Editing of photos or post-production nowadays is the second most important part of the photography — right after taking the shot itself. That’s why it’s important to pick the best photo editor apps. For pros and beginners alike it’s really important to make sure that post-production is done right to make their vision come true. The photo editing software can help you to process your photos — and there are many photo editor apps there.
The Best Photo Editors Software
Here we discuss the best photo editors software for PC and Mac. Many of the apps are also available for iOS and Android. If you want to download any of the mentioned best photo editors software – simply search it in your mobile store.
Adobe Lightroom
Lightroom is a big name in photo editing. Almost as big as Photoshop but let’s not get ahead too early.
Modern Lightroom is a perfect tool for any photo enthusiast or home user that wants to bring his picture editing to a new level.
Lightroom is widely considered to be one of the best photo editors for laptops.
Modern Lightroom, not like its counterpart Lightroom Classic, has moved to Cloud technology, which means that the originals of your photos would be stored in Cloud. But it’s really handier that way. Why?
Because of the new workflow that allows you to shoot photos on your smartphone and edit them on the computer, or maybe start editing on your PC and end it on your smartphone. That’s right, a Lightroom is a cross-platform software. Add here intellectual catalog tool and auto-tagging which allows you to keep all your photos in proper order.
In Lightroom, you can edit pictures using presets or manually. It allows you to adjust colors, light, optics and fine details.
The interface of Lightroom is very easy for beginners but as a downside, it’s a little less capable software than Lightroom Classic. But here is a great thing — you can access them all in one bundle with Photoshop and 20Gb of Cloud Storage for $9.99 a month. That’s more than most of the photographers would ever need.
Pros
- Great quality of editing
- Simple interface
- Cross-platform — computers and smartphones
- Smart catalog with Cloud technology
- Can be subscribed in a bundle with Photoshop and Lightroom Classic
- Both for PC and Mac
Cons
- Subscription, no lifetime license
Adobe Photoshop
Don’t say you didn’t see it coming. Photoshop is one of the most famous software ever, the name of it has already become a verb — “to photoshop”. It is one of the best photo editor software.
Most people already know that photo processing = Photoshop and there is a little that can be added. Perhaps, Adobe Photoshop gives too many opportunities for a beginner — here you can not only tune the picture, adjusting its colors and light but also make a complex montage, compose real pictures with graphics to make it look seamless and so one. Excuse me for not mentioning the trivial things like removing some pimples and red eyes.
The complexity comes with its own cost — Photoshop is very hard for a beginner to learn. It’s the most advanced photo editing software after all.
On the bright side, the cheapest way to get Photoshop is in a bundle with Lightroom and Lightroom Classic — the same $9.99. If you do that, you would get a great instrument for beginners (which is Lightroom) with a behemoth of software (which is respectively Photoshop). That way you can get a hang of picture editing and take your time to steadily learn the complex stuff.
Pros
- The most capable picture-processing software
- An infinite number of tutorials to get you started
- Can be subscribed in a bundle with Photoshop and Lightroom Classic
- Both for PC and Mac
Cons
- Very complicated interface
- Subscription, no lifetime license
Luminar
Luminar is a great alternative to Lightroom if you don’t like the subscription of this photo editor app. It costs $69 and it’s a lifetime. Luminar has a ton of neat filters — color and lens correction and others that allows you to fix the mistakes of your image and add a bunch of creativeness.
Workflow resembles Lightroom pretty much — that’s one of the main points mentioned on the Luminar website. And that says a lot because of Luminar aims at the same level of performance, quality, and variability in terms of manual tuning.
All the filters have nice and intuitive controls that would suffice for any beginner and manual editing has a lot of possibilities to fine-tune your picture — just click the link to get to their website and thy the filters right on the page.
Unfortunately, now Luminar doesn’t have any catalog function but developers have promised to add it for free with further updates this year.
Pros
- Great filters
- The interface is simple and easy to get used to
- Both for PC and Mac
Cons
- Not as easy to use as another home software
Read the full review of Luminar
Adobe Photoshop Elements
It’s a little brother of Adobe Photoshop and it’s great for anyone who takes pictures of his or her family and loves to share them with friends or relatives.
First of all, there are three editing modes — quick, guided, and expert. First and latter speak for themselves. The guided mode has a lot of step-by-step instructions on how to make great photos. It’s really handy for beginners.
The picture organizer is intelligent. It can not only detect people’s faces and filter photos but can even detect animals. Let’s say you type “dog” into a search field — the photo organizer will show you dog photos.
New features to open closed eyes (Photoshop Elements takes opened eyes from different photos of the same person) and change photo background are very easy to use.
Also, a big thing for me was a slideshow function. The program can make you a great slideshow out of your photos with beautiful transitions in no time. They really come in handy when you want to entertain your guests with photos of your last family vacation.
To sum it up, Photoshop Elements is a great choice for people who mostly do family and friends photos but it won’t do for professionals or photo enthusiasts. The price of $99.99 is pretty high, but it’s a great software that worths its money.
Pros
- Three editing modes
- Great photo organizer
- Amazing tools for opening closed eyes and changing the background
- Slideshow function
- Both for PC and Mac
Cons
- Pretty expensive
- Not for professionals or enthusiasts
Read the full review of Adobe Photoshop Elements
Cyberlink PhotoDirector
Cyberlink is a company with a great history. Many people remember PowerDVD, many use PowerDirector and many have a great experience with Cyberlink software overall.
PhotoDirector is a great way to make your photos look creative. It has two modes of editing — first is presets, where you can choose a bunch of different filters, frames and so on; the second is a manual mode in which you get full control over your photo.
The reason Cyberlink PhotoDirector is one of the best photo editing software is because of the great workflow that is available with these modes. Most of the users would be more than okay with a lot of presets because there is one for any occasion. But if you’re really into it, you would get the best result possible with full controls.
Add here great picture organizer tool that has some AI built into it to recognize the faces and you would get a great picture editor that would suffice anyone but the most professional users. And a great addition for many users is an instrument to create your own GIFs out of your pictures. Also, don’t forget about 360 degrees editing to create nice little planet pictures.
PhotoDirector is a bang for the buck with its price of $49.99. Also, it has a trial version so be sure to check it out.
Pros
- Editing modes for beginners and experienced users alike
- A lot of presets
- The great GIF creation tool
- Picture organizer
- Both for PC and Mac
Cons
- Could be somewhat hard to learn for beginners even in Easy mode
Xara Photo & Graphic Designer
This is a Windows-only photo editing app that is great for people who love old-school interfaces and workflow. The vast capabilities of Xara are up to its price of $59.99 — here you have layers, a lot of brushers, retouch tools and an immense number of controls.
It’s a type of software that greatly mimics the Adobe Photoshop interface and would be great for people who used to work with it. Experienced users would be familiar with it and would start working right away.
The software includes a great collection of stock photos to use in your designs and some useful templates for promotional materials or banners.
If you see yourself as a person who might want to like Xara, get a free trial to make your mind about purchasing it.
Pros
- A great number of features
- A vast collection of media
- Old-school user interface
Cons
- Old-school users interface
- Windows only
The Best Photo Editor Software for Mac
Most of the apps that we’ve discussed could be used both on Windows and Mac. However, there are apps that are exclusively for Apple devices which makes them the best photo editor software for Mac.
Movavi Photo Editor
Movavi Photo Editor is a great choice for beginners and one of the best photo editor apps. I suppose that it’s the easiest picture editor out there. The big stars of this software are easy-to-use background changing function and intellectual photo restoration.
Both functions are completely intuitive. The first one allows you to swap the background of your photo in a couple of steps. A handy tool for selecting hair to make them look more natural on a new background is also present.
Photo restoration is an AI-based tool that removes cracks and grains from old photos and makes colors more natural. Unfortunately, this function is Windows-only for now.
Let’s also not forget about all the necessary stuff like filters and manual editing — all these are present in Movavi Photo Editor and work just fine. Also, I had a lot of fun with make-up functions, coloring the lips of my friends and making their eyelashes look gorgeous.
Movavi doesn’t have a photo organizer function but developers do work on it, judging by the teaser in the program itself which offers to make a pre-order.
In the end, the biggest advantage of this software is it’s accessibility to everyone, regardless of their skill level and its ability to show great results even for complete beginners. The trial version is free, the full version costs $39.95.
Pros
- Very user-friendly yet capable software
- Great background changing tool
- Nice restoration tool (Windows x64 only)
- Both for PC and Mac
Cons
- No built-in photo organizer
Pixelmator Pro
Pixelmator Pro is a Mac-only app that aims at photo enthusiasts that tend to spend some time with their editing. It’s an updated version of standard Pixelmator that has a lot more features, uses Metal API to make it’s really fast and some machine learning tricks that will up your game.
The interface is just beautiful as you would expect from the Mac-only app. The interface is just gorgeous and pretty easy to learn if you remember about it being the semi-pro app. Basically it’s more advanced than Movavi Photo Editor but less advanced than Adobe Photoshop.
Brushes are just great and with layers support you can draw great pictures. When it comes to photo filters, the collection is vast and you can do all the manual editing to make your photo look just right.
Machine learning is a big thing with Pixelmator Pro. It powers color adjustment, quick selection tool, repair tool, horizon detection, and layer naming. It’s really great and ups your game.
Overall, Pixelmator Pro is a great software for Mac users that you should really try out. Trial version is free, full version $59.95
Pros
- A lot of tools, beautiful brushes
- Easy and stylish interface
- Great filters
- Machine learning that works great
- Good performance with Metal API
Cons
- Mac only
The Best Photo Editor Apps Free
These are the best photo editor apps which you can get for free. Typically it is open-source software and it works for Windows, Mac and even Linux. Here are the best in my opinion.
Gimp
Gimp is free open-source software that available on PC, Mac and even Linux. It has a long history since 1995 and developers always were true to their cause of making highly capable free software that can help with most tasks of computer graphics. It is one of the best free photo editor apps.
First of all, Gimp is insanely hard to learn. There is no paid software that has such a complicated interface. And if Adobe Photoshop is just hard to learn, Gimp sometimes is counter-intuitive. First time I’ve launched it I was overwhelmed with an excessive number of controls, interface layouts, different windows and so on.
Of course, when you get a hang of it, you can do almost all the tasks that an average user would do in Adobe Photoshop, but it will certainly take much more time to get used to Gimp.
Aside from that, It’s really great software with a lot of features, the main advantage of which that it’s free.
Among free photo editor apps, it’s one of the most renown.
Cons
- It’s free
- For Windows, Mac, Linux
- A lot of features
Cons
- Insanely hard and counter-intuitive interface
- No great presets, most of the tuning must be done manually
- Takes very long to learn
- No photo organizer
Paint.net
You can think of it as basically an extension of Microsoft Paint. This picture editor is Windows-only.
The interface is in some way mimics both Paint and Photoshop — a good thing if you’re familiar with one of these.
Abilities of Paint.net is somewhat comparable with Gimp, but Gimp is more advanced. On the bright side the interface of Paint.net is much simpler and user-friendly, but still a bit hard.
And of course, because this software is free, forget about all your beautiful presets and slick interfaces. You have to sacrifice something, you know.
Pros
- It’s free
- The interface is somewhat between Paint and Photoshop
Cons
- No great presets, most of the tuning must be done manually
- It’s not the easiest software out there
- No photo organizer
- Windows only
The Best Photo Editors Online
It is easy to editor your photo not only with the pre-downloaded software but even online for free. And online tools have a lot of features to choose from. Let’s dig into the best photo editors online.
Canva
Canva is a photo editor online which also well-suited for creating graphic designs. The online-interface of Canva is easy-to-use and learn. And the great thing is that you don’t even need to download it. It is one of the best photo editor apps.
Canva has a ton of templates with ready-to-use designs. They are attractive and modern-looking.
Canva is a free online photo editor. It also has a premium paid version – which is very reasonably priced. But most users will be satisfied with the free online photo editor version.
Also, there are great templates Canva: social networks, blog graphics, great resume designs, business cards and so on.
Pros
- Well suited for social networks thanks to the built-in templates and size options.
- Free and easy-to-use.
- Diverse thematics of templates.
Cons
- Not very suitable for professional photography.
- No offline mode.
Pixlr
Pixlr is a free online photo editor. You only need your web browser to use it. After launching users who familiar with Photoshop would find themselves in a very familiar user interface. It pretty much is the same as many desktop counterparts.
It is very handy that even many of the familiar hotkeys would be working with Pixlr the same way as they work with Photoshop.
Pixlr supports PSD file format but it only opens them. You can save the photos in multiple layers with PXD – the proprietary Pixlr file format.
Despite minor drawbacks, Pixlr is a very great option for users who seek something like Photoshop but in Online.
Pros
- The interface is familiar to desktop users.
- Pixlr supports multiple layers.
Cons
- Ads in a free version.
- You will need Flash to work with Pixlr.
PicMonkey
PicMonkey is an online photo editor with an immense number of tools. It can help you to easily create different types of images.
It can do the number of basic tasks: crop, rotate, control exposure, adjust colors, adjust focus, resize the image and so on. There are about 50 included filters: black and white, HDR, color filters and stylization like Polaroid shots.
PicMonkey has a very intuitive interface. You don’t need to be an expert to get great results. And quick tools like teeth whitening, black eyes removal, and eye gloss would be really useful to retouch portraits.
Also, PicMonkey has design tools that allow you to add text, frames and so on.
Pros
- Very easy-to-use.
- Online functions mean that it supports many platforms.
Cons
- It’s not free.
- Not as capable as professional alternatives.
Fotor
Fotor is an online photo editor that not only suitable for editing photos but for creating collages for social networks.
Fotor was launched in 2012 as a tool to create HDR images but now it is a full-fledged online photo editor. There are also Fotor apps for iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS.
You can use Fotor for free. However, there is a premium subscription for $3.33 a month. It allows you yo use premium filters, templates, and effects.
The interface of Fotor is pretty intuitive with a standard workflow of editing photos. Even a complete beginner would be able to create some great images with Fotor.
Pros
- Compatible with mobile devices.
- Cheap price.
- Great collage tool.
Cons
- It doesn’t support RAW files without prior convertation.
When choosing the best photo editor apps you need to be sure to try as many as you can and then buy one that suits you best. Whether you’re a beginner or a professional, there is a software for you, you just need to pick one.