There are hundreds upon hundreds of different photo editing apps for iOS in the App Store. So, how would you know which ones are worth trying out? Well, I thought I’d help you out by running through my personal top ten photo editing apps.
Check out my video rundown below.
Editing photos as a batch is one of the best ways to handle a lot of stuff. You might want to re-size the photos, add some standard filter and work on renaming them to something specific. There’s a ton of things that you might want to apply to every photo in the album (or to most). In these situations, a batch photo editing app is a must-have. Some Mac users may be wondering what the best photo editor for Mac is. Just have a try of ArcSoft PhotoStudio for Mac, which almost can do all that the Windows version can do. Just have a try of ArcSoft PhotoStudio for Mac, which almost can do all that the Windows version can do. Read reviews, compare customer ratings, see screenshots, and learn more about PhotoScape X - Photo Editor. Download PhotoScape X - Photo Editor for macOS 10.10 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. 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. Simple Photo Editor will improve all your photos in one click with the help of artificial intelligence. Revolutionary Easy Image Editing Software for PC and Mac by Photolemur The world's first automated photo enhancement solution for Mac and Windows using image recognition, artificial intelligence, and a little bit of real-world magic.
Despite all of the expensive camera equipment I own, my iPhone is my primary camera. This is due to it always being by my side no matter where I am, and because of how easy it is to take and edit pictures.
Out of all of the photo editing apps I’ve tried over the years, here’s a list of my top ten — in no particular order.
Snapseed – Free
It’s one of the top iPhone photography apps out there. Not only is it incredibly straightforward to use, but it also offers a surprisingly powerful range of tools you can use to give your pictures that professional finish.
TouchRetouch – $1.99
As it’s name suggests, TouchRetouch is all about retouching your photos to remove any unwanted elements. Simply touch the object or part of an object you want to remove, after which the app will remove it and replace it with pixels from the surrounding area.
Enlight – $3.99
Enlight has just about every basic or advanced editing tool you could hope for, whether it’s for serious work or something a bit more fun or artistic.
Mextures – $1.99
There are plenty of good apps for letting you apply textures and other creative effects to your photos, but Mextures is possibly the one you’ll hear mentioned the most. And with good reason, too! It boasts an impressive range of light leaks, grains, textures, and other ways to transform your photos.
VSCO – Free
VSCO is a camera app as well as a photo-editor, but it’s got plenty of editing tools and filters that help it stand out. What I like about VSCO is the fact that the filters are designed to look like classic and modern analog films, so you’ll get a slightly retro, faded look which will subtly enhance any pictures you take.
Superimpose – $0.99
Superimpose is a great tool for compositing multiple different pictures into one and, while there’s a bit of a learning curve, you should be up and running inside of an hour.
Download Photo Editor For Mac
Prisma – Free
You’ve probably heard of Prisma by now. It uses artificial intelligence in the form of a mix of neural networks and cloud-based machine learning to turn your photos into approximations of the work of artists like Munch or Picasso. Sure, other apps have made similar claims — but the results here really are as impressive as you’d hope.
Pixelmator – $4.99
Pixelmator has a sterling reputation — and it’s not hard to see why. Whether it’s cropping, straightening, combining images, adding effects, or whatever else, Pixelmator for iPad is one of the best tablet-based graphics apps on the market. Okay, so it’s not quite on a par with Photoshop, but I’m constantly impressed by everything that it can do. And at just $4.99, it’s certainly a bit cheaper than going down the Adobe route.
Fused – Free
Looking for a way to not simply blend photos together, but photos and video at the same time? If so, Fused is probably your answer. It’s an original concept — and it is executed tremendously.
Instagram – Free
Finally, did you really think I was going to leave this off the list? Instagram is easy to dismiss as a basic filter app — but it’s come a long, long way since those early days. If you’ve not used it in a while, it’s definitely worth revisiting. As well as increased filters, Instagram now offers some pretty impressive photo editing tools, as well.
A majority of the images used for this video were downloaded from Graphicstock.com. Graphicstock is an amazing site for all of the royalty free resources you could possibly need to help edit your photos. Get your free 7 day trial here.
For more in-depth tutorials of some of these apps check out our previous article.
Also make sure to subscribe to the Cult of Mac YouTube channel to stay up to date with all of the latest videos from Cult of Mac.
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.
Best Free Mac Photo Editor
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.
- 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! - For RAW images editing i would like to recommend 'Raw Therapee', pretty full featured free software, very simular to Adobe Lightroom.
- 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'? - I think PhotoScape X is more full-featured than Fotor.
- 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
- Adobe sales Photoshop CC plus Lightroom for $9.99 a month. Not $19.99.
- 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 :)
- No Affinity Photo? Really? Where do you live?