good cheap photo editing software for mac

Good Cheap Photo Editing Software Free Cheap Photo
Good Cheap Photo Editing Software Upgrade Is Questionable
Good Cheap Photo Editing Software Mac Photo Editors

Good Cheap Photo Editing Software Mac Photo Editors

We take a look at the best Mac photo editors for creative professionals.

However, there are plenty of challengers for the photo editing software crown, especially on the Mac.

True, you can get just Photoshop and Lightroom for around 120US120 per year via the Photography subscription, but even this is considered by many to be a form of extortion.

If you are set on Adobe CC, check out this comprehensive buying guide on our sister site Tech Advisor).

The latter category includes apps designed to take images straight from a camera and improve them by fixing things like distortions introduced by lenses, or correct colour balance.

This offers the most scope for improvement because as much of the image data as possible is present and none has yet been discarded or manipulated.

Good Cheap Photo Editing Software Free Cheap Photo

But if youre looking to pay even less than this and can compromise on features, take a look at our roundup of the best free cheap photo editors for Mac.

You get CMYK and Lab colour space support, for example, which is a necessity when working accurately in the print design industry.

Its a Mac RAW photo editor too, and the app claims the best support for Photoshops ubiquitous.psd file format outside of Photoshop itself.

Although it can indeed make subtle tweaks, just like any image editor, doing so feels like youre using a Bugatti Veyron to go to Sainsburys.

For semi-pro and even pro-level editing it really is a competitor for Adobe Photoshop.

In fact, its hard not to notice the influence of Adobes product when working within Pixelmator: youll certainly find most of its key tools, all within an interface that looks beautiful and fits in entirely with the macOS aesthetic.

For example, while Clone and Heal tools are present, theres no Patch tool, or Context-Aware Move tool, or History Brush.

Pixelmator deliberately keeps things simpler than Adobes effort, which means it has found a home with amateur and semi-pro image editors who use it occasionally, rather than daily.

Our complaints are slight and revolve around the time taken to process the image when dragging it around while zoomed, as one example.

Typically this was a couple of seconds, and on slower computers might be even longer.

Additionally, there doesnt appear to be a zoom tool for quick zooming in and out, with the maximum zoom level capped at 200 too.

True, you dont get the incredible control over fine details that you do with Capture One Pro, but do you really need it For simply pushing your RAW images so that you (relatively) quickly get the best out of them, DxO Optics Pro is a winner.

However, dig a little deeper and youll find powerful tools for editing images, despite the app avoiding a toolbar-style approach and mostly eschewing the use of Photoshop-style penbrush tools.

Rather than take a tool-based approach, the app prefers to walk you through tweaks and edits.

You get all the tools that made Photoshop so great, such as levels and curves to adjust an images brightnesscontrast, as well masking, layers, and various filters.

Ultimately, Acorn is very good Photoshop alternative, but its competition is simply better.

Especially if you literally cant afford to spend any money but still need genuine image editing power above and beyond applying silly filters to images.

It is to Photoshop what a ZX Spectrum is to the iMac Pro: a relative, perhaps, but laughably not in the same league.

Good Cheap Photo Editing Software Upgrade Is Questionable

And whether youd want to spend US39.99 a year (around around 30.54) or 8.99 per month (around 6.86) to upgrade is questionable, especially if youre looking for high-level image correction and editing.

Good Cheap Photo Editing Software For Mac