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Mac Photo Editor: Best Free Photo Editing Software for Mac You may have known how to use the intuitive photo editing tool Photos built in on MacOS to edit photos on Mac like a pro. Use Photos app, you can adjust the light, color, sharpness, add filters or crop and remove unwanted part. Polarr Photo Editor for Mac has a free version that will give you more powerful tools for complex photo editing, without your bank account or hard drive taking the hit of bigger paid programs. Crop, edit or add text to your photos using the inbuilt tools.
Many people assume they need an Adobe subscription to edit photos, even semi-professionally, but that’s not true. Photos for Mac is the answer for anyone who wonders, “Does Mac come with a photo editor?” Moreover, the good-old Preview you use to open PDFs and images has enough basic tools for editing an image on your Mac. In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at what you can do with Mac’s native photo editors and exactly how to do that.
As you start editing your pictures, it’s common to start accumulating duplicates of the same image—the original, an edited one, and perhaps any other version you might crop or resize later. So, it’s best to use an app like Gemini 2 to help you find and eliminate duplicate files wasting space on your Mac.
With Gemini 2, you can scan your entire hard drive, your photo library, or just a specific folder for duplicates. Then, you can choose to review all of the copies it found to select which version to delete. Or you can let Gemini 2’s AI decide, and you can remove your duplicate photos with just one click of the Smart Cleanup button. And the best part is that you Download and try Gemini 2 for free.
How to edit pictures on Mac using the Photos app
As an editing app, Photos comes with everything you need to adjust the quality, light, color, sharpness, and other qualities of the pictures you take. It may lack the editing power of professional software like Photoshop, but it’s the perfect tool for aspiring and amateur photographers. It’s equally useful for the millions of us who take pictures every day and want to make them look good before posting online and sharing with friends. With this free photo editor for Mac, you’ll be able to adjust, resize, crop, rotate, and enhance your photos, as well as apply filters to them — all without spending a penny.
To edit a picture, go through the following steps:
- Launch the Photos app.
- Find the image or group of images you want to edit in your library.
- Double-click on the photo you want to edit (or press Command-Return).
- Click Edit in the toolbar. Now you’ll see three tabs above the image: Adjust, Filters, and Crop. Clicking on one will unveil further editing options in the right-hand menu.
- Another way to open a picture to edit is to press Command-Return to open in Edit view.
How to adjust pics in the Photos app
There’s a whole range of ways to use the Adjust feature to make significant or subtle changes to your pics. (And remember, if you aren’t happy with any of them, just click Revert to Original in the top left-hand corner of the editing window).
The Photos Adjust feature can be broken down into several specific tools.
- Light: everything from shadows to brightness to contrast.
- Color: make it warmer, colder, or adjust specific colors in a small area of a picture.
- Black & White: make the shot monochrome.
- Retouch: improve sharpness and other aspects of the picture.
- Red-eye: remove red eyes on a pic.
- White Balance, Curves, Noise Reduction, and many more.
Each of these settings can be adjusted with a series of sliders. Simply move one or more and watch the photo change. Click Done once you are happy with the edits you’ve made.
How to crop photos on Mac using Photos app
When you crop a picture, you can adjust the ratio or remove the parts you don’t want to improve its composition. With Photos, you can also flip it from horizontal to vertical, or the other way around.
Here is how you crop an image using Photos:
- Launch Photos.
- Find the photo you want to edit and double-click on it.
- Click Edit and go to Crop in the top toolbar of Photos.
- Click on Aspect on the right to choose an aspect ratio, or click Auto In the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to crop automatically.
- Click Done once you are happy with the picture.
Another way to crop or resize is to make these changes manually. Go through steps 1 - 3 above, then select Aspect. Now you can adjust the aspect ratio according to a series of pre-set parameters.
Once you’re satisfied with the result, click Done, or revert to the original if you want to start over.
How to apply filters in Photos app
In Photos, you have a series of nine filters designed to copy classic photography styles. Filters have been a part of taking photos — professionally and for fun — for generations before Instagram and Snapchat, so Apple made it easy to apply these with a few clicks.
Here’s how you apply a filter in the Photos app:
- Launch Photos.
- Find the photo you want to edit and double-click on it.
- Click Edit and go to Filters in the top toolbar.
- Choose from the Vivid, Dramatic, and Black & White options.
- Once you’re happy with the changes, click Done, or revert to try again.
Because you’ll probably edit your photos one or two at a time, you might not notice the duplicates your computer has accumulated over time. So, you should regularly use Gemini 2 to scan for copies of your pictures that are just wasting space on your hard drive.
How to edit photos with Mac’s Preview
Another way to make changes to photos using a native Mac tool is to use Preview. Although most people use it to view and make some changes to PDFs, it can also help make quick changes to images. It isn’t as feature-rich as Photos, but if you need a quick adjustment before sending or publishing a photo, it can get the job done. Let’s start with the basics: resizing an image.
How to resize an image with Mac’s Preview
Resizing an image doesn’t have to be a guessing game. Do the following to make a proportional resize and avoid the image looking squished or too stretched:
- Open the photo with Preview.
- Go to Tools in the Apple menu.
- Click Adjust Size.
- This will open a window where you can adjust the size of the pic either in pixels or in inches/centimeters.
- Make sure you keep the Scale proportionally box checked. That way, the image will preserve its original aspect ratio.
- Click OK when you’re done.
To rotate a photo, there is a rotate button on the top toolbar of the app (it looks like a square with an arrow). Click once or more, depending on how many times an image needs rotating to get in the right position. From the Apple menu, click File > Save once you’re done.
If you want to undo any changes, click Edit, then select Undo. You can also revert to the original to start again before making further edits. To do that, go to File > Revert to > Last Opened.
Now, if you want to crop an image, that’s also easily done with Preview, although the app lacks the more robust options available in Photos.
- Click and drag your cursor on the area of the picture you want to crop
- Click the Crop button in the top right-hand corner
- Now click File > Save to save this image, or revert or undo to start again
And finally, you can also adjust the color using Preview. Here’s how:
- Click Tools in the Apple menu
- Go to Adjust Color
- A range of sliders will appear, giving you the tools to adjust any of the following: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, saturation, temperature, tint, sepia, and sharpness. Although not quite as many options as Photos offers, this is a decent selection of edits that you can make quickly and easily without any third-party apps.
Edit photos with third-party Mac photo editors
Of course, if you’re looking to do more advanced edits to your photos, there is no shortage of third-party apps for you to use. Apps like Lightroom that allow you to make lighting adjustments and do some minor cleanup to your photographs. Or Photoshop that will allow you to change the composition and create entirely new images. While apps like this aren’t necessarily cheap or easy-to-use, they are powerhouses for editing photos on your Mac.
But between Photos and Preview, every Mac user has two robust, easy-to-use native photo editors to edit pictures to perfection before posting them online, sharing with friends and family, or sending to a client. You don’t have to spend weeks mastering Photoshop or other heavyweight photo editors — any change you need is a few clicks away.
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Remember when we sent off our tiny rolls of film to be developed? These days, powerful photography is a mere click away with the incredible photo editing software available for personal computers and smartphones. Try your hand at photography for personal or professional use using Polar Photo Editor. A feature-packed and impressive editing tool.
If you are looking to touch up some photos without the expense or large footprint of professional programs like Adobe Lightroom, then check out this app. For a free and lightweight program it is a remarkably empowering tool. From the basic functions of cropping and color correction to curve adjustments and haze removal. An award-winning app that is said to be one of the best free photo editing tools on the market.
The one-stop photography shop for beginners and pros alike
Thorough toolbox for efficient editing
Today even a simple photo editing app can transform your photos using auto-enhance features and inbuilt filters. Why go to the trouble of downloading a new app? Polarr Photo Editor for Mac has a free version that will give you more powerful tools for complex photo editing, without your bank account or hard drive taking the hit of bigger paid programs.
Best Free Mac Photo Editing
Crop, edit or add text to your photos using the inbuilt tools. You can also customize your own filters (and save them for future use) or select one of the comprehensive library of tools on the menu on the right hand side. Make adjustments to the color, play around with the exposure and add highlights, a vignette, or a border. The drop-down menu of tools on the right is encyclopedic – add photorealistic effects, radial or gradient masks, change the perspective, or amount of “noise”. You can use the curve tool to radically change the color balance or make more subtle edits with the temperature or saturation tool.
Instead of walking you through the features of this program (which are in abundance) let’s see where this app stands ahead or behind of its competitors.
Compared with industry behemoths Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, this app is lightweight and easy-to-use. This may come at the price of lacking some complexity offered by the others. The free version of Polarr Photo Editor does not give you the option of adding or removing layers for example. Nevertheless, for only 44.9 MB of space (both Lightroom and Photoshop are over 1GB) you get a huge array of editing options in a sleek and simple user interface. When you install the app you can choose the “Express” for personal use or “Pro” version, and then select to view it in Light, Dark or Dark+.
Compared with Photoshop, this app was refreshingly uncluttered and intuitive. Open a photo with the upward facing arrow, save your image with the downward arrow below. For personal photo editing you have all the tools you need and more, and you can tailor your own menu on the right with the instruments you want quick access to. For first-timers to the program or photography beginners there is whole library of short tutorials and links to online resources. The tutorials offer a succinct snapshot of the program features with clear and illustrated examples. You can personalize the app with keyboard shortcuts, and if you choose to go Pro then there is the possibility of family sharing between six accounts.
When you have finished editing your photo you have the option of adding a watermark, logo, or metadata like the artist name or copyright. Unlike Windows Photos however there is no geotagging or keywords and the shadows and highlights tool has a shorter range.
This is not the only area where Polarr Photo Editor falls short however. The “sharing” button is pretty limited. On the Mac version you can only share your photo through Mail, Message, Airdrop, or you can add it to your Photos (there is no button for instant upload to social media platforms). Also if you are using the free version be wary of what tools you use; edit with “Pro” tools and you will have to upgrade in order to save your photo.
Where can you run this program?
Polarr Photo Editor is multiplatform. The app is supported on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems, and both Android and iOS devices. You will need Windows 8, 8.1, or 10. For Apple users, Mac OS X v10.9 or up. The program is also optimized for Windows 10 tablets so you can use touch screen. For mobile devices you will need Android 4.2 or iOS 10.0 with at least 512 RAM.
Is there a better alternative?
For more complex photo editing then the Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are the most popular programs – for a reason. Both offer options for geotagging your photos and an even greater range on tone contrasts and shadows. Software such as Adobe Lightroom Classic, or Dx0 PhotoLab are the programs of choice for professionals for their vast range of enhancement features and in-depth edits. You will need to pay however as all these programs come with stiff price tags. For budget alternatives the Google Photos Editor is a surprisingly powerful unsung free option that allows you to enhance images or organize them into collages.
If you are looking to edit photos from your smartphone Photorr is an insane armory of editing tools. Radically improve and correct your photos right from your phone and it is entirely free.
Our take
As photo editing software goes, Polarr is far from perfect. It could be improved by an auto-enhance tool to give you a basic leg up before you start editing and the limited sharing option is frustrating. That said, for a free program you would be hard to beat this app. It supports a whole range of images and allows for RAW camera import. There are tons of ready-made filters available and if you are new the editing game then the tutorials will get you familiar with the program in no time at all. The Express version will allow for complex editing like dehazing photos or distorting the lens to add a wide angle or fish-eye effect. For even more features there is a paid upgrade, but the free version is pretty thorough.
Should you download it?
Best Free Photo Editor Mac
Whether you simply want to tweak some photos, or you are a budding professional this is an ace program full of editing options. Do download it and see it for yourself, it won’t cost you anything!
5.6.0