Editing your photos on your iPhone is one thing, but editing your photos on your Mac can take your photography skills to a whole 'nother level.
Many of us still keep our main libraries on our Macs because of its faster processors, larger storage, and all-around bigger computing power. The Mac is still the best device for serious photo editing, so you need some serious photo editing apps to make an impact.
The built-in Photos app on Mac offers several useful photo editing tools. You can crop, adjust lighting and color, set the white balance, add filters, remove unwanted blemishes, and a few more things. However, in all honesty? It's not really meant to be a robust editing app, so If you are looking for something to really finish your photos right, we've got a list of the best photo editors for Mac right here. Let's go!
Affinity Photo
If you're looking for a photo editing app that goes above and beyond for the pricetag, while still allowing you complete creative control over your images, then it might be worth it to take a peek at Affinity Photo.
Affinity Photo supports unlimited layers, groups, layer adjustments, filters, masking, and more: you also have access to tools like dodge, red-eye fix, burn, blemish, clone, and patch (so pretty much Photoshop without all the convoluted bells and whistles). Nondestructive auto-saving makes undoing everything you've done easy, so if you need to start from the beginning, the option is there.
Mar 06, 2020 Adobe Photoshop Element is one of the best photo editing software for Mac professionals, as one part of the Adobe Elements bundle. The app is available for Mac 64-bit OS with a powerful experience of artificial intelligence (AI), and “content intelligence” through Adobe-speak, to achieve lovely image and video editing. This software uses the advanced photo weaver and it provides for efficient cropping and addition of multiple images at once which thereby gives the efficient output. In case the photo weaver is unable to crop the photos automatically, then an option for manual cropping is also provided. Best Photo Stitching Software for Mac.
Play, manipulate, edit, and get hella creative with Affinity Photo whether you're a serious graphic designer or someone who's just looking to do some basic editing. Your photography will seriously thank you.
- $49.99 - Download now
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Fotor Photo Editor
Searching for a super simple, straight-forward photo editing app that's there to help you edit and not confuse you to the point of ripping out your hair? Then check out Fotor Photo Editor!
With this photo editor, you can easily adjust contrast and color of more washed-out photos, add borders, tilt and shift your images, add different text, slap on a few filters, and so much more, all from the easy-to-find toolbox on the right side of the app. You can even create collages of your photography masterpieces!
The BBC once called Fotor Photo Editor 'light Photoshop', and they're kind of right! You can go above and beyond editing your images with Fotor Photo Editor without getting bogged down by more complicated editing buttons and tools.
- Free - Download now
Lightroom
When you look into photo editing software, one of the first things that'll pop up is Adobe's Lightroom, and for good reason! It's essentially a staple in the photo editing community.
Lightroom is great for photographers who need to manage a large image library, and who are prepared to commit to (and pay for) Adobe's cloud storage space. But it is purely a photography tool that's a little outside the regular Adobe design ecosystem. (Creative Bloq)
Pretty much anything you want to do with your photo, you can accomplish with Lightroom. You can blend and merge shadows and highlights, sharpen dull, blurry images so they look crisp and clear, add details and tint colors to make a photo stand out, and so, so much more.
While it is a bit more on the complicated side, people who use the program and know how to navigate it are hooked. Keep in mind, there are two versions of the app — there's the Classic version, which is more preferred, and the 2018 CC version.
If you're hesitant about the program and paying for it, you can download Lightroom free for 30 days as part of a trial period. After that, you can add it to your Photoshop CC subscription for $9.99 per month.
- Free trial - Download now
Pixelmator
Amp up your photo editing skills with a little bit of help from Pixelmator!
This particular photo editing app allows you to combine two different photos into one (while still allowing you to edit over each layer), add shapes, gradients, filters, tints, and more, and completely change and edit your photography to make it fit perfectly to your aesthetic. You can even mask and cut off certain areas of the photo, giving you more creative control over your final image.
Similar to other photo editing apps, you can also adjust contrast, color, saturation level, definition, and so much more.
It's another great alternative to Photoshop, at least according to our managing editor Lory Gil.
- $29.99 - Download now
GIMP
Love Photoshop (or the idea of Photoshop...) but don't want all the complicated components and nonsense that comes along with it? Then it might be worth it to take a peek at GIMP.
Similar to Photoshop, GIMP allows you full control over editing your photos: it's an advanced image manipulation program with detailed customization for color reproduction.
You can add layers to your photos, edit and tweak colors, adjust contrast, crop, adjust saturation, and so much more. If you're someone who admires Photoshop but is terrified of the price (or just thinks it's not worth it) then GIMP might be the perfect pal for you.
- Free - Download now
Snapheal
Say 'bye-bye' to nasty photobombs, zits, perky distractions, and so much more in your photos thanks to Snapheal!
Snapheal is a little bit unique in the sense that it's more of a 'delete now, ask questions later' app. It's more about cleaning up a photo than it is editing it and adding a whole bunch of layers. The tools can either remove large objects or smaller imperfections depending on the mode. You can even adjust the masking tool, use a magic rope, or clone stamp your way to a new photo.
Best Photo Stitching Software For Mac
If you're someone who's a perfectionist when it comes to your photography and you just can't stand that one stupid, distracting blur in the background, then Snapheal is the guy for you.
- $7.99 - Download now
Preview
I know what you're thinking: 'Preview? Really, Cella?'
To which I respond: 'Uh, yeah. Duh, my dude. You use it every day!'
Sure, you can't do a bunch of fancy things with Preview like add filters, adjust contrast, and fix saturation, but you can quickly crop a photo, adjust the color, rotate it, add shapes, texts, and a signature, export as a different format, and more.
Yes, Preview isn't perfect, but it is easy to use and fantastic for making small, fast changes to your photography.
- It's already on your Mac.
How do you edit your photography?
What is your favorite photo editing app for the Mac? Why does it work the best for you? Let us know what your top picks are in the comments down below!
Updated August 2018: All the choices on this list are still the best of the best!
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Closed for 2020Apple says its offices in the US will not fully reopen until at least 2021
![Stitching Stitching](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126406870/339450069.jpg)
According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple is planning for its office and many of its retail workers to remain remote for the rest of the year.
The major incidents in our lives are captured in the form of memories and these memories serve as reminders to all the good and great moments of our lives. Due to the advent of the digital media, it has been comparatively easier to capture these moments of our lives through the lenses of a camera and it can be captured in forms of photographs.
This development of the camera has also reached a greater height due to the recent advent of smartphones and other modes of capturing images. Simultaneously, there has been the development of many software to accentuate the photo quality to various means of displaying a photograph as per the medium in which the user wishes to display it.
Various means like social media and other applications have to lead to the boom of this software which helps to edit the images and also makes it unique to be displayed on such digital platforms and the corresponding social media applications as well.
One such medium which has led to the compiling and addition of multiple photographs into one image is a photo stitching software and thus it provides an accurate and compiled view of multiple photographs.
What is photo Stitching and why do we need it?
This is a process of combining multiple images into one image by adjusting the dimensions of the other images in order to provide a landscape view of the same and generally such cropping and editing are done by the means of computer programmes. Nowadays, there has been the evolution of many software applications to simplify this process and thus develop the impression of creating a collage of photographs.
There are various applications of such process and they are:
- It is used for image stabilization
- It is also used for medical imaging.
- It can be used for multiple image super-resolution.
- It is also used for Video Stitching.
- It can be used for enhanced Object insertion.
Thus such means of photo stitching is developed in recent days to provide smooth and efficient output and it can be done by some best photo stitching software available in the present days. Mostly such images are used to create a panorama image or a landscape view.
Best Panorama Software
The photo stitching method is used to create landscape view of multiple images and the best photo stitching software in the market for such purposes are:
1. Image Composite Editor
This is a complex software to be used but it can be easily done and the essential advantage of this software is that it provides a faster output within a matter of few seconds and thus it is widely used for faster output response. There are few steps that need to be followed to use this software and they are:
- First, go to File.
- Then Select on New Option
- Then select any two photos that you want to be overlaid and then click on Enter.
Thus the software automatically gives the output and generates the output image in the form of a JPEG or PNG file. It can also be used to import this image to Photoshop software and thereby add more effects to the image. It can be used best on Windows Operating System.
2. Panorama Plus
This is a photo stitching software that can be used best on Windows operating system and apart from the free editor version, you have to pay $28.5 to get the advanced version.
This software can be used to add and crop images as well as videos and thus provide a panoramic view of multiple images and an additional layover of multiple videos.
This software also has inbuilt editing tools which do all the editing of videos at the right set time and thus gives an effortless output. It also gives advanced option to import the files to Photoshop in order to provide options for an addition of more features.
3. PhotoStitcher
This software is best suited for Windows system but it works on other operating systems as well. The trial version is available for free but the advanced version can be bought at $19.99. Thus the major advantage of this software is that it automatically aligns all the selected images and thereby edits and crops the images with proper dimensions and addition.
This makes the work of a user much simpler and the result is obtained at the click of a button. This software also provides an option for automatic cropping which easily crops all the images.
4. EasyPano Panoweaver
This software is basically used on the Windows platform and is used to create three dimensional HD images of dimensions like 360 * 180 degrees.
This software uses the advanced photo weaver and it provides for efficient cropping and addition of multiple images at once which thereby gives the efficient output. In case the photo weaver is unable to crop the photos automatically, then an option for manual cropping is also provided.
Best Photo Stitching Software for Mac
Best Photo Management Software Mac
There are many photo software which is available to work only on the specific operating system like Mac and these are efficient only on these OS. The comprehensive list is given as:
5. Hugin
This software is available for free but it can only be used to add two images at once to give a panoramic image. Moreover, it requires a lot of manual work from the user such as:
- Setting the control points for the image.
- Setting the dimensions for the image.
- Also, mention the proper set of alignment and directions of the output image.
Thus this software is not used widely due to lack of efficiency but the quality of the output image is great as it is obtained as per the desirability of the user.
6. Autopano Pro
This software is available with a free trial version but for the advanced versions, one has to pay approximately $130. This software can be used to add the 2 images and get the desired output, but the interesting thing to note that there are 5 free tries and the image obtained after all the trials are different. But if one is going for editing of multiple images then a lot of options are available for the same as:
- Projection Settings
- Control point Editors
- Colour
- Anchors
- Geometry
This software can be used for advanced cropping and to provide higher resolutions to the images.
7. AutoStitch
This is the simplest software to be used for photo stitching and it can be used for 2 as well as 7 images at once. It is an easier software to be used where the user just has to select on the images to be cropped into one and then click on enter.
It takes few more seconds for 7 images but the result is amazing. Moreover, it automatically detects the need for any editing and does it on its own as it has an inbuilt editing function as well which provides for output size, blending methods and auto crop.
8. Arcsoft Panorama Maker
It is an expensive software with a free trial version and the advanced version comes at a price of $79.99, which can be used to create the overlap of pictures which are generally inclined with nature or natural artifacts and it has to be used but it also has 5 auto stitch modes and these modes are:
- Auto
- Horizontal
- 360
- Tile
- Vertical
It is a simple software and all the editing and cropping of the selected images can be done in three simple steps as follows:
- Click on “Auto Selector” for one image or on “Auto Selector by Group” for the group of images that needs to be compiled into one single output.
- It then organizes the images and seamlessly stitches them into a panoramic view.
- It then saves, prints or posts the images to any application on Web.
Also, the 360 mode helps in the creation of high-resolution three-dimensional images which makes the picture look impressive.
9. PTGui
This is an expensive software and apart from photo stitching, it can also be used for adding watermark to the images. Thus the advanced version of this software can be bought at a price of $28.5. It can be used to create high resolution spherical 360 * 180 three dimensional panoramic images.
It thus helps in providing an advanced and high-resolution image output. The images can also be stitched as rotated and tilted images. Moreover, it also has a spherical panorama viewer and a web publishing tool. It can also be used efficiently with its inbuilt Batch Building Feature which scans various folders for panoramic images and then automatically stitches them.
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion on best free photo stitching software, it is pertinent to note that such software is pretty expensive and only the professional users who are into the arena of image processing, editing, and other functions can efficiently use them to get an impeccable outcome which actually distinguishes a manually captured photograph from a digitally stitched photograph as this option gives the user various advanced features to experiment with the images in an efficient manner.