Whether you consider yourself a pro or an enthusiastic amateur, we have more choice than ever before when it comes to taking and editing pictures. We are lucky to live in an age when we can take, edit and publish within the same day, if not same hour.
We are more visual now than ever before. Many pro photographers, and those who simply enjoy getting out and capturing what they love, use Mac’s, so the focus of this article is macOS apps.
Editing is an essential part of the photographic process. You need the right app, or suite of apps and of course the knowledge of
how to edit photos on a Mac. All of this makes our choice of editing tools something worth thinking about. There are, of course, many tools you can use to edit photos on a Mac, including Apple’s own Photos.
Photos is a useful tool, with numerous features that make it easy to resize and retouch an image, or even a batch of images. But it is quite basic, compared to some of the other apps on the market. At the other end of the spectrum is the heavy-duty suite of Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) tools, such as Lightroom and Photoshop. We cover both types of photo editing apps in this article.
5 Top Photo Editing Apps
#1: PhotoBulk
PhotoBulk is an app that can apply lighting adjustments to a whole folder of images in only a few clicks, taking a matter of minutes. Useful if you are someone who regularly needs to make simple, quick adjustments to large numbers of pictures with a short turnaround to think about.
It gives you the advantage of real-time previewing for all photos in the set you are working on, giving you the ability to automatically edit, crop, watermark and straighten a whole folder of images in minutes.
#2: Photolemur
Photolemur is an AI-powered photo enhancer that automates the editing process.
It is said to be the first photo enhancer that can actually think for itself. You don’t need to learn what the pros know and you don’t need to spend hours messing around with sliders and editing every image manually. Using 12 smart AI-powered technologies, Photolemur identifies then makes changes to images, including adjustments to lighting, colors and exposure.
With this app, you don't even need to know how to edit photos on a Mac. It can do the editing for you.
#3: Adobe Lightroom
A photography app that needs no introduction. An integral part of the Adobe Creative Cloud (CC), and often the first stage of turning a RAW file into something worth publishing online. It comes with loads of useful features and is without a doubt one of the best photo editing apps around.
#4: Pixelmator Pro
Pixelmator Pro is a Mac image editor that has taken the opposite direction to Adobe. Instead of lots of product features cluttering the photo editing process, it puts all the focus on the images you edit, rather than what's around them. It comes with an impressive suite of easy-to-use tools, from paintings features to a smart composition system and colour adjustments. Well worth downloading.
#5: PhotoScape X
Described as an all-in-one photo editor, it comes with everything you might need to edit photos, cut out what you don't need, even turn them into animated GIFs. PhotoScape X comes with hundreds of filters, effects, borders, frames, and over 1000 objects that can be dropped into pictures. It also includes an Extension for Photos app (macOS 10.11+), so you can connect it with the native macOS Photos app.
Mac users have a lot of choice when it comes to editing and pressing publish on the photos they take. Most photo editing apps aren't free, although many come with free trial periods of free features. It never hurts to give a new Mac photo editing app a go. We hope the five mentioned in this article sound worth downloading - if you aren't already using one or more of them.
All about James Dorian
James Dorian is a technical copywriter. He is a tech geek who knows a lot about modern apps that will make your work more productive. James reads tons of online blogs on technology, business, and ways to become a real pro in our modern world of innovations.
