#Best picture app for mac for free#
#Best picture app for mac software#
#Best picture app for mac professional#

Your pictures aren’t stored in the cloud per se, but Apple does use its cloud-based infrastructure to sync all your pictures while keeping the actual image files stored on your individual devices. Because of that, the interface looks much the same whether you’re on a desktop, laptop, iPad, or iPhone. The Photos app is built around the concept of a unified photo library, such that any photos you take on your phone automatically sync with your computer and vice versa. Underlying that simplicity is a powerful set of editing tools that started out all too basic but have grown to be quite competent over time. But he is perfectly capable of connecting his Canon Rebel T4i to his Mac, offloading his images into Photos, and post-processing them using the tools provided. He is a retired railroad mechanic who prefers working on small engines in his garage instead of tinkering on the computer. I can personally attest to this with my dad as an example. Even back to the original days of iPhoto, Apple’s philosophy has been to make their image-editing programs as easy to use as possible. The core principle of Apple Photos has always been simplicity. It’s safe to say that if you haven’t used Apple Photos in a while you might be surprised at how good the current version is, and if you have never even tried the program you are in for a real treat.

#Best picture app for mac software#

It can now hold its own against many of the other post-processing software options available on the market. However over time, Apple has delivered on its promise to improve Photos and with each iteration, the program becomes more capable, not to mention speedier, than ever before. Photographers hopeful for a fresh new program with all of their favorite features were dismayed and abandoned Apple Photos in droves only to rush headlong into the welcoming arms of Adobe, Macphun (now called Skylum), Corel, and other developers. One significant tradeoff when consolidating apps and enabling cross-device editing with Apple Photos was a lean feature set that, compared to Aperture, was downright anemic and even came up short when compared to iPhoto. With Photos, it was possible to crop a picture on your iPhone and then have that same cropped version of the picture show up on your Apple desktop a few seconds later – a syncing nightmare that was virtually impossible using the panoply of programs previously available from Apple. This new application offered users a way to manage, edit, and share their photos much in the same way iPhoto and Aperture functioned, but also gave people the ability to sync their photo collections and even individual photo edits across all their devices.

Merger of Aperture and iPhotoĪs the decade wore on and Apple saw how much people were using their mobile phones for taking and editing pictures it decided to kill off Aperture and iPhoto and replace them with a single program called Photos.

#Best picture app for mac professional#

A few years later Apple waded into the professional photo editing market with Aperture, a program that was like iPhoto on steroids and was seen as a direct competitor to Adobe Lightroom. I used iPhoto from the first version that was released and even now it’s kind of amazing how well that initial offering worked, though it was clearly lacking many features we take for granted today. This new software called iPhoto was revolutionary at the time, giving casual users a way to manage all their digital imaging assets in a way that was fast, simple, and easy to understand. The story of Apple Photos starts in 2002 with Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs introducing an all-in-one program to let users catalog, edit, and share their digital pictures.

Apple Photos is a program you might have overlooked in the past, but with steady improvements over the years, it is now a serious contender when it comes to post-processing your pictures.

#Best picture app for mac for free#

It can be a daunting proposition to try and pick one that’s right for you.įortunately for Mac users, there is a fantastic option already available to you for free sitting right on your own computer. Programs like Lightroom, Luminar, CaptureOne, Affinity Photo, GIMP, DarkTable, and AfterShotPro, are all highly capable photo editors. There are dozens of great options for casual, enthusiast, and professional image-makers who are looking to get the most out of their images. As the market for digital cameras has intensified in recent years, the options available for post-processing software has exploded as well.