If you are looking for the best free photo editors for your Mac in 2023, here we are to help. Here, we have listed the top 5 best free photo editing software for editing photos on your Mac PC.
Let’s face it: Adobe’s range of editing tools and software are the preferred choice of most professional photographers and videographers. For a long time, applications like Photoshop and Premiere Pro have been the industry standard. However, not everyone, especially novice editors, are willing to spend money on these high-end products. Neither do they have the expertise to handle these overkills piece of software. As a result, a lot of new photo editors are looking for the best free photo editors for Mac.
5 Best Free Photo Editors For Mac
Many excellent photo editors, believe it or not, are completely free. The best free photo editing software you can get your hands on is at the top of this list.
We’ll be focusing on beginner-friendly software as well, so if you’re new, you won’t have to worry about paying a hefty premium for professional-grade software.
If you’re a professional, we’ll also try to include one that allows you to edit raw images for free. All of these photo editors are also compatible with macOS, in case you were wondering. Let’s get started.
1. GIMP
GIMP is a versatile free editing program that can handle a wide range of tasks. It’s amazing how closely it resembles Adobe Photoshop. GIMP is an “image manipulation tool,” according to its website. I think I’ll have to agree with their bold claim, especially with image-enhancing tools that allow you to retouch or even restore images, as well as create something entirely new.
GIMP comes with a large number of tools that you can use. It’s a powerful program that’s used by both professionals and beginners. You can also use its powerful painting tools to create completely unique works of art. Aside from that, it’s a graphic design program. Mockups, icons, graphical elements, and even artistic user interface elements are all possible.
Using the scripting framework, you can also perform scripted image manipulation. It supports a variety of languages, including Python, C, C++, Scheme, and others.
GIMP’s best feature is that it is completely free and open-source. It has a large and dedicated community, just like any other popular open-source piece of software, that is always striving to make the program much better than it is. This means you can use a variety of licensed plugins to make this program work even better.
You can’t edit raw images in their natural state, but you can use a plugin to make it work. That method, on the other hand, is a little more technical and geared toward professionals. Overall, this is the best free photo editing software available. With all this, GIMB is one of the best photo editors for Mac.
Download: GIMP
2. Fotor
We gave it a lot of thought before deciding where to put Fotor on this list. Fotor is more aimed at beginners than GIMP, which is a much more powerful tool that can be used by a wide range of professionals. As a result, you could say that this is the best free photo editor for newbies. Fotor is also one of the best photo editors you can get on your Mac.
Fotor is a photo-editing app that has recently gained a lot of traction. It’s more of a web app than a desktop app, as it runs in your browser. This makes it extremely simple to use, and you are not required to sign up if you do not intend to use it for an extended period of time. Still, we’d advise doing so because you’ll be able to save all of your changes.
Importing photos into Fotor is extremely simple and straightforward. Simply drag and drop the files into Fotor from the folder you’ve designated. After you’ve imported your data, you’ll have access to a number of tools. There are a lot of professional-grade filters here that aren’t like the ones on Instagram. They’re well-balanced and finely tuned.
Aside from that, sliders for exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, tint, vignette, and a variety of other options are available. It also has a one-click enhancement feature, which is useful unless you’re looking for a specific look. You don’t have to worry about visual fidelity because the exports support high resolutions.
Use Online: Fotor
3. Darktable
When we first began learning how to edit photographs, we decided to give Lightroom a try. Many people agree with me that Photoshop can be intimidating for newcomers.
Lightroom is a great alternative that includes all of the necessary tools while streamlining and speeding up the process. It’s more of a master of none than a jack of all trades, but it’s a lot faster when you’re trying to edit a lot of photos at once.
Darktable is essentially the best free Lightroom alternative. It’s actually a little mind-boggling how much it resembles Lightroom. It’s actually a lot more capable than you’d expect from a free photo editor. When we say “free,” we don’t just mean without advertisements.
It shares many of the same capabilities as Lightroom. It uses the same cataloging style, non-destructive editing, and many of the same tools as Photoshop. It even works with raw photos, making it the best raw photo editor available. There are also lens and perspective corrections available.
You can also adjust contrast, brightness, saturation, white balance, exposure, shadows, and highlights, among other things. There are a lot of modules here that you can use to change a lot of different aspects of your photos.
Sure, Darktable is primarily concerned with altering the lighting, hue, and other aspects of the image, but that is a large part of what makes a good image great. While it isn’t quite as polished as Lightroom, it is the best free alternative.
Download: Darktable
4. Canva
Canva is the most user-friendly photo editor on this list. It’s very basic and anyone can pick it up quickly. However, by basic, I mean that there are no manual controls for fine-tuning. Canva is more of a collection of professional-grade templates in your browser than a traditional photo editor. You can upload directly from your browser and experiment with filters and other options. Canva is an online tool so this does not necessitates an operating system, you can use it on your Mac and even iPhone.
Canva has a seemingly endless number of templates to help you create a variety of items. Postcards, posters, invitation letters, and even a fancy Instagram post are examples of these. It’s a powerful tool for developing your own personal style.
When it comes to building your own portfolio, we all know how important that is. It also has a mobile app that works on both iOS and Android devices.
The free tier comes with 1GB of cloud storage and over 8000 templates to choose from. Sure, it’s not the most advanced toolkit on the market, but that’s not the point.
There are plenty of sliders for exposure, brightness, contrast, and vignette effects, though. You can also choose from a variety of stylized backgrounds.
Canva isn’t the most powerful tool, but it’s a great free option for those looking to create specific stylized graphics like logos and the like. Recently, Canva also introduced AI which is helping users create images based on your texts.
Use Online: Canva
5. Pixlr X
Pixlr is a free photo editing software that comes in two flavours: Pixlr X (short for Pixlr Express) and Pixlr E (short for Pixlr Editor). Pixlr X is our main concern because we’re talking about the free version. It’s very simple to use, and you don’t even need to register.
It’s yet another photo editor that runs right in your browser. A lot of photos can be adjusted quickly and easily. The design is fantastic and appears to be very minimalistic.
Pixlr X has been updated to use HTML5 rather than Flash, making it more secure and accessible on a variety of machines. You can alter the standard features of a photograph. Brightness, contrast, exposure, vignette, sharpening, lens flare, and depth of field are all easily adjustable. PixlrX is also one of the best tools for photo editing on Mac.
However, aside from looking slick and having a layer tool, it doesn’t do anything significantly better than GIMP, Darktable, or even Fotor. As a result, it is ranked lower on the list. Keep in mind that photos that are higher than 4K will be downsized.
Use Online: Pixlr X
The Bottom Line
Well, these were the best free Photo Editors for Mac in 2022. We hope this guide helped you. If you liked this, don’t forget to check out our other explainers, best lists, and how-to guides. Furthermore, if you have any questions or suggestions, please use the comment section below to contact us.
