Photos in macOS Catalina has an immersive, dynamic look that showcases your best photos. Find the shots you’re looking for with powerful search options. Organize your collection into albums, or keep your photos organized automatically with smart albums. Perfect your images with intuitive built-in editing tools, or use your favorite photos apps. And with iCloud Photos, you can keep all your photos and videos stored in iCloud and up to date on your Mac, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and even your PC.
A smarter way to find your favorites.
When you make changes on your Mac like editing a photo, marking a Favorite, or adding to an album, they’re kept up to date on your iPhone, your iPad, and iCloud.com. And vice versa — any changes made on your iOS or iPadOS devices are automatically reflected on your Mac.
- Apr 14, 2020 The best free photo-editing software for 2020 By Jon Martindale April 14, 2020 There’s no argument — Adobe Photoshop remains the best photo-editing application on the planet.
- GIMP is a good and popular freeware software that can be used to edit photos on MAC. It provides you a number of options to help you edit the images that makes it a good photo editing software for MAC. The best part of this software is that it also lets you add layers and provides many other features to make edits and making it at par with other professional software.
Photos in macOS Catalina intelligently declutters and curates your photos and videos — so you can easily see your best memories.
Focus on your best shots.
Photos emphasizes the best shots in your library, hiding duplicates, receipts, and screenshots. Days, Months, and Years views organize your photos by when they were taken. Your best shots are highlighted with larger previews, and Live Photos and videos play automatically, bringing your library to life. Photos also highlights important moments like birthdays, anniversaries, and trips in the Months and Years views.
Your memories. Now playing.
Memories finds your best photos and videos and weaves them together into a memorable movie — complete with theme music, titles, and cinematic transitions — that you can personalize and share. So you can enjoy a curated collection of your trips, holidays, friends, family, pets, and more. And when you use iCloud Photos, all edits automatically sync to your other devices.
The moment you’re looking for, always at hand.
With Search, you can look for photos based on who’s in them or what’s in them — like strawberries or sunsets. Or combine search terms, like “beach 2017.” If you’re looking for photos you imported a couple of months ago, use the expanded import history to look back at each batch in chronological order. And in the My Albums tab, you’ll find your videos, selfies, panoramas, and other media types automatically organized into separate albums.
Fill your library, not your device.
iCloud Photos can help you make the most of the space on your Mac. When you choose “Optimize Mac Storage,” all your full‑resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud in their original formats, with storage-saving versions kept on your Mac as space is needed. You can also optimize storage on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, so you can access more photos and videos than ever before. You get 5GB of free storage in iCloud — and as your library grows, you have the option to choose a plan for up to 2TB.
Make an edit here, see it there. When you make changes on your Mac like editing a photo, marking a Favorite, or adding to an album, they’re kept up to date on your iPhone, your iPad, and iCloud.com. And vice versa — any changes made on your iOS or iPadOS devices are automatically reflected on your Mac.
All your photos on all your devices. iCloud Photos gives you access to your entire Mac photo and video library from all your devices. If you shoot a snapshot, slo-mo, or selfie on your iPhone, it’s automatically added to iCloud Photos — so it appears on your Mac, iOS and iPadOS devices, Apple TV, iCloud.com, and your PC. Even the photos and videos imported from your DSLR, GoPro, or drone to your Mac appear on all your iCloud Photos–enabled devices. And since your collection is organized the same way across your Apple devices, navigating your library always feels familiar.
Resize. Crop. Collage. Zoom. Warp. GIF. And more.
Create standout photos with a comprehensive set of powerful but easy-to-use editing tools. Instantly transform photos taken in Portrait mode with five different studio-quality lighting effects. Choose Enhance to improve your photo with just a click. Then use a filter to give it a new look. Or use Smart Sliders to quickly edit like a pro even if you’re a beginner. Markup lets you add text, shapes, sketches, or a signature to your images. And you can turn Live Photos into fun, short video loops to share. You can also make edits to photos using third-party app extensions like Pixelmator, or edit a photo in an app like Photoshop and save your changes to your Photos library.
- LightBrilliance, a slider in Light, automatically brightens dark areas and pulls in highlights to reveal hidden details and make your photo look richer and more vibrant.
- ColorMake your photo stand out by adjusting saturation, color contrast, and color cast.
- Black & WhiteAdd some drama by taking the color out. Fine-tune intensity and tone, or add grain for a film-quality black-and-white effect.
- White BalanceChoose between Neutral Gray, Skin Tone, and Temperature/Tint options to make colors in your photo warmer or cooler.
- CurvesMake fine-tuned contrast and color adjustments to your photos.
- LevelsAdjust midtones, highlights, and shadows to perfect the tonal balance in your photo.
- DefinitionIncrease image clarity by adjusting the definition slider.
- Selective ColorWant to make blues bluer or greens greener? Use Selective Color to bring out specific colors in your image.
- VignetteAdd shading to the edges of your photo to highlight a powerful moment.
- Editing ExtensionsDownload third-party editing extensions from the Mac App Store to add filters and texture effects, use retouching tools, reduce noise, and more.
- Reset AdjustmentsWhen you’ve made an edit, you can judge it against the original by clicking Compare. If you don’t like how it looks, you can reset your adjustments or revert to your original shot.
Bring even more life to your Live Photos. When you edit a Live Photo, the Loop effect can turn it into a continuous looping video that you can experience again and again. Try Bounce to play the action forward and backward. Or choose Long Exposure for a beautiful DSLR‑like effect to blur water or extend light trails. You can also trim, mute, and select a key photo for each Live Photo.
Add some fun filters.
With just a click, you can apply one of nine photo filters inspired by classic photography styles to your photos.
Share here, there, and everywhere.
Use the Share menu to easily share photos via Shared Albums and AirDrop. Or send photos to your favorite photo sharing destinations, such as Facebook and Twitter. You can also customize the menu and share directly to other compatible sites that offer sharing extensions.
Turn your pictures into projects.
Making high-quality projects and special gifts for loved ones is easier than ever with Photos. Create everything from gorgeous photo books to professionally framed gallery prints to stunning websites using third-party project extensions like Motif, Mimeo Photos, Shutterfly, ifolor, WhiteWall, Mpix, Fujifilm, and Wix.
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.
Get the biggest choice of photo editing tools for Mac. Combine different apps’ functionality to fit your needs.
Free DownloadBest Photo Editing Software For Mac Yosemite Free
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
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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.
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.