Adobe’s Photoshop software is good – there’s a reason it’s the gold standard in image manipulation – but it comes at a pretty high cost. We’ve put together some of the best Photoshop alternatives out there, and they’re all much cheaper.
- Photoshop Alternatives For Mac Free
- Best Photoshop Alternatives For Mac
- Photoshop Alternatives For Macos
- Gimp For Mac
- Photoshop Alternatives Mac Software
- Best Free Photoshop Alternatives For Mac
Back in the day, you used to be able to buy a copy of Photoshop, and once you paid for it, you owned it. Upgrades weren’t necessarily free, but they were heavily discounted. These days, upgrades are free, but your software only works when you pay every month. While Adobe manages to sweeten the pot by adding in a number of services like mobile apps and cloud syncing, the fees add up – the cheapest Creative Cloud plans that let you access Photoshop cost either $120 a year or $20 on a month-to-month basis.
Before we jump into the list of Photoshop alternatives, there are a couple of Adobe apps you should look at – apps that are still available without a recurring subscription. If your interest in Photoshop lies primarily with its photo manipulation abilities, Adobe’s Lightroom application is still available as a standalone title; you can buy it once and own it forever. You can snag it from Amazon for $143, which is about the same cost as a year’s access to the cheapest Creative Cloud plan.
The Best Photoshop Alternatives in 2018 Photoshop is regarded as an almighty photo editing tool that can perform miracles on your images. Perhaps rightfully so, but not all photographers needed the advanced features Adobe's software provides, and luckily there are many Photoshop alternatives available to people who would like to explore other. There’s a reason that Photoshop dominates the industry in both cost and use: it’s really good at its job. Professional photographers and retouchers are stuck with Adobe, at least for now. GIMP – the best free Photoshop alternative. GIMP is the long-hallowed free Photoshop alternative. If this is the first you’re hearing about it, that’s surprising.
- 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.
- Photolemur is one of the best Photoshop alternatives for Mac. It provides exquisite technology such as portrait enhancement with face recognition, which gives you smart tools for smoothing skin, eliminating imperfections, enhancing eye color, and whitening teeth.
- Sep 07, 2019 But few people prefer free Photoshop alternatives and here are the reasons: Photoshop is a premium tool and beginners can not afford it. It is a RAM hungry tool and can lead to more disk and CPU usage. Takes more time to render high-resolution images on low-end computers. Photoshop perform very slow if your computer is outdated.
Adobe also makes a less powerful version of Photoshop known as Photoshop Elements. You can pick up the current version, Photoshop Elements 14, for just $77, just half the price of Lightroom. While you’ll miss out on some of Photoshop’s more powerful features, you do get some of the more impressive ones, like their new dehaze filter (which can quickly clear up a foggy photo).
Pixlr – Free or $15/year
Pixlr is a surprisingly versatile web app. The web, in general, has gotten increasingly powerful in the past few years, and Pixlr is a great example of it. It offers a few simple tools like filters and stickers and overlays, but it also has some surprisingly strong features, like support for layers and other non-destructive editing tools.
The company has also put out mobile versions of their apps and a chrome extension for some offline editing. After Autodesk acquired the site, Pixlr also put out a desktop app; while it’s a subscription service like Adobe’s Creative Cloud, it only costs $1.99 a month, or fifteen bucks a year. Head over to Pixlr.com to try it for free.
GIMP – Free, open source
GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Project) is practically historic when it comes to freely available software – but unlike most older projects, it’s been constantly updated with bug fixes and new features. Those features make it one of the most powerful image manipulation applications outside of Photoshop itself. It’s actually available for Windows and Linux in addition to the Mac, which makes it a great option if you use your Mac in a mixed-computer household.
Unlike most of Photoshop replacements, GIMP actually supports a robust extensibility framework, with a number of common programming languages. That sounds complex, but what it means is that you can find third party plugins for GIMP, just like with Photoshop. GIMP also supports all the other complex Photoshop features you’re used to, like layers, masking, channels, and curves. Where it tends to fall behind is in supporting advanced features and new camera formats. If you’re looking for a photo-centric replacement, GIMP might not be what you need, but if you’re looking for something more on the graphic design end of things, GIMP could do the job well. Download a free copy from Gimp.org.
Pixelmator – $30
Pixelmator is one of our favorite apps, Photoshop replacement or otherwise. It features a gorgeous user interface, and really typifies what a Mac app should look like. Unlike some of the free options on our list, Pixelmator’s cost includes getting support from responsive developers, in addition to free point updates.
One of the cooler Pixelmator features is its support for iOS. Use it on your Mac, then install it on your iPhone or iPad, and pick up where you left off. While Pixelmator is sold in the Mac App Store, you can download a free, 30-day trial straight from the company’s website.
Affinity Photo – $50
Affinity Photo is from Serif, which also publishes the popular Affinity Designer design software for the Mac. Affinity Photo is their newest product, and actually rated as the top Mac app for all of 2015 by Apple. One of the features that sets this app apart from the others on our list is its appreciable support for RAW files – the “raw” photo recorded by DSLRs and other serious cameras. Most Photoshop alternatives tend to fall down in this area.
Affinity Photo scored a big update in December, which added support for the new DCI-P3 panels found in the latest 5K iMacs, panorama photo stitching, and a haze removal filter (one of the best new Photoshop features). It also adds extensions for use in Apple Photos; it really integrates into your Mac better than just about any other photo software, including Photoshop. Serif offers a free, 14-day trial of Affinity Photo on their website, after which you can snag it in the Mac App Store for $50.
Acorn 5 – The Image Editor for Humans – $30
Acorn 5 comes from a company called Flying Meat, Inc. As the names of both the company and the app might intimate, they don’t take themselves too seriously. Don’t take that to mean that their app isn’t any good, however, because it’s a powerful program that prides itself on being easy to use. Like Affinity Photo before it, Acorn 5 supports 30-bit displays, like those found in the latest 5K iMacs.
One of the things we really like about Acorn 5 is the huge list of free tutorials that Flying Meat created to instruct users on how Acorn works. There’s a set of text and video tutorials that cover just about any feature you can find in the app, from saving an image and straightening a photo to blurring a background and artificially aging a person’s face. Flying Meat offers a 14-day free trial of Acorn 5, but the full version is available both in the Mac App Store and on Flying Meat’s website for just $30.
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Today we will focus on the best Photoshop alternatives on Mac OS X. Most of these are free Mac apps for you to download so don’t worry, and for those of you who have some money to spend, you will also find some great apps that are worth every penny.
Can I Run Photoshop On OS X?
The answer is YES. For years Adobe Photoshop has made their own version for Macs and it’s just as good as the default Window version, some even say it’s better. So you are asking, what is the point of having these Photoshop alternatives? Simple because some people simply can’t afford Photoshop on a Mac or some of you simply prefer to try other programs, maybe some that are more advanced than Photoshop or maybe you are looking for some apps that simplier than Photoshop. Either way, this list has everything you need, let us begin.
#1. Use Pixlr On OS X
Try Pixlr Online for OS X
Photoshop Alternatives For Mac Free
Pixlr combines image design and paint tools with photo editing and adjustment features more convincingly than any other online image editing program. Whether creating an image carte-blanche, layering one image over another or using a variety of filters, effects and level adjustments to transform photographs, Pixlr is equally capable of producing results on par with many of its software-based counterparts. Yet, despite its deep feature-set, Pixlr remains facile, intuitive and, most importantly, user-friendly.
Standard Features:
- A fully customizable user interface with movable and scalable windows
- Navigation-free drop-down menus featuring all filters, adjustment and layering options
- Intuitive design and paint features with a dedicated history window for reference and quick undo/redo
- A “Photo Express” portal for quick, simple changes to images and photographs
We had to put Pixlr #1 mainly because it is free and it can do a lot of the same things Photoshop can do, not everything, but a good amount. On top of that, there is actually a desktop version called AutoDesk for your Mac OS X, you can choose to download that by clicking here.
Pixlr AutoDesk Screenshot
#2. Download Affinity Photo On OS X
Affinity Photo Editor For OS X
Affinity Photo redefines the boundaries for professional photo editing software for the Mac. With a meticulous focus on workflow it offers sophisticated tools for enhancing, editing and retouching your images in an incredibly intuitive interface with all the power and performance you need.
Engineered for Professionals
• Open, edit and save Photoshop® PSD files
• RGB, CMYK, Greyscale and LAB color spaces
• End-to-end CMYK workflow with ICC color management
• Full 16-bit per channel editing
• Work with all standard formats like PNG, TIFF, JPG, GIF, SVG, EPS and PDF
• Panning and zooming is always live at 60fps with live previews, live tools and real-time editing
• Open and edit massive images without compromising performance or running out of memory
• Open, edit and save Photoshop® PSD files
• RGB, CMYK, Greyscale and LAB color spaces
• End-to-end CMYK workflow with ICC color management
• Full 16-bit per channel editing
• Work with all standard formats like PNG, TIFF, JPG, GIF, SVG, EPS and PDF
• Panning and zooming is always live at 60fps with live previews, live tools and real-time editing
• Open and edit massive images without compromising performance or running out of memory
Unsurpassed productivity
• Full support for unlimited layers, layer groups, adjustment layers, filter layers and masks
• Resize layers without any loss of quality. Lock, hide, duplicate and merge layers easily
• Edit live filters, adjustments, effects, blend modes and masks non-destructively
• Undo history can be saved with the document so you can always undo your changes
• Export @1x, @2x, @3x from layers, slices or whole documents – continuously as you work!
• Full support for unlimited layers, layer groups, adjustment layers, filter layers and masks
• Resize layers without any loss of quality. Lock, hide, duplicate and merge layers easily
• Edit live filters, adjustments, effects, blend modes and masks non-destructively
• Undo history can be saved with the document so you can always undo your changes
• Export @1x, @2x, @3x from layers, slices or whole documents – continuously as you work!
Built for Mac
• Takes full advantage of the latest OS X technologies including OpenGL, Grand Central Dispatch and Core Graphics
• Use the Force Touch trackpad to paint with pressure sensitivity
• Fully optimized for 64-bit and multi-core processors
• Supports regular, retina and multi-monitor set ups – including the latest 5k iMac
• iCloud Drive support
• Takes full advantage of the latest OS X technologies including OpenGL, Grand Central Dispatch and Core Graphics
• Use the Force Touch trackpad to paint with pressure sensitivity
• Fully optimized for 64-bit and multi-core processors
• Supports regular, retina and multi-monitor set ups – including the latest 5k iMac
• iCloud Drive support
Affinity Photo Screenshot
#3. Download Gimp On OS X
Best Photoshop Alternatives For Mac
Try Gimp on Mac OS X
GIMP is ideal for advanced photo retouching techniques. Get rid of unneeded details using the clone tool, or touch up minor details easily with the new healing tool. With the perspective clone tool, it’s not difficult to clone objects with perspective in mind just as easily as with the orthogonal clone.
GIMP is ideal for advanced photo retouching techniques. Get rid of unneeded details using the clone tool, or touch up minor details easily with the new healing tool. With the perspective clone tool, it’s not difficult to clone objects with perspective in mind just as easily as with the orthogonal clone.
- File formats supported include bmp, gif, jpeg, mng, pcx, pdf, png, ps, psd, svg, tiff, tga, xpm, and many others
- Load, display, convert, save to many file formats
- SVG path import/export
Gimp Screenshot
#4. Download Seashore On OS X
Try Seashore App for OS X
Seashore is an open source image editor for Mac OS X’s Cocoa framework. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP’s technology and uses the same native file format.
Photoshop Alternatives For Macos
However, unlike the GIMP, Seashore aims to serve the basic image editing needs of most computer users, not to provide a replacement for professional image editing products. Also, unlike GIMP, Seashore has an all-new Cocoa UI that will fit right in on Mac OS X.
Seashore Screenshot
#5. Download PixelMator On OS X
Try PixelMator for Mac OS X
Pixelmator takes full advantage of the latest Mac technologies, giving you speedy, powerful tools that let you touch up and enhance images, draw or paint, apply dazzling effects, or create advanced compositions amazingly simple. Once your images are ready, access them anywhere with iCloud, send them to iPhoto or Aperture, email, print, share, or save them to popular image formats–all right from Pixelmator.
And, the new Pixelmator 3.3 is redesigned to cohere with OS X Yosemite’s fresh and modern look, brings new OS X Continuity features, like Handoff and iCloud Drive support, and works wonderfully together with Pixelmator for iPad. Ssd drives for mac.
A powerful, pixel-accurate collection of selection tools
• Quickly and easily select any part of an image
• Edit and apply special effects to portions of your pictures
• Select and remove unwanted elements of your photos
• Cut out objects from one image to place in another
• Quickly and easily select any part of an image
• Edit and apply special effects to portions of your pictures
• Select and remove unwanted elements of your photos
• Cut out objects from one image to place in another
Gimp For Mac
Top-notch painting tools
• Paint with Pixelmator as you would on canvas
• Use different brush sizes, shapes, hardness, and blending modes
• Adjust brush settings to get just the look you want
• Cover any area with beautiful gradients and color fills
• Paint with Pixelmator as you would on canvas
• Use different brush sizes, shapes, hardness, and blending modes
• Adjust brush settings to get just the look you want
• Cover any area with beautiful gradients and color fills
Pixelmator Screenshot
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Photoshop Alternatives Mac Software
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