For Mac Free; Graphic Design Software Free Mac; You have a new house where you need to design a beautiful patio at a low cost. The patio design tool will help you in designing the patio. We will look at the features of the best patio design software available to make your decision to choose the software easier.

1. Best Design Software For Mac
2. Photo Software For Mac
3. Free Graphics Software For Mac

Inkscape is a capable free graphic design software that can help designers create scalable graphic designs that won’t stretch or blur during resizing. It’s a user-friendly option for hobbyists or beginners interested in vector drawing.

While the stock Photos app on Mac packs a few photo editing tools, it is not meant to replace a robust and professional photo editing app. If you want your photos to look good, you need to start looking at third-party photo editors that offer more features and control. I understand that extensive photo editing is not for everyone as most of the people don’t want to spend hours editing their photos. But that’s the beauty of having options. You can choose as intensive or automatic photo editing app as you want. You can even get photo editing apps for Mac that can enhance your photos with a click. I have tested and collected a list of 8 best photo editing apps for mac, both free and paid to help you on your photo editing journey.

Best Photo Editing Software for Mac in 2021

Different people have different requirements when it comes to photo editing and not one app is the best for everyone. That’s why, to make things easier for my readers, I have divided the 8 photo editors into different sections. The sections are not totally exclusive because as these photo editing software come with a huge set of overlapping features. That being said, the sections will help you get a clear idea of what you are looking for.

• Affinity Photo
• Luminar 4
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC
• Pixelmator Pro
• GIMP
• Fotor Photo Editor
• Photolemur
• Aurora HDR
• darktable
• Photopea
• Bonus: Photoscape X

Best Pro Photo Editors for Mac

1. Affinity Photo

The first photo editing app on our list is something that I am using for the last two years and is one of the two photo editing apps that rely upon. The app features professional tools and supports almost all the know file formats including JPG, TIFF, PNG, GIF,PDF, PSD, and RAW photos. It comes with all the basic photo editing tools that you can expect from a pro photo editing app such as red eye removal, cropping, selection, painting and drawing tools, color correction tools, masks, filters, layers, and more. It also features an uncluttered UI with clearly marked tools which are both easy to find and use. Affinity Photo also brings support for extensive keyboard shortcuts which makes the photo editing more enjoyable and fast once you put some time into learning the software.

While there is a bit of learning curve, which is understandable, the developers offer tons of written and video tutorials which is more than enough to get anyone started. I am also fond of its non-destructive photo editing approach which keeps the original photo intact until you manually override it with your edited photo. There’s also support for extensive history and users can easily undo/redo changes up to 8000 steps.

Finally, it also offers an Apple Photos plugin allowing you to do minor adjustments right inside the Photos app. The only missing feature here is a Digital Asset Management or DAM which means you can not use it as a photo repository, something Adobe Lightroom users will surely miss. If that’s not a concern for you, I can recommend this app without any hesitation.

Get Affinity Photo:Free trial, $49.99

2. Luminar 4

Luminar 4 is a full-fledged pro photo editing tool for Mac which is also the easiest to use. Since I switch from Affinity Photo to Luminar, I have more than halved the time I used to spend on photo editing without any drop in quality. That is a deal that I am going to take any day. The before and after photo that you can see in the Affinity Photo section took me around 5 minutes to edit, while the picture you are seeing below took me just one click. It is because Luminar 4 comes with a set of more than 60 filters, some of which even use artificial intelligence, to enhance your photos with just a click.

The filters use a set of pre-configured presets that change depending on the subject of the picture. In my experience Luminar 4 works best for portraits and scenic shots. Luminar 4 also lets you adjust the presets if you don’t like the results. You have access to all the photo editing tools such as masks, layers, gradients, color correction, and more. You can use them to make manual changes to your photo just as you do with any other pro photo editing app. The filters allows you to get quite near to your end result with just one click. From there, you can make the minute adjustments to get your perfect photo. One of my favorite features of Luminar 4 is its before and after slider. I can instantly visualize the changes that I have made and compare the edited image to the original image.

Luminar 4 also has a built-in DAM. You can organize, rate, browse, and sort photos just like you can do on Adobe Lightroom. Like Affinity Photo and other pro photo editing apps mentioned in this section, Luminar 4 is a beast when it comes to photo editing. However, it’s a beast that can be easily tamed and used to perfection without creating any problem for us. Whether you are a professional photo editor who needs to save time or an amateur who wants to learn professional photo editing, Luminar 4 is a great photo editing tool for either use-cases.

Get Luminar 4:$89.99

3. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC

No photo editing app list can be complete with mentioning Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC as it is one of the most powerful photo editing app that you can get on your Mac. Apart from the obvious photo editing features, the biggest benefit of using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC is that it comes with a fully functional Digital Asset Management or DAM which allows users to not only manage their entire photo catalogue but also upload it to cloud so they can access it from anywhere. That is one of the biggest strength of Adobe Lightroom and if that is something you want, currently, there’s no better app out there.

Coming back to the photo editing tools, the Adobe Lightroom CC is packed with them. It might not be as easy as Luminar but it doesn’t lag behind when it comes to power. You get access to all the usual tools including blend, blur, layers, color correction, color matching, and more.

I love its easy-to-use sliders that give users complete control over the light and color properties of their photos. It also lets you shift focus and sharpen your photos to highlight your subject or reduce distraction in the image. My biggest problem with Adobe Lightroom CC is its subscription-based pricing system which makes this only viable for people who are using this to earn money. If you are just using the app for yourself, both Affinity Photo and Luminar will serve you better as far as return of investment is concerned.

Get Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: $9.9/month

4. Pixelmator Pro

Pixelmator Pro is another pro photo editing tool for Mac which you should try. The app not only brings an extensive collection of tools for editing and retouching photos but it also allows you to paint, create graphics design, add effects, and do so much more. However, since we are focusing only on photo editing software for Mac here, we will keep our interested limited to those features only.

I used Pixelmator Pro for about a month and I found that it has everything that you might need from a photo editing software. In fact, the new 2.0 update of Pixelmator Pro also brings a ton of other features that you won’t find on most of the photo editing tools on this list. For example, it now supports Apple M1 Macs, multi GPUs (looking at you Mac Pro), and RAW editing workflows with the new Pro Display XDR.

Pixelmator Pro comes with a new ML-Enhance mode which uses artificial intelligence trained on a catalog of 20 million professional photos, to automatically fine-tune 37 individual color adjustments. Just like Luminar, this feature gives you a great starting point for making fine-tuned adjustments to your photos.

That said, the ML-Enhance, only has one pre-set and I like Luminar’s approach far better. I do like the new ML De-noise feature which removes noise and image compression artifacts from photos. Not many photo editing apps for Mac can boast of this feature. I quite enjoyed using Pixelmator Pro and if you don’t like any of the above-mentioned software, you should give a chance to Pixelmator Pro.

Get Pixelmator Pro:Free trial, $39.99

Best Free Open Source Photo Editing Apps for Mac

5. GIMP

GIMP is Adobe Photoshop for people who like open-source software. GIMP or GNU Image Manipulation Program is packed with features and allows you to make pro-level editing of your photos. Since it is an open-source app, it is completely free of charge. That said, GIMP also comes with the problems that most open-source app suffer from which is to say that it’s UI looks old and is not at all user friendly. In fact, GIMP is one of the hardest image editing apps you will find on this list. You will need to spend quite a bit of time in learning its ins and outs and only then will you be able to take full advantage of its potential.

I found GIMP to be too hard for my taste. I remember one time I mistakenly made a change to its workspace and it took me almost 15-20 minutes to get it back to the version I was familiar with. That being said, thousands and thousands of Mac owners are using GIMP everyday for their photo editing needs, so, I might be an anomaly here. Once you put in enough time to learn GIMP, you will find that it has all the features that you need now and might need in the future.

Get Gimp:Free

6. Fotor Photo Editor

If you are looking for a free yet accessible photo editing software, take a look at the Fotor Photo Editor. It might not be as powerful as GIMP but it is fairly easy to learn which makes this a great image editing app for beginners. The app supports importing and exporting of a wide range of image formats including TIFF, JPEG, and PNG, and even RAW files. When it comes to features, Fotor brings enough tools that you won’t find it dragging you down unless you are a pro user.

One of my favorite tool of Fotor is batch processing.It allows me to apply preset conditions to images in batches thereby saving me a lot of time. Other features of Fotor include effects, borders, the ability to create collages, tilt-shift, and more. To explain simply, Fotor is basically an easier and watered-down version of Lightroom, Luminar, or other pro image editing apps for Mac on this list. While the app is free, recently it has also released a Fotor Pro version which brings more features and costs $39.99/year. You can compare the free and paid version of Fotor by clicking on this link.

Get Fotor: Free

Best One-Click Photo Editing App for Mac

7. Photolemur 3

I thought long and hard whether I should include this app on the list or not as the app technically doesn’t allow you to edit photos. Still, I know that there are users who don’t want to spend time on editing photos but also want their photos to look decent. Well, if you are one of those people then this is the app for you. To use, Photolemur, all you need to do is drag and drop pictures on it. You can do it in batches or one by one. Once you drop images on it, it will apply AI to identify scenes, colors, and faces and enhance them automatically.

Remember, you will not have any control over the retouching what-so-ever. However, in my testing, the app produced respectable images in 90% of the cases, hence, it made the list. The one place it fails 100% of the times is when you already have high-contrast images with popping colors. Apart from that, it works fairly well. I will say it again, it’s not a photo editing app which you should use if you want total control. However, If you really don’t want to spend even a minute on learning to edit and editing your photos, this is your best option.

Get Photolemur 3:$35

Best HDR Photo Editors for Mac

8. Aurora HDR

If you work with HDR or High Dynamic Range photography, Aurora HDR is the best app you can get. For those who are not familiar, HDR combines multiple images (low exposure, medium exposure, and high exposure) to create an image with a better dynamic range. What it means is that your photos will have a better ratio of light and dark. Your iPhone already does this if you have this setting turned on while you are taking pictures. However, In a more traditional sense, a photographer takes three photos in different exposures and combines them in an HDR photo editing app to get the best results.

For that work, Aurora HDR is the best tool out there. Aurora HDR is made by the same developers who make Luminar and hence I found that both apps had more or less the same user interface with a focus on different photo editing styles. Remember, if you don’t work with HDR photos manually, you really don’t need to get this app. That being said, I used it with same photos that I use on other photo editing apps and the results were quite impressive. This app is definitely not for everyone, but some of you might enjoy using this.

Get AuroraHDR 2019:$99

Best Free Raw Photo Editing Apps for Mac

9. darktable

If you read the article thoroughly, which I hope that you did, you will know that all the pro photo editing apps that I mentioned above, including Lightroom, Luminar, Affinity Photo, and Pixelmator Pro support RAW files so it wasn’t really necessary to create this section. Especially because if you are a professional who works only with RAW photos, you must be already using quite pricey RAW photo editor. Still, I was so impressed with this app that I didn’t, not want to include this on my list, especially when it’s completely free to use.

In fact, the description on its website articulate things about this app far better than I could so I will just post it here, “darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual light-table and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable light-table, and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.” If this is something you need, you should click on the link to download it right now.

Get darktable: Free

Best Online Photo Editor for Mac (Free Photoshop Alternative)

9. Photopea

Photopea is an excellent photo editor for Mac if you don’t want to use a native app. Photopea is a web app that brings almost all the features that Adobe Photoshop has for free. Standout features include content-aware fill, filters support, layers support, a huge selection for brushes, and more.

The app also supports all popular image formats along with app-specific formats, including PSD, XD, Sketch, XCF, RAW, and more. If you have used Adobe Photoshop in the past but want to move on due to its high-cost, this is the perfect solution for you. It even supports most keyboard shortcuts that Photoshop uses.

It also has dozens of PSD templates that you can use to create thumbnails for videos, profile avatars, cards, and more. The only major drawback of this app is that the UI looks a bit dated. But for a free online photo editor, this rocks. If you are looking for a free Photoshop alternative, I urge you to give this app a try. If you find the app interesting, you can get started by visiting its learn page.

Bonus: Photoscape X

Photoscape X is another excellent free app for editing photos on the Mac. While the app does have a pro version that costs money, the free version is more than enough for most users. Apart from the usual tools like resize, crop, rotate, merge, and more, you also get access to pro tools such as color adjustments, filters, de-noising, batch editing, and more.

The interface of the app is functional. So, while it won’t win any design awards, you will find it easier to use. You get the main panels at the top. Here, you can choose between collage, edit, view, GIF, and more. I like that panels are separated depending on tasks. This helps in keeping the side panel, which hosts all your editing tools, clean.

The app supports most of the popular image formats, including RAW. I did find that the app took a bit more time to process large files, but overall, my experience was good enough to include this on the list.

Get Photoscape X:Free, in-app purchases

Best Image Editing Apps for Mac: Final Thoughts

While all these photo editing apps are good, you will find that some of them suit you better than the others. For me, Luminar and Affinity Photo work the best and hence I am still sticking to those two. But you should choose the one that fits your editing style and needs. If you find this article informative, comment below to tell us which photo editing app you found to be the best for you.

Managing a huge gallery and organizing photos is a tricky business, even if you’re generally tidy, so it’s always a good idea to use some help. Especially when there’s software out there designed specifically to deal with an overload of pictures.

The only trouble with professional photo organizing software is that, much like any photo equipment, it’s painfully expensive. In this article we’ll suggest tools that tame your giant photo gallery without leaving a hole in your pocket.

Best photo manager apps for Mac reviewed

1. Gemini 2: The duplicate photo finder

The first step to getting your photos organized is to remove all of the duplicate or similar-looking images. Chances are when you take a picture, you don’t take just one; you take 15. All from different angles, maybe even with different poses. But rarely do you need or want all of them, so now they’re just taking up space on your Mac.

The easiest way to get rid of those files is to get a duplicate photo finder, Gemini 2. It scans your whole gallery and locates the duplicate or similar photos. Gemini 2 lets you quickly review and choose which pictures you want to delete. But the app also uses AI to select the best version of each image, and it will get rid of all of the copies with just one click of the Smart Cleanup button.

2. Photos: Best photo organizer on Mac

Here’s the biggest secret to good photo organization: master Photos. You might be thinking: seriously, is a native Apple app really any good? And you’d be surprised how much it is.

Since macOS Sierra, Photos has been getting makeovers and new features. In macOS Mojave, the app lets you organize content just by dragging-and-dropping it, and with Smart Albums, you can instantly group photos by date, camera, and even the person in them. At this point, it’s just a really good piece of photo management software.

3. Mylio: A free photo manager app

If you’ve been meaning to consolidate your photos in one place for years, Mylio will help you do just that. When you first start using the app, it offers to look for your photos on the current device, on an external drive, and even on your Facebook.

Once all the photos you’ve taken in your lifetime are imported, Mylio organizes into a variety of views. The coolest one is Calendar, showing you photo collections on an actual calendar. That way, you’ll quickly find the photos from your son’s first birthday, even if you forgot how you named the folder. Plus, Mylio offers a free mobile app, so you can access your photo library wherever you are.

4. Adobe Lightroom: Cloud-based photo editor and organizer

While Adobe Lightroom is probably best known as a powerful picture editor, it’s also loaded with tons of tools to help keep your photos organized. It stores your pics in the Adobe Cloud so you can access all of your albums and folders on another computer, phone, or even an internet browser.

One of the great things about Lightroom is that it makes non-destructive edits to your photos. So, you can revert back to the original image at any time, and you don’t need to create a duplicate just to preserve your picture.

5. Luminar: Organize and view pictures without importing them

If you have your pictures saved in various folders across your computer, then Luminar is the app you’ll want to check out. It shows you all of your photos without having to import any of them into a library. So you can start using Luminar in almost no time.

6. Adobe Bridge: Free photo library manager

You might be wondering why Adobe would make two separate photo managers. Aside from Adobe Bridge being free for everyone, it serves an entirely different purpose. Bridge is solely an image and asset manager. Unlike Lightroom, it doesn’t have any editing functionality.

So, what’s the point then? Where Bridge really shines is if you’re using other Adobe products, such as Photoshop or Illustrator. You can store and organize all of your pictures in Bridge and then open them in any Adobe program without creating a duplicate or searching through the thousands of files on your computer. Plus, Bridge offers a robust search tool making it a breeze to find the exact image you’re looking for.

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Final word on photo management on Mac

Photo Software For Mac

There are basically two things you need to remember to bring order into your photographing life:

1. Before you get to organization and management, be sure to unclutter your photo library. The easiest way to do it is with a duplicate finder, such as Gemini 2. Otherwise you'll be rummaging around in thousands of photos you don't even need.
2. Photos, the native photo manager on a Mac, can accomplish everything you need to make organizing photos into groups and categories easy.
3. Third-party tools can provide you with added functionality that’s missing in native macOS tools, like calendar view or managing photos right in the Finder.

Now that you know all the secrets to photo organization, Mac photography shouldn’t be that hard or that expensive. Not when you’ve got the right tricks up your sleeve.

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