And some of the alternatives have things Lightroom doesn’t. Even where alternatives offer some of the catalog features, like keywording or star ratings, they don’t replicate the full range of functionality in the Lightroom Catalog. Lightroom’s catalogue system is unique and one of the reasons many photographers use it. So, be aware: you may find yourself on your own if you run into a problem.Let’s also recognize that no single software package duplicates everything another does. While they often have good online tutorials, these alternatives don’t have the breadth and depth of free (and pay) tutorials by photographers that you’ll find with Lightroom or Photoshop. Apps, backups, syncing, sharing its all completely free.Don't have a Mac but curious about free photo editors for Windows? Check out my article on photo editors for PCs.Many of these alternative applications have developed good sized user bases, but you might not have anyone teaching them in your area or anyone local you can turn to should you encounter an issue or have a question.However, the tools are hidden and you could be (like I was, prior to researching this article) completely unaware of them.Note first that Apple wants you to store all your photos in the Photos app. For many casual, or even semi-advanced photographers who are invested in the Apple ecosystem, this might be all you need. It houses a fairly robust set of editing tools that do many of the tasks in Lightroom’s Develop Module or Photoshop’s Camera RAW. After they shut down Aperture in 2015, the Photos app on a Mac might be Apple’s best kept secret. Others add features found in Photoshop.So, what are some options? Apple’s PhotosPhotos is the built-in editor that comes with your Mac.Then a button that adds a filmstrip below the selected photo. When you double click to select one, it expands to fill the screen, much like the Grid and Loupe functions of Lightroom (see above).Across the top of the window, from left to right, you have the traffic lights and back button. Editing on a desktop or laptop gives you a more extensive toolset and finer controls.When you first open Photos, you get a grid view of all of your photos. Personally, I use Lightroom to manage my photos and, as I recall, I had to stop the Photos app from automatically adding all my shots to it, in addition to Lightroom.Note also that similar, but not as powerful, tools can be found in the Photos app for iPhone and iPad. I believe the defaults on a Mac are set to automatically add all photos to the Photo app.It applies what the program thinks is the best set of adjustments. There are some decent controls that allow you to do a lot of basic editing.Enhance is the lazy person’s one-step edit. Apple Photos Adjustment Tools.If you click on the icon of the three sliders in the top right of the panel, the editing tools magically appear on the right side. The plus button lets you add this photo to albums, books, calendars, and such, while the button with the arrow coming up out of a box sends your photo to your favorite social media app, to an email, and to other places. Then comes the information button, that shows you the camera settings, EXIF data, and lets you add keywords, descriptions and locations.
![]() Best App For Photo Editing Synch To Photos Free Photo EditorsEven more adjustments are available via the ADD button.At any time, you can Reset Adjustments and revert back to the original photo. Each of these tools has an Auto option, which can be a good place to start, so long as you adjust from there. If you click on the small arrow next to any of these, the tab expands into the kinds of controls you see in Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW.If you’re observant and note the “Add” link near the top right, you can include a histogram, sharpening, noise reduction, vignettes, white balance, levels and definition. Photos expanded adjustments.The adjust button opens the door to the main editing controls, allowing you to adjust Light, Color and convert to Black and White. I tend not to use these kinds of filters, but you can get some cool effects with them. You can always discard changes by clicking on the Revert to Original button at the top right.Next are the tools to rotate and crop the photo, followed by a series of filters similar to Instagram filters. However, if you click on the three sliders again, you’ll get Light, Color and Pop. Surprise! The three sliders icon, fifth from the right, opens up a bunch of editing tools.When you first open the tools, you just get a set of creative filters. If you’re in Google Photos, double click on one of your photos and look at the top right. Much like Apple’s Photos, Google’s does a lot of what Lightroom/Camera RAW does, but not many professional or semi-pro photographers use it. Google PhotosHave a Google account? Then you have Google Photos. Finally, there’s an icon for Extensions, which you’d use if you had any third-party extensions.When you’re finished with your edits, click Done and then share it on Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter or wherever you show your images. Google Photos Adjustments offer many choices.You can undo all of your edits at any time, but can’t easily go back a few steps to tweak a previous edit. You can also crop, rotate and change the aspect ratio. They’re basic, but do many of the things you’d want to do when processing an image. In addition to photography, GIMP is used by artists and graphic designers.When you download GIMP to a Mac, you might be prohibited from opening it because it’s not from the App Store or an “identified developer.” To resolve this, go to the Apple > System Preferences > Security & Privacy and allow GIMP to launch. It works on Windows, Mac and GNU/Linux platforms. GIMP, which stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Program, is a cross-platform, open source image editor. GIMPIf Apple’s and Google’s Photos apps can replace Lightroom, at the other extreme lies GIMP, a full-featured program that does most things that Photoshop does. Instead, you can download the photo to your computer and print normally there. Google felt that not many people print photos anymore, so why waste code on a print module most people won’t miss. Free visio for macIt allows you to work in Layers, Channels and Paths and you can control the opacity of layer adjustments. But Photoshop is not easy to learn either!If you’re open to playing around with it, you’ll discover a lot of features. Although GIMP offers a lot of free tutorials, if you’re not really comfortable with computers and image manipulation, it might be difficult to learn. My niece’s husband is a planetary scientist who builds his own computers and used GIMP. That means it’s incredibly powerful and pretty darn complicated. Once you have one of these, GIMP works a lot like Photoshop. Although some of the third-party extensions, like TK Actions, Lumenzia and Raya Pro probably won’t work.GIMP has some advantages over other free software when it’s time to print, with better and more versatile print controls.All in all, a very capable, if complex, alternative to Photoshop, if you’re up to the challenge. There’s even an ability to create Luminosity Masks, as you can in Photoshop. You can make Levels and Curves adjustments and create Layer Masks. You can select by color, by “intelligent edge fitting”, foreground objects and more. There are a variety of tools to make selections that are similar to some in Photoshop but go by different names. It uses non-destructive editing and XMP sidecar files. Darktable supports hundreds of different camera models, but not all.Darktable works with most file formats, from individual camera manufacturers RAW files to jpg. There are quite a few video tutorials, including several in languages other than English and there’s a comprehensive User’s Manual. It works on Macs, Windows, Linux and more and has a wide array of features. All of the developing and image editing is done in the Darkroom module.You can do tethered shooting with Darktable, as well as use ratings, stars, color labels, keywords to filter and sort your images.
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