No matter where you are on your journey as a photographer, you will eventually need to step up your game with photo imaging software. Whether you want to brighten a dark photo, remove a distracting background, or let your creativity lead you in a whole new direction, there’s an app for that.
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. Here is a list of the best free MAC photo editor software to help you edit photos on MAC.You can edit different formats of photos on MAC by using different tools, like edit using built in shapes, add text, add other images, and many more editing options.
Get the biggest choice of photo editing tools for Mac. Combine different apps’ functionality to fit your needs.
Free Download
Photo editing apps for Mac come with a huge variety of features and at many different price points, but some great image editors are completely free to use. While a few of them have a steep learning curve, and others push in-app purchases, all enable you to turn drab, lifeless shots into photos that pop. We’ve rounded up the best free photo editing software for Mac computers, so all you have to do is start creating.
The free photo editing software for Mac we recommend
In our search for the best free photo editors for Macs, we found five great options that offer a wide range of features for photographers of all experience levels. Many will find that these free apps are all they need to up their photography game. Others will use them as a stepping stone until they are ready to splurge on advanced software with premium features. So, here are our top picture editors for Mac, in no specific order:
CameraBag Pro
Fotor
PhotoScape X
Image Tricks
Preview and Photos for Mac
TIP: Learning new photo editing software will definitely leave you with many copies of the same picture: the original, the copy with a filter from Polarr, the one you cropped using Preview... To keep just the copies you need, scan your Mac with Gemini 2. This macOS app helps you quickly find and delete duplicate photos, so download it for free and give it a try.
CameraBag Pro: Lightweight photo editor for quick adjustments
If you’re looking for basic tweaks in an easy interface, CameraBag Pro may be the best editor for your Mac. The app comes with over 200 professional filters and configurable presets. The best part of CameraBag Pro is the easy auto adjustments, which allow you to apply gorgeous edits with a click of a button. You can flexibly use it for batch editing, which is an asset professional designers and photographers will appreciate. You can purchase the app for $20 or use it as a part of Setapp subscription for $9.99 per month.
Fotor: The best intuitive photo editor for Mac
While there’s no point in comparing Fotor to Adobe Photoshop this lightweight photo editor for Mac does have some interesting features. It excels at one-click fixes and filters, and is perfect for busy photographers looking for a quick edit. Fotor’s focus is less on fixing mistakes and making corrections to lighting and tone, and more on creating stylized images that can be shared on social media. There’s definitely a place for this type of editing in your tool kit, and it may work great in conjunction with other image editors on this list.
PhotoScape X: Powerful photo editor that tackles RAW files
If you’ve moved past the novice photographer stage, you’ve likely started shooting your images in the RAW format so you can fine-tune your edits a bit more precisely. PhotoScape X makes editing RAW photos a breeze, and it provides a lot more than basic retouching. The powerful editing toolkit is very easy to navigate, and advanced features include batch editing, panorama and collage options, and numerous filters. Because the interface is easy to figure out, you will find that your editing skills improve dramatically with experimentation. No matter what your experience level is, PhotoScape X will help advance your technique.
Image Tricks: Artistic rendering made simple
Image Tricks won’t replace any of the standard photo editors for Mac that we’ve included in this list, but it’s worth noting for the fun array of image filters that can be used to liven up your photos. With Image Tricks, you can add text overlays, frames, and wild distortions to your pictures, as well as make a few basic adjustments like highlights and color saturation. When you’re finished creating your masterpiece, there’s a good chance that your photo will look nothing like it did when you started, but that’s part of the fun. If you enjoy experimenting with Image Tricks, you may even be tempted to download Image Tricks Pro, which comes with more advanced filters for $9.99.
Preview and Photos for Mac: Native apps for quick photo edits
Mac’s native photo organizer and preview tool may not seem like the best apps to fine-tune your photos, but Preview and Photos for Mac are surprisingly versatile. Photos is primarily a photo storage platform, allowing you to group photos based on the time and place they were taken, use face detection to find photos, and quickly order prints. But not everyone knows that it comes with impressive editing tools, like retouching, white balance adjustment, and noise reduction. As for Mac’s Preview, you can use it to adjust the color and size of your photos before exporting them in a variety of file formats.
This might be helpful: How to edit photos with Mac’s native image editors
Which free image editor for Mac you choose will depend a lot on your level of experience and how much time you’re willing to put into learning a new tool. If you’re a beginner, you’ll likely be happy with Mac’s own Photos or an app like Polarr, and if your level is more advanced, you’ll enjoy learning the ins and outs of Photoscape X. Whatever editing app you choose, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to improve your photos and apply your own creative flair.
These might also interest you:
There are dozens of free photo editors out there, so we've hand-picked the very best so you can make your pictures look amazing without paying a penny.
We've spent hours putting a huge range of photo editors to the test, and picked out the best ones for any level of skill and experience. From powerful software packed with features that give Photoshop a run for its money to simple tools that give your pictures a whole new look with a couple of clicks, there's something for everyone.
Many free photo editors only offer a very limited selection of tools unless you pay for a subscription, or place a watermark on exported images, but none of the tools here carry any such restrictions. Whichever one you choose, you can be sure that there are no hidden tricks to catch you out.
Best free photo editors 2019 at a glance:
GIMP
Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019
Canva
Fotor
Photo Pos Pro
Paint.NET
PhotoScape
Pixlr X
Adobe Photoshop Express Editor
PiZap
1. GIMP
The best free photo editor for advanced image editing
No ads or limitations
GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the best free photo editor around. It's packed with the kind of image-enhancing tools you'd find in premium software, and more are being added every day.
The photo editing toolkit is breathtaking, and features layers, masks, curves, and levels. You can eliminate flaws easily with the excellent clone stamp and healing tools, create custom brushes, apply perspective changes, and apply changes to isolated areas with smart selection tools.
GIMP is an open source free photo editor, and its community of users and developers have created a huge collection of plugins to extend its utility even further. Many of these come pre-installed, and you can download more from the official glossary. If that's not enough, you can even install Photoshop plugins.
2. Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019
Fuss-free photo editing with automatic optimization tools
Fine manual controls
If you've got a lot of photos that you need to edit in a hurry, Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 2019 could be the tool for you. Its interface is clean and uncluttered, and utterly devoid of ads (although you'll need to submit an email address before you can start using it).
Importing pictures is a breeze, and once they've been added to the pool, you can select several at once to rotate or mirror, saving you valuable time. You can also choose individual photos to enhance with the software's one-click optimization tool. In our tests this worked particularly well on landscapes, but wasn't always great for other subjects.
If you want to make manual color and exposure corrections, there are half a dozen sliders to let you do exactly that. It's a shame you can't also apply the same color changes to a whole set of pictures at once, but this is otherwise a brilliant free photo editor for making quick corrections.
For more advanced editing, check out Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7 – the premium version of the software with enhanced optimization tools.
3. Canva
Professional-level photo editing and templates in your browser
Includes free cloud storage
Canva is a photo editor that runs in your web browser, and is ideal for turning your favorite snaps into cards, posters, invitations and social media posts. If you're interested in maintaining a polished online presence, it's the perfect tool for you.
Canva has two tiers, free and paid, but the free level is perfect for home users. Just sign up with your email address and you'll get 1GB free cloud storage for your snaps and designs, 8,000 templates to use and edit, and two folders to keep your work organized.
You won't find advanced tools like clone brushes and smart selectors here, but there's a set of handy sliders for applying tints, vignette effects, sharpening, adjusting brightness, saturation and contrast, and much more. The text editing tools are intuitive, and there's a great selection of backgrounds and other graphics to complete your designs.
4. Fotor
One-click enhancements to make your photos shine in seconds
Batch image processing
Fotor is a free photo editor that's ideal for giving your pictures a boost quickly. If there's specific area of retouching you need doing with, say, the clone brush or healing tool, you're out of luck. However, if your needs are simple, its stack of high-end filters really shine.
There's a foolproof tilt-shift tool, for example, and a raft of vintage and vibrant colour tweaks, all easily accessed through Fotor's clever menu system. You can manually alter your own curves and levels, too, but without the complexity of high-end tools.
Fotor's standout function, and one that's sorely lacking in many free photo editors, is its batch processing tool – feed it a pile of pics and it'll filter the lot of them in one go, perfect if you have a memory card full of holiday snaps and need to cover up the results of a dodgy camera or shaky hand.
5. Photo Pos Pro
Advanced photo editing tools packaged in a simple interface
Beginner and advanced modes
Photo Pos Pro isn't as well known as Paint.net and GIMP, but it's another top-quality free photo editor that's packed with advanced image-enhancing tools.
This free photo editor's interface is smarter and more accessible than GIMP's array of menus and toolbars, with everything arranged in a logical and consistent way. If it's still too intimidating, there's also an optional 'novice' layout that resembles Fotor's filter-based approach. The choice is yours.
The 'expert' layout offers both layers and layer masks for sophisticated editing, as well as tools for adjusting curves and levels manually. You can still access the one-click filters via the main menu, but the focus is much more on fine editing.
6. Paint.NET
Looking a little dated, but still a dependable all-rounder
Plugin support
More is not, believe it or not, always better. Paint.NET's simplicity is one of its main selling points; it's a quick, easy to operate free photo editor that's ideal for trivial tasks that don't necessarily justify the sheer power of tools like GIMP.
Don't let the name fool you, though. This isn't just a cheap copy of Microsoft's ultra-basic Paint – even if it was originally meant to replace it. It's a proper photo editor, just one that lands on the basic side of the curve.
Paint.NET’s interface will remind you of its namesake, but over the years, they’ve added advanced editing tools like layers, an undo history, a ton of filters, myriad community-created plugins, and a brilliant 3D rotate/zoom function that's handy for recomposing images.
7. PhotoScape
Raw image conversion, batch processing and much more
Great selection of filters
PhotoScape might look like a rather simple free photo editor, but take a look at its main menu and you'll find a wealth of features: raw conversion, photo splitting and merging, animated GIF creation, and even a rather odd (but useful) function with which you can print lined, graph or sheet music paper.
The meat, of course, is in the photo editing. PhotoScape's interface is among the most esoteric of all the apps we've looked at here, with tools grouped into pages in odd configurations. It certainly doesn't attempt to ape Photoshop, and includes fewer features.
We'd definitely point this towards the beginner, but that doesn't mean you can't get some solid results. PhotoScape's filters are pretty advanced, so it's if good choice if you need to quickly level, sharpen or add mild filtering to pictures in a snap.
8. Pixlr X
A comprehensive browser-based photo editor for quick results
Stylish design
Pixlr X is the successor to Pixlr Editor, which was one of our favorite free online photo editors for many years.
Pixlr X makes several improvements on its predecessor. For starters, it's based on HTML5 rather than Flash, which means it can run in any modern browser. It's also slick and well designed, with an interface that's reminiscent of Photoshop Express, and a choice of dark or light color schemes.
With Pixlr X, you can make fine changes to colors and saturation, sharpen and blur images, apply vignette effects and frames, and combine multiple images. There's also support for layers, which you won't find in many free online photo editors, and an array of tools for painting and drawing. A great choice for even advanced tasks.
9. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor
A convenient way to correct lighting and exposure problems
Stylish design
As its name suggests, Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a trimmed-down, browser-based version of the company's world-leading photo editing software. Perhaps surprisingly, it features a more extensive toolkit than the downloadable Photoshop Express app, but it only supports images in JPG format that are below 16MB.
Again, this is a Flash-based tool, but Adobe provides handy mobile apps for all platforms so you won’t miss out if you’re using a smartphone or tablet.
This free online photo editor has all the panache you’d expect from Adobe, and although it doesn’t boast quite as many tools as some of its rivals, everything that’s there is polished to perfection. Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is a pleasure to use. Its only drawbacks are the limits on uploaded file size and types, and lack of support for layers.
10. PiZap
A fun photo editor for preparing your pictures for social media
Free Mac Image Editing Software Mac
Templates for social media
Free online photo editor PiZap is available in both HTML5 and Flash editions, making it suitable for any device. You can choose to work with a photo from your hard drive, Facebook, Google Photos, Google Drive, Google Search, or a catalog of stock images. This is an impressive choice, though some of the stock images are only available to premium subscribers, and you'll need to watch out for copyright issues if you use a pic straight from Google Images.
piZap’s editing interface has a dark, modern design that makes heavy use of sliders for quick adjustments – a system that works much better than tricky icons and drop-down menus if you’re using a touchscreen device.
When you’re done, you can share your creation on all the biggest social media networks, as well as piZap’s own servers, Dropbox and Google Drive. Alternatively, you can save it to your hard drive, send it via email, or grab an embed code. You can only export your work in high quality if you’ve opened your wallet for the premium editor, but for silly social sharing that’s unlikely to be a problem.
Free Mac Image Editing Software Online
Get your videos YouTube-ready with the best video editing software