Editing pictures is such a broad term. That could include everything from a small adjustment like cropping your pics all the way to more complex photo compositions and everything in between. So, when you're looking for the best photo editor for Mac, it's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all answer. But don't worry, this article will talk about apps that cover all those levels to help you find the best one for you.

• Mac Picture Editor
• Picture Editor On Mac

Here's a list of the best photo apps for Mac you'll read about:

Canva is the best free photo editing software for Mac. It is used for the professional level of photo editing with different kinds of templates. To make logos, posters, pamphlets, and hashtags of. Apple’s Photos (Built-in app) Apple’s Photos app is included for free on all recently released Macs. Fotor is a simple and free photo editor for Mac. Loaded with all the basic tools you could need, like making color adjustments, adding borders or text, and rotating or tilting your images. The app lays out all of these tools in an easy-to-navigate interface, making it not only the most affordable editor on our list but also the easiest to use. Your Mac’s Preview app doesn’t just contain PDF-editing features. It’s a great little image editor, too. Preview offers basic tools for cropping, resizing, rotating, annotating, and otherwise tweaking images. Upload or drag and drop your photo into the editor. Crop or resize your photo to get the size you want. Change the mood of your photo with a filter. Adjust brightness, saturation and contrast. Download your edited photo!

1. Lightroom
2. Affinity Photo
3. Photoshop
4. Gimp
5. Photolemur
6. Snapheal
7. Pixelmator
8. Preview
9. Fotor
10. Google Photos

Editing pictures can quickly create duplicate versions of the same picture. You could end up with an edited and an original copy of all of your photos. So, it's good to get into the habit of checking and cleaning up your duplicates. And thankfully, you can use the app Gemini 2. It's an app that will scan your hard drive for similar-looking, as well as exact copies, and let you delete them within minutes.

1. Lightroom

Mac Picture Editor

If you're looking for the best photography app for Mac, look no further than Adobe Lightroom. It's an industry standard for all photographers, from budding amateurs to professionals.

The nice thing about Lightroom is that you can also use it as a photo manager. Cataloging the pictures you edit and even copy and pasting edits between images. It's a robust tool that will allow you to do any retouching you want to your photo.

2. Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is the app that's going to give you the most bang for your buck. While it's loaded with all of the essential retouching tools like red-eye correction, blemish healing, and cloning. But it also has more powerful editing features like masking, filters, and layer adjustments.

One of the nice things about this app is that it's a non-destructive editor. This means when you make any edits, it doesn't destroy or save over the original image. So, if you push an edit too far and don't like what you've done, you're able to revert back to the original. However, Affinity Photo doesn't have an image management feature. Which may make it easier for some people to use, but it also makes it harder to keep track of which pics you've already edited.

3. Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is arguably the most popular photo editor on this list, and it's also the most powerful one. There is absolutely nothing you can't do with this app. In fact, its name has become a synonym for photo editing. When people say they edited an image, it's not uncommon for them to say, 'I Photoshopped that.'

But Photoshop isn't for everyone. Because it's so robust, it might be a bit of overkill if you're only doing basic retouching to your photos. On the other hand, if you're looking for more advanced features, you might find the Adobe subscription is worth the price.

4. Gimp

If you're looking for free photo editing software for Mac, then you'll want to check out Gimp. It's like a much simpler and free version of Photoshop. All the things that might have confused in Adobe Photoshop have been simplified and decluttered in Gimp. It's a great app that gives you total control over your photos, so you can edit them however you'd like.

5. Photolemur

Photolemur bills itself as the easiest and fastest way to edit your photos. Once you import your picture, it analyzes it before using its algorithms and AI to automatically enhance it. And don't worry, you can always adjust how much your pic is improved if you don't like how Photolemur edited your image. Photolemur is a great app for beginners and those of you who are only dipping your toe into the photography water.

6. Snapheal

If you've ever taken a photo only to look back at it and noticed a complete strange photobombing your pic, you can just launch Snapheal. Snapheal is an app that quickly gets rid of anything for your pictures. Whether it's a tiny blemish or an entire person in the background, fire up Snapheal and fix your photos fast.

7. Pixelmator

Pixelmator is a fun and easy-to-use photo editor on Mac that's going to take your photography game to the next level. With the app, you can combine two pictures together using their layers feature. You can make adjustments to contrast, lighting, and other various effects. And the great news is that it's still more inexpensive than both Photoshop and Affinity Photo.

8. Preview

When it comes to making very basic photo edits, look no further to Preview, the default Mac image editor. You can resize and crop pictures with it, but you can also make color adjustments, rotate the picture, or add shapes and text to your pics.

9. Fotor

Fotor is a simple and free photo editor for Mac. Loaded with all the basic tools you could need, like making color adjustments, adding borders or text, and rotating or tilting your images. The app lays out all of these tools in an easy-to-navigate interface, making it not only the most affordable editor on our list but also the easiest to use.

10. Google Photos

Even though Google Photos is usually thought of as a photo library manager, the app also has some useful tools to make small edits to your pictures. You can do things like add filters, adjust the light and saturation, and even rotate or crop your original image. While Google Photos is lighter on the number of tools to edit your pictures, the small adjustments it can make, it does them very well.

There are a ton of incredible apps that can help you edit your pictures. You just need to figure out which one works best for you and your photos. Can you get by with making quick edits in Preview, or do you need all the power an app like Adobe Photoshop can offer you? Hopefully, this article helps clear up some of those key differences between these apps.

Many people assume they need an Adobe subscription to edit photos, even semi-professionally, but that’s not true. Photos for Mac is the answer for anyone who wonders, “Does Mac come with a photo editor?” Moreover, the good-old Preview you use to open PDFs and images has enough basic tools for editing an image on your Mac. In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at what you can do with Mac’s native photo editors and exactly how to do that.

As you start editing your pictures, it’s common to start accumulating duplicates of the same image—the original, an edited one, and perhaps any other version you might crop or resize later. So, it’s best to use an app like Gemini 2 to help you find and eliminate duplicate files wasting space on your Mac.

With Gemini 2, you can scan your entire hard drive, your photo library, or just a specific folder for duplicates. Then, you can choose to review all of the copies it found to select which version to delete. Or you can let Gemini 2’s AI decide, and you can remove your duplicate photos with just one click of the Smart Cleanup button. And the best part is that you Download and try Gemini 2 for free.

Picture Editor On Mac

How to edit pictures on Mac using the Photos app

As an editing app, Photos comes with everything you need to adjust the quality, light, color, sharpness, and other qualities of the pictures you take. It may lack the editing power of professional software like Photoshop, but it’s the perfect tool for aspiring and amateur photographers. It’s equally useful for the millions of us who take pictures every day and want to make them look good before posting online and sharing with friends. With this free photo editor for Mac, you’ll be able to adjust, resize, crop, rotate, and enhance your photos, as well as apply filters to them — all without spending a penny.

To edit a picture, go through the following steps:

1. Launch the Photos app.
2. Find the image or group of images you want to edit in your library.
3. Double-click on the photo you want to edit (or press Command-Return).
4. Click Edit in the toolbar. Now you’ll see three tabs above the image: Adjust, Filters, and Crop. Clicking on one will unveil further editing options in the right-hand menu.
5. Another way to open a picture to edit is to press Command-Return to open in Edit view.

How to adjust pics in the Photos app

There’s a whole range of ways to use the Adjust feature to make significant or subtle changes to your pics. (And remember, if you aren’t happy with any of them, just click Revert to Original in the top left-hand corner of the editing window).

The Photos Adjust feature can be broken down into several specific tools.

• Light: everything from shadows to brightness to contrast.
• Color: make it warmer, colder, or adjust specific colors in a small area of a picture.
• Black & White: make the shot monochrome.
• Retouch: improve sharpness and other aspects of the picture.
• Red-eye: remove red eyes on a pic.
• White Balance, Curves, Noise Reduction, and many more.

Each of these settings can be adjusted with a series of sliders. Simply move one or more and watch the photo change. Click Done once you are happy with the edits you’ve made.

How to crop photos on Mac using Photos app

When you crop a picture, you can adjust the ratio or remove the parts you don’t want to improve its composition. With Photos, you can also flip it from horizontal to vertical, or the other way around.

Here is how you crop an image using Photos:

1. Launch Photos.
2. Find the photo you want to edit and double-click on it.
3. Click Edit and go to Crop in the top toolbar of Photos.
4. Click on Aspect on the right to choose an aspect ratio, or click Auto In the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to crop automatically.
5. Click Done once you are happy with the picture.

Another way to crop or resize is to make these changes manually. Go through steps 1 - 3 above, then select Aspect. Now you can adjust the aspect ratio according to a series of pre-set parameters.

Once you’re satisfied with the result, click Done, or revert to the original if you want to start over.

How to apply filters in Photos app

In Photos, you have a series of nine filters designed to copy classic photography styles. Filters have been a part of taking photos — professionally and for fun — for generations before Instagram and Snapchat, so Apple made it easy to apply these with a few clicks.

Here’s how you apply a filter in the Photos app:

1. Launch Photos.
2. Find the photo you want to edit and double-click on it.
3. Click Edit and go to Filters in the top toolbar.
4. Choose from the Vivid, Dramatic, and Black & White options.
5. Once you’re happy with the changes, click Done, or revert to try again.

Because you’ll probably edit your photos one or two at a time, you might not notice the duplicates your computer has accumulated over time. So, you should regularly use Gemini 2 to scan for copies of your pictures that are just wasting space on your hard drive.

How to edit photos with Mac’s Preview

Another way to make changes to photos using a native Mac tool is to use Preview. Although most people use it to view and make some changes to PDFs, it can also help make quick changes to images. It isn’t as feature-rich as Photos, but if you need a quick adjustment before sending or publishing a photo, it can get the job done. Let’s start with the basics: resizing an image.

How to resize an image with Mac’s Preview

Resizing an image doesn’t have to be a guessing game. Do the following to make a proportional resize and avoid the image looking squished or too stretched:

1. Open the photo with Preview.
2. Go to Tools in the Apple menu.
3. Click Adjust Size.
4. This will open a window where you can adjust the size of the pic either in pixels or in inches/centimeters.
5. Make sure you keep the Scale proportionally box checked. That way, the image will preserve its original aspect ratio.
6. Click OK when you’re done.

To rotate a photo, there is a rotate button on the top toolbar of the app (it looks like a square with an arrow). Click once or more, depending on how many times an image needs rotating to get in the right position. From the Apple menu, click File > Save once you’re done.

If you want to undo any changes, click Edit, then select Undo. You can also revert to the original to start again before making further edits. To do that, go to File > Revert to > Last Opened.

Now, if you want to crop an image, that’s also easily done with Preview, although the app lacks the more robust options available in Photos.

1. Click and drag your cursor on the area of the picture you want to crop
2. Click the Crop button in the top right-hand corner
3. Now click File > Save to save this image, or revert or undo to start again

And finally, you can also adjust the color using Preview. Here’s how:

1. Click Tools in the Apple menu
2. Go to Adjust Color
3. A range of sliders will appear, giving you the tools to adjust any of the following: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, saturation, temperature, tint, sepia, and sharpness. Although not quite as many options as Photos offers, this is a decent selection of edits that you can make quickly and easily without any third-party apps.

Edit photos with third-party Mac photo editors

Of course, if you’re looking to do more advanced edits to your photos, there is no shortage of third-party apps for you to use. Apps like Lightroom that allow you to make lighting adjustments and do some minor cleanup to your photographs. Or Photoshop that will allow you to change the composition and create entirely new images. While apps like this aren’t necessarily cheap or easy-to-use, they are powerhouses for editing photos on your Mac.

But between Photos and Preview, every Mac user has two robust, easy-to-use native photo editors to edit pictures to perfection before posting them online, sharing with friends and family, or sending to a client. You don’t have to spend weeks mastering Photoshop or other heavyweight photo editors — any change you need is a few clicks away.

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