Wondering why you need to know about the best photo editing software for Mac? Well, you will know that shortly! These days we are so much engaged with taking selfies, solo pics, and group shots, aren’t we? Whether we are at restaurants, parties, parks, or even at home, we fancy taking piles of selfies, solo shots, and photo sessions with our friends & family.
The next thing that we hustle to do is, sharing these pics on various social media platforms. Right? But do we share these photoshoots without polishing them? Absolutely, not! Rather, we edit and upgrade them utilizing various built-in photo editing apps. We leverage filters, adjust color, fix the exposure issues, and sharpen the images. That’s fine when you are limited only to your personal image upgrades.
But when it comes to professional photography, these built-in apps aren’t adequate rather you need photo editing software having advanced features. Some of these pieces of software work on Windows, some work on Mac while others are compatible in both platforms. However, in this write-up, we will introduce you to the 7 best photo editing software for Mac in 2022.
Needless to say, if you are a Mac user, you will benefit immensely from this write-up. Regardless of your profession, our collection of photo retouching software for Mac will slash your photo polishing efforts tremendously. Let’s take a peek at the photo editing software for Mac that we have picked for you in 2022.
At first, we would name Apple Photos as a photo enhancement app for Mac. Apple Photos was released as a bundled app on iOS in 2014 for the first time. Since then, it started getting traction among the Mac users and consolidated its position shortly. It not only comes free but also offers loads of editing tools for you to polish your images. No matter whether you wish to select color, adjust exposure, fine-tune curves, or apply quick filters, you can execute all of them with this built-in Mac app.
Additionally, it has intuitive tools, an easy navigation system, and a seamless integration system on iCloud Photo Library. To retouch an image on Apple Photos, just open it and click the Edit in the top menu. You can view various editing options like Adjust, Filters, and Crop that you can choose based on your requirements. Considering all these benefits that the app offers, we placed it on top of our list.
Price: Free
Affinity Photo is one of the coolest photo editing software that you can leverage for editing your images. Initially, it may appear overwhelming to some of you especially if you are a rookie professional. But once you start exploring the app, you will fathom that this is exactly what you have been ferreting.
The software comes with umpteen pro tools, filters, and effects letting you to be creative with your images. Since Photoshop moved from a one-time license plan to a subscription plan, many professionals were hunting for alternatives and this app caught their attention.
Affinity Photo is massively fast and is capable of handling high-volume files (Over 100 MB). The app works with 15 different types of file formats including JPG, GIF, PSD, and PDF. It will mesmerize you with its premium manipulation tools allowing you to tinker around your photos and give them optimum looks.
You can retouch HDR photos, apply artistic filters, play with layers and masks, and even create outstanding photo compositions merging multiple images. It may not be a budget-friendly app but it’s available to buy in a single payment instead of paying a regular subscription fee.
Price: $49.99
The next photo touch-up editor for Mac that we would recommend is AI-based Luminar. It’s a full-featured app and a magnificent one for Mac users allowing them to make quick but high-grade image enhancements. Among the features that the app contains, Sky Enhancer, Accent AI, and Sun Rays are worth mentioning. With Sky enhancer, you can add depth and details to the sky keeping the other parts intact.
Accent AI scans an image and applies the best combination of various effects to bring out the best output. Sun Rays enables you to put an artificial sun on your photo and adjust the lighting to your preference. You can even enhance an image having sun rays already existing with these features.
The app can run both standalone and as a plug-in for Photoshop and Lightroom. It has over 60 filters that you can utilize to upgrade your images in a flash. The software consists of a variety of powerful tools for cropping, cloning, transforming, erasing, and stamping images. The program also offers tools like layers, masks, brushes, and blending modes letting you be creative with your photo retouching tasks.
Price: $69.00
You may also read: Luminar AI Review – 2023
Among the two versions of photo editing apps that Pixelmator offers, Pixelmator Pro is the powerful one that you can leverage for image editing tasks. The software is powered by machine learning and you can execute a plethora of photo enhancement actions with its cracking and flawless tools.
It has an easy-to-navigate interface that can smoothen your workflow. Unlike the Standard version of Pixelmator, this version features extra brushes, tools, and effects allowing you to take your photo retouching knack to the next level.
You can deploy Pixelmator Pro for basic photo touch-up actions like cropping, resizing, color-correction, adding filters, and so on. But due to the incorporation of machine learning or neural network, you can even perform advanced tasks like eliminating objects, copying the appearance of one photo to another, automatically altering a photo to perfection, recreating image areas with the Repair tool, and many more. The app is also reasonably priced with respect to the tons of features it offers. So, if you are a Mac user, go for it hands down.
Price: $39.99
An intuitive and super simple photo editor, Fotor is designed to aid you to carry out your image processing tasks in a hassle-free manner. With this photo editing app, you can fix color, contrast, and exposure issues of washed-out photos, add borders, tilt and modify your images, add different texts, apply filters, and so on.
You can even apply various presents and textures to add charm to your images. Most of these tasks you can execute with one-touch availing of the toolbox placed on the right side of the app.
What makes the software stand out from others is its ability to do batch-processing of photos. By that what we mean is, if you have a collection of photos requiring similar editing action, this can be your go-to app to perform that.
You may have a group of beach photos showing up overexposed and requires the same filter to be applied for perfect exposure or requires color-fixing at once. This is where this mind-blowing software will come into play. Thanks to the developer of the app for adding so many peachy features to it.
Price: $39.99 (Pro Version)
Another AI-based photo editing software that we cataloged in our list is Photolemur which is ideal for newbie photographers and hobbyists. It’s a straightforward and easy-to-use software that can enhance your images exceedingly well and that’s also smoothly. The software being powered by artificial intelligence, it performs photo touch-up automatically in a flash.
It has a simple interface with only a few buttons and sliders to make the image upgrades exactly how you urge. All you have to do is pick your photo, drag and drop it or import it using the import button. The rest of the photo refinement job will be done by the program itself. Cool, right?
But that’s not the end. Once the editing is done, you can liken the edited version of the image to the original image using the before-after slider. There are additional sliders available in this app too that you can leverage to adjust skin tone or enhance the eyes if you need.
Photolemur contains a number of spellbinding styles that you can utilize to spice up your photos without tearing your hair out in no time. So, what’s the best part of it? The job of minutes is processed in seconds!!!
Price: $35.00
GNU Image Manipulation Program is the expansion of GIMP which has long been one of the topmost rivals among the photo editors. If you are fond of Photoshop but don’t want all the complex components of Photoshop, this image editing software is for you then. Similar to Photoshop, GIMP lets you holistic control over retouching your photos.
The app has umpteen enhancement options that you can leverage to polish your images like clone tool, healing tool, selection tools, transformation tools, color adjustment tools, etc. Utilizing these tools, you can add layers to your photos, modify colors, crop, and adjust contrast as well as saturation.
GIMP is an open-source photo editor that has been existing in the market for a long time and is compatible with Mac. The software is free of ads and doesn’t contain any in-app purchases either. It comes with a number of pre-installed plug-ins that you can avail but you aren’t limited to them and install more if you want. Looking at all the features available in a free photo editor, the word that comes to mind is majestic.
Price: Free
Guys, that’s all for our list of the 7 best photo editing software for Mac in 2022. Out of enormous image editing software available at our fingertips, we picked the best ones for you with our profound research and analysis. Depending on your budget and requirements, you can cherrypick one of the mentioned photo editing apps. Whichever one you decide to leverage, hopefully, it will get you more bang for your bucks.