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• January 02, 2021
• 18 min to read

Most free photo editors available on the App Store are quite basic, offering just a limited number of filters and allowing you to easily and quickly liven up your photos before posting them on social media.

But if you’re an aspiring or professional photographer, you probably need a more powerful app with a broader set of tools to use your creativity to the fullest. Besides, you probably use your Mac for photo editing because working on a large screen makes it possible to adjust the slightest details.

1. Apple’s Photos (Built-in app)

Apple’s Photos app is included for free on all recently released Macs. It does a good job at organizing your photos, but its collection of photo enhancement tools leaves much to be desired. Hopefully, our selection of the best free programs for photo editing on Mac will help you choose the right app to suit all your creative needs.

2. Luminar (7 days trial)

Luminar is another full-featured photo editor that’s popular with both Mac and Windows users. It can work as a standalone app as well as a plugin for such popular programs as Apple Photos.

Luminar uses Artificial Intelligence to enable sophisticated yet quick photo enhancements. Among these AI features are Sky Enhancer, which adds more depth and detail to the sky in your photos while leaving other areas untouched; Accent AI, which analyzes a photo and automatically applies the best combination of different effects to enhance your image; and Sun Rays, which allows you to place an artificial sun and adjust the lighting to your liking or make the sun rays already in your photo look even more incredible.

Luminar has over 60 filters you can apply to your photos to enhance them in a moment. Luminar also provides a set of powerful tools for cropping, transforming, cloning, erasing, and stamping, along with layers, brushes, and many more incredible features. Luminar supports the Touch Bar on the latest MacBook Pro, making photo editing even more effortless and pleasing.

3. Photolemur 3 (Free Version with watermark)

Photolemur is a relative newcomer on the photo editing market but it has all the chances to win the favor of beginner photographers and hobbyists. Running on Artificial Intelligence, Photolemur is a completely automatic photo enhancer, meaning that it does all the editing for you in no time. It has the simplest interface, with only a few buttons and sliders to adjust the enhancement to your liking and view the before and after results.

All you need to do is choose a photo (or a few) that you want to improve, drag and drop or import them using the Import button, and let the program make enhancements. After it’s done, you can compare the edited version with the original image by using the before–after slider and, if you want, adjust the skin tone or even enlarge the eyes using additional sliders. Pretty easy, huh?

Photolemur also offers a number of impressive styles to touch up your photos and give them a sophisticated and professional look. With this app, you don’t need to stuff your head with photo editing nuances and terms. Just run Photolemur and watch the magic happen!

4. Aurora HDR (14 days trial)

As you probably can tell from the name, Aurora HDR is designed to help photographers enhance their HDR photos, making them even more detailed and beautiful. It’s an ideal tool for editing your photos, with an extensive collection of more than 20 tools including details, tone, mapping, color, glow, and vignette. Each tool has its unique selection of controls to adjust its effects.

Aurora HDR enables you to work with brushes, layers, and masks, and provides a number of automatic AI tools for recognizing and removing noise, enhancing colors, lighting, and details, improving clarity, and adding contrast to dull areas while leaving other areas untouched.

Aurora HDR does a great job dealing with difficult lighting situations and creating full-of-life images while being easy to use.

5. Pixelmator (Trial 30 Days)

Pixelmator is a photo enhancer beloved by many Mac users, as it offers a good combination of a modern and simple interface, the ability to work on multiple layers, and powerful features that take photo editing to a whole new level. With so many editing tools, brushes, and effects, you can enhance your photos to your liking. You can choose between two versions of Pixelmator – standard and pro – depending on your needs. The standard version is great for basic photo editing with its selection of essential tools and filters, while the pro version is packed with extra brushes, tools, and effects that let you push your creativity to new boundaries. You can decide which version is suitable for you according to what features you’re looking for in a photo editing app.

6. Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021 (Trial link)

Photoshop Elements isn’t as affordable as other photo enhancers for beginner photographers. But luckily there’s a trial version available, so you can check it out before deciding whether this app is worthy of your money. Photoshop Elements acquired many powerful features from Photoshop, only Elements is simplified for amateur photographers and enthusiasts. It includes a good number of effects and filters, plus automated editing options for improving lighting, color balance, and exposure, and even opening closed eyes and reducing the effects of camera shake.

In addition to all of these awesome features, Photoshop also offers editing modes for beginners, intermediate users, and experts. Beginners will probably prefer Quick mode, as it focuses on essential tools to quickly enhance your photos by improving color, lighting, and other basic settings. Guided mode provides intermediate users with step-by-step guidance with more professional features like artistic effects, skin tone correction, and background replacement. Expert mode gives you full access to the app’s really powerful editing features and is ideal for creating stunning images.

7. Affinity Photo (Free Trial)

Affinity Photo’s interface may seem overwhelming at first, especially for novices, but when you come to grips with it you’ll find that the app is just what you’ve been looking for. Its numerous professional tools, effects, and filters encourage you to get creative with your photos. Among the coolest features Affinity Photo has to offer is a before and after view to compare the original photo with its edited version.

Affinity Photo works with 15 file types, including common ones like PDF, PSD, JPG, and GIF as well as some less popular ones. The app amazes with its abundance of basic and top-notch editing tools, allowing you to tweak your photos using all possible kinds of instruments. Affinity Photo allows you to edit HDR photos, apply artistic filters and effects, play with masks and layers, and create breathtaking compositions by combining several images in one. If you find its interface a bit much and are afraid of getting lost in all those advanced tools, you should probably look for something more suitable for your level. But Affinity Photo is worth mastering.

8. Google Photos

Google Photos is a popular cloud storage service for photos and videos. It can’t boast countless masterly tools like other photo enhancers that we review in this article, but it includes some fundamental features like filters, color adjustment sliders, and transformation tools.

Although Google Photos may not be that helpful when it comes to editing photos, it does a pretty good job at storing high-resolution images and videos with 15GB of free online storage, compared to iCloud’s mere 5GB (which you can upgrade to 50GB for a monthly fee). If you’re planning to go on a trip and take plenty of photos, then it might be smart to sign up for Google Photos to use that extra storage space when you come back.

9. PhotoScape X (Free)

A relatively new photo editing app, PhotoScape X has been gaining popularity with many Mac and PC users since its release in 2008. Its interface is simple but unconventional, with a number of tabs running along the top of the window. Each is responsible for a specific stage of editing. The Viewer tab allows you to browse and organize your photos. After you pick a photo, you can switch to the Editor tab, which includes a broad set of instruments, filters, and effects and a useful feature that enables you to compare the adjusted photo with the original.

The next tabs, including the Batch tab, mainly concentrate on editing and renaming multiple photos at once. The GIF tab allows you to easily create an animated GIF from a group of selected photos.

The downside of PhotoScape X is a lack of selection tools, so all changes are applied to the whole image rather than to a selected part.

10. Gimp (Free)

Gimp is a free open-source photo editing app that has been on the market for over 22 years and is available for Windows, Mac, and even Linux. Unlike many free apps, Gimp doesn’t have any ads or in-app purchases. Its grey interface might seem a little old-fashioned and it may be a bit sluggish when it comes to complex effects, though.

Gimp offers a vast collection of advanced tools that hardly any free photo editor can boast. It has numerous enhancement options such as clone and heal brushes, layers and channels, accurate selection tools, a number of transformation instruments, and, of course, color adjustment controls. Gimp is one of the most powerful tools for enhancing photos and is beloved by so many users for its price (free) and versatility. But if you can’t come to grips with Gimp’s interface, it may be worth paying some cash for a more user-friendly program.

Slowly and steadily MS Paint and Adobe Photoshop are being replaced by stronger and more popular freeware. Our list includes all the popular digital painting software, free download links as well as professional painting software, free download sources.

These help you either convert digital images into paintings or make your own paintings from scratch using the latest tools and techs.

1. PowerPaint

A sound replacement of MS Paint and other well known but cumbersome photo editing software programs, this one is a complete image editor with all the tools and presets required to edit photos, images and add loads of textures to them too.

• Compatible with almost all current Windows OS versions.
• Includes a separate Image Dropdown menu with a plethora of features.
• Pre-set shapes, lines, banners and charts.
• Tons of graph features.

Free Mac Programs

2. Corel PaintShop Pro (32 Bit)

One of the few trail version software which come with complete feature sets of the real deal. This software is ideal for painting on and editing all photos and images with a touch of expertise.

• Indulge in quick fixes using the Express Lab and the Smart carver or try out the tons of different tools and options to create professional grade photos.
• Main set of tools include RAW Lab, Express Lab, Advanced Tools, Smart Carver and Integrated Tools.

3. Pint.NET

This is a free to use photo editing software which supports multiple layers.

• Advanced settings to turn your images into oil paintings and sketches.
• Work on several images side by side.
• Record a history of changes and processes for easy removal of effects and edits.
• Easy shortcuts for functions.
• One touch optimizing and retouching of all images using a bunch of free and integrated tools.

4. EZ Paint

This is an extremely easy to use software which is a free alternative to MS Paint. It comes with more tools and options as well.

• Easy drawing of line, arcs, curves and accompanying editing tools.
• Has more than 30 custom built-in shapes.
• Aimed at regular users who require something more than paint but less complicated than Adobe Photoshop or Corel Draw.
• Compatible with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

5. Tux Paint

A very popular paint software which has been sought after by all young image editors, graphic designers and digital painters. The interface is extremely child-friendly and hence is very well suited for all budding talents.

Free Apps For Mac

• Colorful and simple interface with minimal commands.
• The bunch of features include Tux Paint Stamps, magic designs, colors, effects and a variety of brushes.
• Includes over 100 brand new stamps.
• Includes autosave and recover features.

6. Fresh paint for Windows 8

This is a free app for all windows users who want to add a touch of hand drawn painting to all their photos and images. This can edit BMP, JPEG and TIFF images without any trouble whatsoever.

• Perfect for Windows 8 users and ideal for touchscreen devices.
• Blend and mix colors to create new shades.
• Realistic painting effects.
• Fun graphical interface well suited for all age groups.

7. Tux Paint Stamps 2009-06-28

The Tux Paint Stamps are ideal for the creative souls who also love fun in art. This adds an easy charm of pop-art to your creations.

• Free and easy installation.
• A huge collection of free, cool stamps.
• Easy to access and implement.
• Compatible with Tux Paint Software (and other versions).
• Compatible with Windows 7, Windows 2000, Windows Vista and Windows 8.

8. Mario Paint Composer

This software comes with an air of creativity and freedom of exploration. This one is ideal for all the new and daring painters and designers who are looking for a lot more than MS Paint.

• This is an extremely fun way to “paint” music using symbols like flowers, automobiles, airplanes and cute hearts.
• Ideal for kids and teachers who want to add some fun to their classes.
• Authentic SNES experience.

9. TAG: The Power of Paint

A very unique creation, this gaming software is used for making all kinds of creative graphic designs. This is in sync with the growing popularity of graffiti and wall-art.

• Bold and creative way of creating new designs and clearing each level of the game.
• New tools and paint as ammo to obtain different powers and make your move.
• Jump, throw, boost your speed using different colors and by drawing different patterns.

10. PaintTool SAI

A drawing utility software which is ideal for all levels of painters and designers who use their Windows device to power their creations.

Apps For Macbook Air Free

• Has all basic image editing tools including airbrushes, paintbrushes, watercolors, erasers and pencils.
• Ready to use shapes and clip-arts.
• Supported by simple interface and navigation.
• Supports PSD, JPG, BMP, SAI, PNG and TGA formats.
• Supports layers and canvases.

Here we have presented to you a huge array of software programs which revolve around painting; they include editing software as well as gaming software which use paint as a level boosting feature.

Top Free Cad Programs For Mac