28.12.2020

Photoshop App Free Mac

Photoshop App Free Mac Rating: 9,1/10 1896 votes

Mac PhotoShop Alternative Free Download. 3 Best Alternative Apps of PhotoShop for Mac #1. App Cost $49.99. This is one of the most favorite amongst all Mac photo editing applications. With recent updates that allow editing features like image alignment, image stacking and also panorama stitching, they can make any picture a. Best 6 Photoshop Alternatives for Mac 1. Affinity Photo – Professional Photo Editing Software for Mac and PC. This is one of the greatest Photoshop. GIMP – The Best Free Photoshop Alternative for Mac and Windows. It’s very popular and has a lot of features that will. Sketch – New Photoshop. This is probably the most Photoshop-like application for the Mac, which can be downloaded from the App Store and is considered to be one of the best free Mac apps for photo editing. PhotoScape has almost everything you might need to view, optimize, edit, print or just having some fun with photos.

Photoshop is the first word in graphic design software and like most leading software products, it demands a fee from anyone who wants to use it. In fact, to access Photoshop, you'll need to fork out about $19.99 every month. Personally, I don't have an issue with this given how powerful Photoshop is but there are those who do.

Thankfully, there is a solution to this price problem.

Free alternatives to Photoshop do exist, and they hold their own in terms of quality, too. Here they all are. You can check here for non-free Photoshop alternatives).

Announced to the public in 1995, GIMP is one of the most popular free Photoshop alternatives on the market. It's also likely to be the most powerful graphic design tool on this list. It's free and open source, but packs a professional punch nonetheless.

There are big similarities between Photoshop and GIMP in terms of functionality and user interface, so many find migration from one to the other to be easy. GIMP is also capable of opening and working with PSD files, which are Photoshop specific.

GIMP has a number of high quality features which definitely hold their own against those of Photoshop. The professional features available in GIMP such as color adjustment tools, customizable brushes, gradients, and auto image enhancement tools, make it easy for users to create artwork from scratch and edit photos/images.

The in-depth tutorials cater for all users from beginners to advanced level. This makes it super accessible to everyone, including users who aren’t familiar with the open-source application

Learn more at the GIMP website

2. Inkscape

Inkscape is a free and open source vector graphics editor. It’s perfect for creating icons for apps and websites, cartoon illustrations, and logos. Despite being free, Inkscape looks and feels incredibly advanced. Some of its many features include intelligent drawing tools, the ability to import and export multiple file types, add-ons, and multilingual support. These powerful tools and its intuitive UI make it an excellent option for beginners.

Although it’s probably a little more comparable to Illustrator, Inkscape is a great free Photoshop alternative, especially if you want to save some $$$ (since it’s free).

It's also one of the few options on the list compatible with Linux (along with GIMP that is).

Learn more at the Inkscape website.

3. Pixia

Pixia is a raster painting program and graphics editor specifically well–suited for many forms of digital painting.

It offers a lightweight painting environment for digital painting and artwork of all types! Unlike other digital painting and editing tools, Pixia strips the bloatware features away, leaving a fast, focused environment that ensures you can paint without any distraction.

It is also freeware making it a great free Photoshop alternative.

Learn more at the Pixia website.

4. exPhoto

exPhoto is another application by the same developer that created Pixia and is more geared towards photo editing and print graphics. The advantage is that you can choose which application best suits your needs at the time.

Doing some digital painting? Load up Pixia. Looking to touch up a photo? Time for exPhoto. Sure you have to install two apps but it keeps the features geared towards the task at hand, which is smart.

exPhoto is also capable of handling and saving as PSD, just like GIMP.

Learn more at the exPhoto website.

5. Pixlr

Pixlr comes in two distinct flavours. Pixlr Express is ideal for quick fixes and simple edits, while Pixlr Editor is for power users. Both are both free, and both are browser-based web apps, so there's never any need to download the software. This makes it ideal for Chromebook users, too.

Pixlr is feature-packed but has a clean UI that makes it easy to navigate these features without seeming “cluttered” or overwhelming the users with the number of options available.

One super useful benefit to Pixlr is that it runs free Android and iOS apps that allow you to edit right from your smartphone.

Learn more at the Pixlr website.

6. Krita

Krita was created by artists with the aim of making art tools affordable to everyone. This is an open source digital sketching and painting studio that is geared towards concept artists. illustrators, and designers who want to sketch from scratch. So, if you want to edit existing imagery, this one isn't for you. Krita also offers training material to kickstart your illustration career (or hobby), and can open PSD files, too.

There is a bit of a learning curve to software and the UI isn’t too user-friendly, so its best suited to users with some experience. But once you get the hang of it this is an excellent Photoshop alternative that’s full of great features for painting and design.

Learn more at the Krita website.

7. Canva

Canva is a browser-based web app that provides everything a graphic designer needs. For those who like to work on their phones or tablets, there are apps for iOS and Android as well.

Used by over 10 million people, Canva serves up millions of stock images, hundreds of fonts, and a wide range of filters, icons, and shapes. With their resources to hand, you can drag and drop images into place before editing them. The simplicity of Canva makes sophisticated design accessible to everyone with a diverse range of templates available, and even the most amateur of users will get decent design outcomes with the help of this app.

Seasoned graphic designers may find Canva to be a little lightweight, but it’s a useful app to have on hand when you need to take a few shortcuts and don’t want to sacrifice quality in the process. This is a freemium app and more experienced designers will definitely want the paid version, but pricing is nowhere near Photoshop territory. Check out our Canva Review to learn more.

Learn more at the Canva website.

8. Paint.NET

Thanks to its image based tabs system which makes it easy to work on multiple projects at once, Paint.Net is a great free alternative to Photoshop. Also, the inclusion of layers – a feature normally reserved for expensive professional software – makes Paint.Net tough to beat. The UI will feel familiar to Photoshop users but it’s also very easy to pick up for newbies.

I see it as a halfway house between Microsoft Paint and Photoshop, making it easy for graphic design newbies to grasp. And it's for that reason – among others – that I've personally been using Paint.NET for all my image editing needs over the last few years. It’s simplicity combined with the advanced features available makes it a tough one to beat and also a great option for users that have difficulty with software that’s geared more towards experienced users. Features include a number of special effects that can sharpen, blur, emboss, distort, and eliminate red-eye from photos in a few clicks.

It's bad news for Mac users though, as Paint.NET is available only for Windows.

Learn more at the Paint.NET website.

9. Seashore

If you're a dedicated Mac user, Seashore may be for you. Available only for Mac OS X's Cocoa framework, Seashore takes inspiration from GIMP (number one on this list) by serving up similar functionality and using the same native file format.

However, unlike the GIMP, Seashore is aimed at a broader audience who just want to do some basic image editing. It’s ideal for new users who with little experience in this area, although the UI is pretty basic and definitely leaves room for improvement.

If you’re an amateur photographer or just need to perform some basic image editing, Seashore will do the trick.

Learn more at the Seashore website.

10. SumoPaint

SumoPaint's slogan is, ‘Photoshopping in your browser' – which is pretty self-explanatory. It's an incredibly powerful web app with an answer to most if not all of Photoshop's best features.

It’s also super fast to navigate and the interface is definitely pleasing to the eye. All of the standard features are accessible for free, such as gradient fill, blur, smudge, line tools, and other features you’d expect to find in Photoshop.

You can use it through your browser and tolerate the ads, or upgrade to SumoPaint Pro to use it without ads and utilize more features.users to access all the basic image manipulation features for free. SumoPaint Pro also allows you to download the software so you can use it offline.

Learn more at the SumoPaint website.

Free Graphic Design Software That Doesn't Suck

Photoshop is a powerhouse, but if you're struggling to justify its rather heavy price-tag, then the eight Photoshop alternatives listed above should tide you over.

If you are curious as to what options exist with a price tag, check out our list of Paid Photoshop Alternatives.

Do you know of any other free Photoshop alternatives? Share them with us in the comments section below!

  • January 02, 2020
  • 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)

/delete-mac-apps-free.html. 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 2020 (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)

Photoshop Software Free Mac

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

Free Mac App Like Photoshop

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.

Photoshop App For Macbook Free

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.

Photoshop App Free Mac App

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.