- Free Photoshop Software For Mac
- Photoshop Alternative Macbook
- Photoshop Similar For Mac
- Photoshop Alternatives For Macos
- Best Photoshop Alternative For Mac Free
- Photoshop Lightroom Alternatives For Mac
- Best Free Photoshop Alternatives For Mac
You don’t have to use Adobe Photoshop on your Mac to edit images like a pro. There are plenty of Photoshop alternatives for Mac that you can download or use in-browser to create just the right images and graphics for your projects. And some of them are completely free!
For example, not all free Photoshop alternatives support the Adobe application's default PSD format. Others, meanwhile, will not be able to recognize some multi-layered Photoshop files. If you need a key Photoshop feature, you'll find it easier to narrow your search list if you filter based on features. Trial and Free Alternatives to Photoshop for Windows or Mac Best Photo Editors you need to know - If you are looking for it you are in the right place. Trial and Free Alternatives to Photoshop for Windows or Mac Best Photo Editors you need to know - If you are looking for it you are in the right place.
None of these are necessarily one-size-fits-all solutions. Each tool tends to serve a specific purpose; Do you want to edit online or on a desktop? Are you editing photos or multiple file types? Is all the work for web or will images get printed?
Here’s a list of the best Photoshop alternatives for Mac in 2019, but not in any particular order. Have a read through to find the one that’s right for you.
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Free Photoshop Software For Mac
1. Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo is a past Apple Mac App of the Year Winner and the professional tool has everything you’d expect in a premium photo-editing product.
Use it to edit and retouch images as well as create multi-layer pieces. The professional corrections and adjustments tools rival any other app out there and it has a great noise-reduction filter. Retouching options include the usual dodge, burn, clone, patch, blemish, and red eye tools, but there’s also an inpainting brush and liquify feature.
Other key features:
- Dedicated camera RAW workspace
- HDR merge
- Panorama stitching
- Bath processing
- 360-degree image editing
Cost: $49.99
Try it:From the App Store
Try it:From the App Store
2. Sketch
Sketch isn’t a photo-editing app per se, but you can editing images within the Mac prototyping tool.
The best part of editing in Sketch is that all edits are nondestructive, meaning that any of your changes take effect without overwriting the original image file. (So you can always go back to the original if you want.)
Sketch allows for basic image editing including inverting images, cropping and color fill. It can be described as a basic bitmap editor and for many simple projects is enough.
Other key features:
- Color adjustment capability – hue, saturation, brightness and contrast
- Reduce image/file size
- Replace and change images in projects with one click (Since you are using the same tool)
- Ability to work in layers
- Also includes ability to edit vector elements
Cost: $99/year
Try it:From Sketch
3. GIMP
GIMP offers powerful photo manipulation and editing capability in a free, open source package. (You can also download the source code and make changes as you see fit and add more functionality with third-party plugins.)
GIMP is designed for high-quality photo manipulation including retouching images and photo restorations. Users can also use it to create original artwork, a feature that many other non-Photoshop editors don’t provide (or have but it can be difficult to use).
Other key features:
- Ability to create icons and other elements
- Use for scripted image manipulation (C, C++, Perl, Python, Scheme and more)
- Color management tools included with Scribus, Inkscape and SwatchBooker
- Large number of usable file formats and a customizable workspace
- Extensive tutorial library on the website so you can learn the tool easily
Cost: Free
Try it:From GIMP
Try it:From GIMP
4. Pixelmator Pro
Pixelmator Pro is a nondestructive editor that allows you to make changes to images and draw in the app. It also includes a nifty machine learning auto color adjustments tool to help make color changes a breeze.
One of the best features of Pixelmator Pro is that you can even export images for the web – hello, optimization – so you don’t have to use multiple tools to edit and then shrink image for top website quality production. Pixelmator Pro also includes some workflow tools to help you work more efficiently.
Other key features:
- Works with Mac’s Touch Bar
- Live preview option so you can see how changes will look before committing
- Text editing capabilities
- SVG editing and export
- Painting tools so you can draw anything by hand
Cost: $59.99
Try it: From the App Store or try the free demo
Try it: From the App Store or try the free demo
5. Pixlr Pro
Pixlr Pro is an in-browser image editing app that’s packed with photo, vector and text editing capability. You can edit like a pro with tools that include layer masks, multiple brush options, curve and level adjustments, color and blend modes, effects and filters, and transform and wrap tools.
What’s different about Pixlr Pro, which also has a free version, is that you don’t have to download anything to use it. All the tools are right in your browser (and it has strong browser compatibility). It also includes a lot of other goodies to help jumpstart projects, such as templates and fonts.
Other key features:
- Includes access to 1 million royalty-free stock images
- Comes with more than 10,000 photo templates
- Works with PSD and Sketch image files
- Smart healing tools for photo correction
- Refine edge tool make it easy to mask complex objects
Cost: $5/month
Try it:From Pixlr
Try it:From Pixlr
6. PicMonkey
PicMonkey is a well-known online photo editor and retoucher. It has the most complicated structure of features of all the tools in this list with free, basic and pro pricing plans with different levels of features and tools.
If you plan to use any of the advanced features – save and export, advanced retouching, effects and overlays, fonts – then you are probably looking at the pro level plan. Free plans include ads; paid plans do not. PicMonkey is a pretty straightforward tool that is popular with users creating images for social media and online-only use with a simple photo editor and design tools.
Other key features:
- Add-ons include filters, overlays and text tools
- Touch up photos to add more visual interest
- Watermark and other templates to make projects quick
- Ability to create a photo collage
- Simple interface with ready to use buttons in-browser or using the desktop app
Cost: Starting at $5.99/month
Try it: From PicMonkey
Try it: From PicMonkey
7. Fotor
The tool that the BBC called “Photoshop lite” is simple and easy to use. Edit images, add effects and text or tough up portraits like a pro with Fotor.
The photo editor has all the tools you’d expect for everyday editing with shape and aspect ratio cropping, color, saturation and white balance options and ability to straighten and rotate images. You can also create a custom college in the app.
Other key features:
- Bath processing option
- Tilt-shirt tools adds focus and blurring for a professional look
- 13 1-tap photo enhancement options
- Use popular file formats such as RAW, PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF and TIFF
- Optimize images for retina displays
Cost: Free
Try it:From the App Store
Try it:From the App Store
8. Acorn
Acorn is another nondestructive piece of Mac photo editing software that has a robust set of tools. The company claims that it has “everything you need in an image editor” with the ability to add layer masks and selections to touch up images or make something entirely new. You can also remove backgrounds, combine images, perform color corrections, resize, transform, crop and more.
While Acorn is billed as an image editor, it also includes vector tools as well and a text on a path feature.
Other key features:
- 100+ photo effects — vignette, drop shadow, gradients, sharpening, color correction, distortions, blurs
- Web export and scaling
- Smart layer export
- Camera RAW image import and editing
- Ability to import Photoshop brushes
Cost: $29.99
Try it:From The Flying Meat store (other addons also available)
Try it:From The Flying Meat store (other addons also available)
9. SumoPaint
SumoPaint has free and paid version with different options. One key difference is whether you want to edit image on- or off-line (paid only).
SumoPaint is billed as an image manipulator with plenty of options, not all of which are designed for working with photos. The native Sumo file format also provides a nondestructive save option. The tool includes plenty of brushes, shapes and colors and gradients to jumpstart any project. It also allows for use of layers and comes with plenty of filters.
Other key features:
- Lighting, reflection and mosaic tools
- Animated and 3D brush options
- Auto-smoothing feature
- Text tool
- Ability to adjust curves and levels with ease
Cost: $4/month
Try it:From SumoPaint
Try it:From SumoPaint
10. DxO PhotoLab
DxO PhotoLab is the go-to for RAW photo editing. It’s packed with features – you might even mistake the dashboard for Photoshop at a glance – and doesn’t get bogged down when working with large files and detailed images.
The tools include the ability to editing using control points to work on just the parts of a photo you want to edit, there are plenty of brushes for precise work, a graduated filter makes landscape photos look great and the auto repair mode can remove unwanted elements from images.
Other key features:
- Smooth transitions between elements that preserve textures and shadows
- Fast processing
- Auto lighting optimization tool
- ClearView filter removes atmospheric haze from landscape photos
- 40,000 camera and lens combinations
Cost: $99.99 (Essential Edition)
Try it:From DxO
Try it:From DxO
Feature
By Amber Neely
Wednesday, June 12, 2019, 04:40 pm PT (07:40 pm ET)
Adobe Photoshop has been the number one app for most photographers and digital artists for decades. But with a plethora of other apps available it may not be the best one for you —and we have suggestions.Wednesday, June 12, 2019, 04:40 pm PT (07:40 pm ET)
Adobe Photoshop alternatives
When people use Photoshop, they're usually in one of two camps: photographers or artists. Photographers have relied on Photoshop for color correction, air brushing, stitching, straightening, cloning, masking—basically anything you'd need to make your photography stand out.
Artists, on the other hand, have taken the program out of its wheelhouse and used it to create impressive digital works with Photoshop's somewhat limited brush tools. While Adobe has sought to expand some of these features to accommodate for these uses, there's always a better tool for the job.
Procreate (iOS - $10)
Procreate is hands down the best app we've found if you're looking to create digital art that mimics traditional media. Anyone who has used Photoshop to create art is going to have no issue navigating the interface, but will be delighted when they find that all the useless bits of fluff in Photoshop have been pared down.
Procreate
There's also an incredible secondary market for ProCreate brushes to be found online as well, with brushes to suit just about whatever project you're working on. We suggest checking out CreativeMarket to see what you can find.
In addition to a sleek interface, Procreate has features you won't find in Photoshop, such as drawing assist, allowing artists to quickly create perspective and isometric drawings. Procreate also has a feature called StreamLine, which that allows the program to stabilize any pen strokes you make. To get the most out of it, you're going to want to use the Apple Pencil, as Procreate has been designed with it in mind.
Procreate
Photoshop Alternative Macbook
Affinity Photo (MacOS - $50)
Photographers looking to step away from Adobe's subscription fees would do well to check out Affinity Photo. This app exists both on MacOS and iOS, and boasts many of the same features as Photoshop, including liquefy, color correction, red eye removal, and RAW editing. This is all packed into an efficient UI that is fairly self-explanatory.
Affinity has also recently upgraded their desktop apps, adding support for HDR and EDR displays and multiple GPU/eGPU setups.
Photoshop Similar For Mac
Affinity's iOS app turns your iPad into a serious powerhouse of photo editing, giving you all the features you would want while still giving you an adequate amount of work space. This also means that photo editing has become much more portable, allowing you to edit anywhere you can take an iPad. In addition to buying from Serif directly, B&H Photo is accepting orders for Affinity Photo.
While not required, Affinity has also created a hardcover workbook to help new users become familiar with their program. It helps users understand the interface and helps to walk them through example projects. We think that anyone coming from Photoshop or Lightroom could skip this purchase if they don't want to spend the money, but it is handy once you have it.
Affinity Photo Workbook
Autodesk SketchBook (macOS Free - $85/year, iOS - Free)
Autodesk SketchBook
SketchBook is somewhere between a digital art program like Procreate and a drafting program, such as AutoCAD LT. Its primary use has been by architects, product designers, and industrial designers to quickly jot down ideas for projects.
However, that doesn't make SketchBook a one trick pony, either. It features plenty of brush options, drawing tools like rulers and symmetry features, and ample layers to give artists enough tools to create digital artwork. There have been many artists who have made the switch solely to SketchBook and haven't looked back.
The simple UI is one of the biggest selling points for SketchBook. It's fast and focuses entirely on whatever the user is creating.
Autodesk SketchBook
While we personally prefer Procreate for digital art, SketchBook does an excellent job of allowing design industry professionals the ability to create technical drawings much faster than they would be able to with something like Photoshop, Affinity Photo, or Procreate.
Photoshop Alternatives For Macos
If a user is an individual, they can get SketchBook for free, both on macOS and iOS. Businesses can opt into multi-user licenses for $85 per year.Pixelmator Pro (MacOS - $40)
Pixelmator is actually a whole range of apps across the Mac and OS. The most powerful and the most Photoshop-like one is Pixelmator Pro for Mac which is more than capable of handling the giant majority of jobs that the Adobe app can. It does have fewer options with layers, that mainstay of complex illustration and photography work, for instance. Overall, though, it's not only capable but it's also enjoyable to use, with much more streamlined and simplified tools.
![Best photoshop alternative for mac free Best photoshop alternative for mac free](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134133110/378543147.jpg)
There is currently no Pixelmator Pro specifically for iPad, but there is Pixelmator for iOS, which is an equivalent of a more basic Pixelmator app that's still available on the Mac and good for general use. The company has recently added Pixelmator Photo for iOS to the range, which brings more of the controls that will most benefit photographers, such as Machine Learning-based automatic adjustments and cropping.
Gimp - (macOS - free)
Best Photoshop Alternative For Mac Free
GIMP
Photoshop Lightroom Alternatives For Mac
Best Free Photoshop Alternatives For Mac
GIMP has been around since 1995 and has been a fan favorite among hobbyists and professionals ever since. GIMP is a raster-based photo editing software, very similar to Adobe Photoshop in types of features. It is a great jumping off point for users who are new to photo editing and aren't quite ready to spend money on a piece of software.Though we find the UI a little daunting at times, GIMP is still an approachable program. While you certainly can do digital art and some basic graphic design in GIMP, much like Photoshop, GIMPs main priority is still photo editing and manipulation.