Free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop for Mac OS X. How to choose a painting program for your Mac Painting programs for mac

Gimp is great free analogue paid raster editors, even such as Adobe Photoshop. The application has full functionality for working with images: support for transparency, layers, a large number of formats, various filters for image processing. The program interface is quite standard for raster editors, but it can be customized.

Raw Therapee

Windows, Linux, Mac OS X official website September 26, 2017 GNU General Public License - license for personal and commercial use Bitmap editors 3

Raw Therapee- free editor for RAW photos. A distinctive feature of the application is working with color in 96-bit format, which makes it possible to color correct and perform other operations with images without loss of quality. Most of the functionality of Raw Therapee is color and light correction, but you can also improve images: remove noise, improve clarity. The developer claims that the use of multi-threaded algorithms ensures high speed image processing. In addition, there is a batch file processing mode. The program interface consists of a large number of panels with various tools.

Among Mac users, there are many artists, designers, and just people who like drawing, or photo editing. That's why Apple7day specialists made a selection for you software, which will help solve certain pressing issues in terms of creating or editing images. The list includes applications designed for raster, vector programs should be considered separately.

Photo

The built-in software from the developers turned out well. Although this editor is not meant to compete with Adobe products, and it is designed to solve simpler tasks, the tool has a lot of useful features.

In particular, the program has a lot of excellent filters, additional tools for photo processing (contrast, histograms, crop edges, etc.). The product is compatible with iCloud Music Library, which is very convenient. The program interface is made as simple and understandable as possible for ordinary users.

gimp

This editor, which exists on Windows, Linux, Mac, is one of the most popular. With the advent of the version for Apple, the number of fans has increased, and now he is actively competing with serious paid products.

Like Photoshop, this editor allows you to work with layers, perform work of high complexity. It is used not only by amateurs, but also by professional digital artists, as a complete painting product.

For the photographer, the main disadvantage is that RAW is supported, but not edited. The problem is solved by installing plugins. If you want to save money and there is no money for a license from Adobe, great option. You can download the program for free.

paintbrush

Software that has existed for many years. The current version is fully compatible with El Capitan. The disadvantages include a small set of tools and an interface that has not changed for a couple of decades. Works with major graphic formats including BMP, Gif, Tiff, Jpg, PNG.

If you need a simple analogue of Microsoft's "Paint", download it.

Fotor

If you are not a professional photographer and designer, there is no point in using difficult-to-learn paid products. For such purposes, there is this application. It can change the contrast level, brightness, apply filters, make collages, crop the picture. There are many blanks that will simplify the user's work.

Pixlr Desktop

Sketchbook, Maya and other Autodesk products are known to millions of users. But they are made for professionals. As for hobby products, the company decided to create a simplified version of its Pixlr editor, offering it in three versions - free, monthly licenses for two dollars, or annual licenses for $15.

You are unlikely to draw a picture in it, but retouching, smoothing, masks, filters, etc., are in abundance. It is possible to purchase some of the tools. It is they, and not the main product, that require payment. Here the user can choose what he needs, and whether he needs anything at all, besides what is free.

Photoshop CC

This editor can be compared to a famous actor. Gloss, fame, big fees.

Always a product from Adobe cost so much that most users simply could not afford such a purchase. But recently there was such a wonderful thing for Mac users as Adobe Creative Cloud. Through it, you can get a monthly subscription for $20. For a one-year you get a big discount. Plus, you get Lightroom for free. Subscription may be terminated at any time.

Why is Photoshop so expensive? Because the creators are constantly adding sophisticated tools for professionals to it. This is Camera Raw and work with three-dimensional models, and the mechanisms of complex layer-by-layer processing. Only now, developers forget that millions of people may never need these built-in functions at all.

The advantages of the editor include user-friendly interface and ease of learning. The network has a large amount of educational materials distributed for free.

If you ask me about the best photo editor for mobile devices, no doubt I will call VSCO Cam. A selection of excellent filters for every taste and for reasonable money, an abundance of image editing tools, a local file library and well-implemented export, as well as the ability to publish your photos and be inspired by other people's work - all this is about him. The secret of success turned out to be simple: behind the application and service there is a team of true professionals in various fields, including photography.

Visual Supply Company employees have worked at Apple, MTV, Audi, Levi's, Adobe, Sony, UnderArmour, Xbox, Webex, Getty Images, Nintendo, T-Mobile, and Adidas. As a result mobile app devoid of the common problems of numerous photo editors in App Store and Google Play, on which programmers primarily work. Even if not devoid of a sense of beauty, but accustomed to think in formulas and algorithms. To make the best photo application, it turned out that something completely different was needed - professional photographers, designers, representatives of others creative professions and people who are intimately familiar with the visual arts industry.

The VSCO Cam app was only available for iPhone for a long time, but now it can be used by iPad and Android users. Similar to Instagram, developers are gradually taking over new platforms, allowing mobile photographers to post even better pictures through the use of numerous editing tools and stylish color filters designed by professional photographers. Portrait, landscape, city, nature, macro photography - you can hardly find a genre of mobile photography for which VSCO Cam does not have a suitable set of filters. But it's all about smartphones and tablets.

Unfortunately, Visual Supply Company doesn't have a product for a combination of an amateur camera and a computer. The only desktop solution is VSCO Film presets for Photoshop and Lightroom. The problem is that seven kits cost $119 each, with only the "zero" trial kit available for free. The high cost, combined with the need to pay for a subscription to Adobe products, makes the threshold for entering photo processing on a computer very high. In addition, we are not talking about one-click photo editing like on a smartphone, but a professional product for photographers with the need to manually correct a large number of parameters.

It turns out that the niche of high-quality products for retouching photos from amateur and semi-professional cameras on computers is not occupied. Users have to either download "heavy" editors with an excessive number of settings, or be content with mostly second-rate products. So far, only a product designer with the nickname Suganth has a solution to this problem, who thoroughly undertook the development of the concept of VSCO Suite for Mac and spoke about his work on the Medium platform. Of course, we are only talking about a fictional application, but this is the rare case when a fictional program turned out exactly as a real one could be - without dubious attempts to reinvent the wheel in matters of design and usability or make unthinkable functions.

On the one hand, this concept can be dismissed under the pretext that it makes no sense for the Visual Supply Company to develop a desktop application with VSCO Film, but if you think about it, this may turn out to be the right move. On the one hand, the company could earn more from microtransactions and buying filter packs than selling expensive presets for Photoshop and Lightroom. At the same time, it could be a transitional application for amateur photographers to professional image processing, and also allowed mobile photos to be exported for even more convenient processing on a large screen. In the end, I would like to hope that the employees of the Visual Supply Company not only noticed this concept, but decide to conquer the desktop operating systems with the VSCO app.

You don't need to use Adobe Photoshop on your Mac to edit images like a pro. There are many alternatives to this software that you can download or use right in your browser to create images and graphics for your projects. And some of them are completely free!

None of the solutions below are necessarily universal. Each tool generally serves a specific purpose; do you want to edit online or on desktop? Do you edit photos or more various types files? Is all this work intended for the web or will the images be printed?

Here is the list best alternatives Photoshop for Mac in 2018:

1. Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo - in the past apple app Mac App of the Year and a professional tool that has everything you would expect from a premium photo editing product.

Use it to edit and retouch images and create layered images. Professional correction and adjustment tools rival any other app, and it has an excellent noise reduction filter. The retouching options include not only the regular dodge, burner, clone, patch, blemishes and red-eye tool, but also a paint brush and a liquefy function.

Other key features:

• Dedicated working space Camera RAW
• HDR Fusion Mode
• Panorama
• batch processing
• Editing 360-Degree Images

Cost: $49.99

2. Sketch

Sketch is not a photo editing application, but you can edit images within the Mac prototyping tool.

The best part about editing in Sketch is that all changes are non-destructive, meaning that any changes take effect without overwriting the original image file. So you can always go back to the original if you want.

Sketch provides basic image editing, including image inversion, cropping, and color fill. It can be described as basic editor bitmaps and for many simple projects this is enough.

Other key features:

• Ability to adjust colors - hue, saturation, brightness and contrast
• Reduce image/file size
• Replace and change images in projects with one click (since you use the same tool)
• Ability to work in layers
• Also includes the ability to edit vector elements

Cost: $99 per year

3. GIMP

GIMP offers powerful photo manipulation and editing capabilities in a free and open source package. You can also download source and make changes on your own, add more functionality using third party plugins.

GIMP is designed for high quality photo processing, including image retouching and photo restoration. Users can also use it to create original works of art - a feature that many other alternatives Photoshop editors do not provide (or have, but it can be difficult to use).

Other key features:

• Ability to create icons and other elements
• Used to work with scripts (C, C++, Perl, Python, Scheme and others)
• Color management tools included with Scribus, Inkscape and SwatchBooker
• A large number of convenient file formats and customizable workspace
• Extensive library of tutorials on the website so you can learn the tool more easily

Cost: Free

4. Pixelmator Pro

Pixelmator Pro is a non-destructive editor that allows you to make changes to images and draw within the app. It also includes a great tool for auto tuning color, which greatly facilitates the process of changing colors.

One of best features Pixelmator Pro is that you can even export images for web optimization so you don't have to use multiple editing tools and then scale down the image for high quality website performance. Pixelmator Pro also includes some workflow tools to help you work more efficiently.

Other key features:

• Works with Mac Touch Bar
• Live preview option so you can see how changes will look before commit
• Text editing options
• Editing and exporting SVG
• Drawing tools so you can draw anything by hand

Cost: $59.99

5. Pixel Pro

Pixlr Pro - which has the ability to edit photos, vectors and text. You can edit like a pro with tools that include layer masks, multiple brush options, curve and level adjustments, color and blend modes, effects and filters, and transform and wrap tools.

What sets Pixlr Pro apart from the others, which also has a free version, is that you don't need to download anything to use it. All the tools are right in your browser (and it has some serious browser compatibility). The editor also includes many other useful features to help you launch projects, such as templates and fonts.

Other key features:

• Includes access to 1 million royalty-free images
• Comes with over 10,000 photo templates
• Works with PSD and Sketch image files
• Smart tools for photo correction
• Refine Edge tool makes it easy to mask complex objects

Cost: $5 per month

6 Pic Monkey

PicMonkey - Famous online photo editor and retoucher. It has the most complex feature structure of all the tools on this list with free, basic and professional tariff plans with different levels of features and tools.

If you plan to use any additional functions- save and export, advanced retouching, effects and overlays, fonts - then you should probably consider the Pro level plan. The free plans include ads, unlike the paid ones. PicMonkey is a fairly simple tool that is popular with users creating images for social networks and online use, with simple editor photos and design tools.

Other key features:

Add-ons include filters, overlays and text tools

Tweak photos to add more visual interest

Watermarks and other templates for quick creation projects

Ability to create a photo collage

Simple interface with ready-to-use buttons in the browser or via the desktop app

Cost: from $5.99 per month

7. Fotor

The tool, which the BBC has called "Photoshop lite", is simple and easy to use. Edit images, add effects and text, or create portraits like a pro with Fotor.

The photo editor has all the tools you would expect to find for daily editing, with options for cropping shapes and formats, color, saturation and white balance, as well as the ability to straighten and rotate images. Also, you can create a custom collage within the app.

Other key features:

• Batch processing option
• Tilt-shift tools add focus and blur for a professional look
• 13 one-click photo enhancement options
• Use popular file formats such as RAW, PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF and TIFF
• Optimizing Images for Displaysretina

Cost: Free

8.Acorn

Acorn is another non-destructive piece of Mac photo editing software that has a robust set of tools. The company claims it has "everything you need in one image editor" with the ability to add layer masks and selections to touch up images or do something completely new. You can also remove backgrounds, combine images, color correct, resize, transform, crop, and more.

While Acorn is billed as an image editor, it also includes vector tools.

Other key features:

• 100+ photo effects - vignette, shadow, gradients, sharpen, color correction, distortion, blur
• Web export and scaling
• Export smart layer
• Importing and editing Camera RAW images
• Ability to import Photoshop brushes

Cost: $29.99

Try it: From The Flying Meat Store (other addons are also available)

9. SumoPaint

SumoPaint has a paid and free version with various options. One of the key differences is whether you want to edit the image online or offline (paid only).

SumoPaint is positioned as an image manipulator with large quantity options, not all of which are designed to work with photos. Sumo's native file format also provides a non-destructive save option. The tool includes a variety of brushes, shapes, colors and gradients to kick start any project. It also allows you to use layers and comes with a lot of filters.

Other key features:

• Dodge, Reflection and Mosaic Tools
• Animated and 3D brushes
• Auto smooth function
• Text tool
• Ability to easily adjust curves and levels

Cost: $4 per month

10. DxO PhotoLab

DxO PhotoLab is designed for editing RAW photos. It has a lot of different features and you might even mistake its toolbar for a Photoshop toolbar.

The tools include the ability to edit with breakpoints to work on only the part of the photo you want to edit, there are also plenty of brushes for precise work, a graduated filter makes landscape photos look great, and an auto repair mode lets you remove unwanted elements from images.

Other key features:

• Smooth transitions between elements that preserve textures and shadows
• Fast processing
• Automatic Lightening Optimization Tool
• The filter simultaneously removes haze from a landscape photo
• 40,000 camera and lens combinations

Cost: $99.99 (Essential Edition)

Everyone successful work!

gimp

Gimp is a great free alternative to paid raster editors, even such as Adobe Photoshop. The application has full functionality for working with images: support for transparency, layers, a large number of formats, various filters for image processing. The program interface is quite standard for raster editors, but it can be customized.

Pinta

Pinta is a free cross-platform bitmap graphics editor. The program is distinguished by ease of use and multilingual interface, over 55 languages ​​are supported. The software can be used for both drawing and editing finished images. A wide range of effects and a set of tools for working with images will help you create, edit and process files. Pinta allows you to open and save images in the following formats: ORA, BMP, PNG, JPG, TGA, TIFF, ICO. Images in GIF format, the editor can only open (import), while for animated GIFs only the first frame is opened. Saving to GIF is not supported.

Krita

Windows, Linux, Mac OS X official website February 06, 2016 GNU General Public License - license for personal and commercial use Bitmap editors 23

Krita is a free raster editor that is more suitable for drawing than for editing. The app has standard interface for programs of this type. Krita comes with a large number of brushes, as well as a brush editor. For post-processing, there are various filters. In addition, Krita supports layers and various color schemes: RGBA, Gray, CMYKA, Law, YCbCr, XYZ.