Best Free Photo Filter Apps For Mac
- January 02, 2020
- 18 min to read
Most free photo editors available on the App Store are quite basic, offering just a limited number of filters and allowing you to easily and quickly liven up your photos before posting them on social media.
But if you’re an aspiring or professional photographer, you probably need a more powerful app with a broader set of tools to use your creativity to the fullest. Besides, you probably use your Mac for photo editing because working on a large screen makes it possible to adjust the slightest details.
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Oct 17, 2013 But, which ones are the best? It mostly depends on what you like to use photo editing apps for. We’ve taking a close look at Apple’s list and weeded it down to our favorite photo filters and effects applications. Take you iPhone photography a step further with the various effects and textures offered by this selection of apps. Apple's Photos for Mac is great, but it can be limiting. Looking for an alternative photo editor for the Mac? Here's our pick of the best free or low-cost photo editing software for macOS.
1. Apple’s Photos (Built-in app)
Jan 03, 2020 Best Photo Filter Apps for iPhone and iPad – 2020 Edition #1. The simple way to capture and share the moments is Instagram. Around 1, 000 million people are using Instagram and experiencing something new each day. Editing will be an all-new art with free custom designed filters. There are multiple cool tools to let you beautify.
Apple’s Photos app is included for free on all recently released Macs. It does a good job at organizing your photos, but its collection of photo enhancement tools leaves much to be desired. Hopefully, our selection of the best free programs for photo editing on Mac will help you choose the right app to suit all your creative needs.
2. Luminar (7 days trial)
Luminar is another full-featured photo editor that’s popular with both Mac and Windows users. It can work as a standalone app as well as a plugin for such popular programs as Apple Photos.
Luminar uses Artificial Intelligence to enable sophisticated yet quick photo enhancements. Among these AI features are Sky Enhancer, which adds more depth and detail to the sky in your photos while leaving other areas untouched; Accent AI, which analyzes a photo and automatically applies the best combination of different effects to enhance your image; and Sun Rays, which allows you to place an artificial sun and adjust the lighting to your liking or make the sun rays already in your photo look even more incredible.
Luminar has over 60 filters you can apply to your photos to enhance them in a moment. Luminar also provides a set of powerful tools for cropping, transforming, cloning, erasing, and stamping, along with layers, brushes, and many more incredible features. Luminar supports the Touch Bar on the latest MacBook Pro, making photo editing even more effortless and pleasing.
3. Photolemur 3 (Free Version with watermark)
Best Free Photo Filter Apps For Mac Pro
Photolemur is a relative newcomer on the photo editing market but it has all the chances to win the favor of beginner photographers and hobbyists. Running on Artificial Intelligence, Photolemur is a completely automatic photo enhancer, meaning that it does all the editing for you in no time. It has the simplest interface, with only a few buttons and sliders to adjust the enhancement to your liking and view the before and after results.
All you need to do is choose a photo (or a few) that you want to improve, drag and drop or import them using the Import button, and let the program make enhancements. After it’s done, you can compare the edited version with the original image by using the before–after slider and, if you want, adjust the skin tone or even enlarge the eyes using additional sliders. Pretty easy, huh?
Photolemur also offers a number of impressive styles to touch up your photos and give them a sophisticated and professional look. With this app, you don’t need to stuff your head with photo editing nuances and terms. Just run Photolemur and watch the magic happen!
4. Aurora HDR (14 days trial)
As you probably can tell from the name, Aurora HDR is designed to help photographers enhance their HDR photos, making them even more detailed and beautiful. It’s an ideal tool for editing your photos, with an extensive collection of more than 20 tools including details, tone, mapping, color, glow, and vignette. Each tool has its unique selection of controls to adjust its effects.
Aurora HDR enables you to work with brushes, layers, and masks, and provides a number of automatic AI tools for recognizing and removing noise, enhancing colors, lighting, and details, improving clarity, and adding contrast to dull areas while leaving other areas untouched.
Aurora HDR does a great job dealing with difficult lighting situations and creating full-of-life images while being easy to use.
5. Pixelmator (Trial 30 Days)
Pixelmator is a photo enhancer beloved by many Mac users, as it offers a good combination of a modern and simple interface, the ability to work on multiple layers, and powerful features that take photo editing to a whole new level. With so many editing tools, brushes, and effects, you can enhance your photos to your liking. You can choose between two versions of Pixelmator – standard and pro – depending on your needs. The standard version is great for basic photo editing with its selection of essential tools and filters, while the pro version is packed with extra brushes, tools, and effects that let you push your creativity to new boundaries. You can decide which version is suitable for you according to what features you’re looking for in a photo editing app.
6. Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020 (Trial link)
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Photoshop Elements isn’t as affordable as other photo enhancers for beginner photographers. But luckily there’s a trial version available, so you can check it out before deciding whether this app is worthy of your money. Photoshop Elements acquired many powerful features from Photoshop, only Elements is simplified for amateur photographers and enthusiasts. It includes a good number of effects and filters, plus automated editing options for improving lighting, color balance, and exposure, and even opening closed eyes and reducing the effects of camera shake.
In addition to all of these awesome features, Photoshop also offers editing modes for beginners, intermediate users, and experts. Beginners will probably prefer Quick mode, as it focuses on essential tools to quickly enhance your photos by improving color, lighting, and other basic settings. Guided mode provides intermediate users with step-by-step guidance with more professional features like artistic effects, skin tone correction, and background replacement. Expert mode gives you full access to the app’s really powerful editing features and is ideal for creating stunning images.
7. Affinity Photo (Free Trial)
Photo Apps For Mac Computer
Affinity Photo’s interface may seem overwhelming at first, especially for novices, but when you come to grips with it you’ll find that the app is just what you’ve been looking for. Its numerous professional tools, effects, and filters encourage you to get creative with your photos. Among the coolest features Affinity Photo has to offer is a before and after view to compare the original photo with its edited version.
Affinity Photo works with 15 file types, including common ones like PDF, PSD, JPG, and GIF as well as some less popular ones. The app amazes with its abundance of basic and top-notch editing tools, allowing you to tweak your photos using all possible kinds of instruments. Affinity Photo allows you to edit HDR photos, apply artistic filters and effects, play with masks and layers, and create breathtaking compositions by combining several images in one. If you find its interface a bit much and are afraid of getting lost in all those advanced tools, you should probably look for something more suitable for your level. But Affinity Photo is worth mastering.
8. Google Photos
Google Photos is a popular cloud storage service for photos and videos. It can’t boast countless masterly tools like other photo enhancers that we review in this article, but it includes some fundamental features like filters, color adjustment sliders, and transformation tools.
Although Google Photos may not be that helpful when it comes to editing photos, it does a pretty good job at storing high-resolution images and videos with 15GB of free online storage, compared to iCloud’s mere 5GB (which you can upgrade to 50GB for a monthly fee). If you’re planning to go on a trip and take plenty of photos, then it might be smart to sign up for Google Photos to use that extra storage space when you come back.
9. PhotoScape X (Free)
A relatively new photo editing app, PhotoScape X has been gaining popularity with many Mac and PC users since its release in 2008. Its interface is simple but unconventional, with a number of tabs running along the top of the window. Each is responsible for a specific stage of editing. The Viewer tab allows you to browse and organize your photos. After you pick a photo, you can switch to the Editor tab, which includes a broad set of instruments, filters, and effects and a useful feature that enables you to compare the adjusted photo with the original.
The next tabs, including the Batch tab, mainly concentrate on editing and renaming multiple photos at once. The GIF tab allows you to easily create an animated GIF from a group of selected photos.
The downside of PhotoScape X is a lack of selection tools, so all changes are applied to the whole image rather than to a selected part.
10. Gimp (Free)
Gimp is a free open-source photo editing app that has been on the market for over 22 years and is available for Windows, Mac, and even Linux. Unlike many free apps, Gimp doesn’t have any ads or in-app purchases. Its grey interface might seem a little old-fashioned and it may be a bit sluggish when it comes to complex effects, though.
Gimp offers a vast collection of advanced tools that hardly any free photo editor can boast. It has numerous enhancement options such as clone and heal brushes, layers and channels, accurate selection tools, a number of transformation instruments, and, of course, color adjustment controls. Gimp is one of the most powerful tools for enhancing photos and is beloved by so many users for its price (free) and versatility. But if you can’t come to grips with Gimp’s interface, it may be worth paying some cash for a more user-friendly program.
Whether or not you consider yourself a photographer, you likely snap lots of photos with your iPhone, which does a fabulous job of capturing special moments without a huge amount of work on your end. If you want to get a little more creative with your photos, there’s a variety of cool photo effects that can be applied with iPhone photo filters — and whole range of apps to get those filters from.
Here are the best filter apps for your pictures:
- VSCO
- Snapseed
- A Color Story
- Retrica
- Afterlight 2
- Enlight
- Polarr
- Mextures
- Pomelo
Every time you use a filter app, it saves an edited copy to your iPhone, leaving you with two slightly different versions of every photo. Try Gemini Photos to get rid of the copies you don’t need and keep just your favorites.
Download on the App StoreVSCO: All-around the best photo filter app
If you’re looking to up your photography game without overpowering your shots with showy edits, look no further than VSCO. This powerful filter photo editor includes more than 20 free filters in both color and black-and-white, which are organized into collections so that it’s easy to find the perfect one for your needs.
While VSCO is free to download, you can buy additional collections if you want to experiment further with different effects. VSCO also includes a social sharing platform similar to Instagram.
Instagram: Classic iPhone filter app for social sharing
Instagram and its accompanying photo filters have become iconic in the world of social sharing, and with more than 100 million users in the United States alone, this app is well worth exploring. Instagram includes a variety of filters, ranging from subtle to extreme, and new ones are always being tested and added. According to Bustle, the most loved and used Instagram filter in the United States is Clarendon, with its strong highlights and bright colors, but every filter seems to have a serious following.
Snapseed: The best free photo filter app
This is another app with a loyal following and a wide array of free photo filters. You can choose from black-and-white filters, vintage filters, or those created specifically for portraits, plus many more cool effects that will make your photos stand out. While Snapseed’s user interface is super easy to use, there are enough unique options and advanced editing tools to make expert photo editors happy. The best part? Snapseed’s photo filter app is entirely free.
A Color Story: Best Instagram filter app
If you’re using Instagram for work or pleasure, A Color Story is the best filter app to move beyond the native Insta filters. A Color Story was created by Instagram influencers, and they’ve developed a beautiful and useful app, perfect for adding some consistency to your Instagram feed.
A Color Story includes more than 100 filters, 40 moveable effects that can be overlayed for endless unique combinations, and more than 20 editing tools. You can download A Color Story for free or pay a nominal subscription fee for complete access to all the extra filters and features.
Retrica: Best filter app for retro shooting
Retrica includes more than 55 filters in a no-nonsense interface that’s perfect for shutterbugs who want results quickly. The sheer number of filters may be overwhelming, but there’s a handy “randomize” feature that allows you to try on different filters without thinking too hard.
Retrica is no substitute for a dedicated photo editing app, but it’s fun and easy to use and can be downloaded for free. In-app purchases are available if you want to expand your selection to more than 80 photo filters.
Afterlight 2: Best filter app for selfies
Afterlight 2 is a full-service photo editing app with filters created by well-known photographers. The photo filters are quite subtle — designed to evoke a certain mood rather than make your photos stand out. Each filter is designed to be customized using editing tools so that you can create your own unique look. Special effects include selective coloring, double exposure, and dust textures. Because Afterlight 2’s effects are subtle and don’t drastically change your photo’s coloring, it’s a great tool for editing selfies and portraits. You can download Afterlight 2 for $2.99; after that there are no hidden fees or in-app purchases.
Enlight: Best photo filter app for creating graphics
Do you love the look of old photos from a film camera? Enlight makes it easy to create film-inspired photos using a variety of photo filters and artistic tools. Preset filters include classic black-and-white, sepia, and vintage, as well as Duo filters, which allow you to apply gradients of two different colors. Enlight also includes a decent set of editing tools and some really cool design features that allow you to integrate text and graphics. You can purchase Enlight for $3.99, and there are no in-app purchases.
Polarr: Best filter app for creative landscapes
Yes, Polarr has an impressive number of cool filters you can experiment with, but one of its best features is the ability to add weather effects to your landscape shots. Add light leaks, lens flares, snow, and clouds at the tap of a button. Create stunning sunsets in the middle of the day or add rain effects for a different mood. Polarr is an intuitive and creative photo editing app, perfect for landscape photography, and it even lets you design and share your own filters. Polarr is free to download, but if you want premium filters, you’ll have to pay a subscription fee.
Mextures: An app for adding creative textures to your photos
Mextures’ 26 preset filters are based on popular film techniques, as well as artistic designs for creating textures, introducing grain, and adding beautiful color gradients. It’s a great app for adding mood and an artistic edge to your iPhone photos. Mextures also gives you the ability to stack and blend layers for lots of different combinations and effects. Basic filters and effects are available for $1.99. In-app purchases are required for using the pro collections.
Pomelo: Best photo filter app for simple fixes
Best Photo Software For Mac
Pomelo has a great range of filters that can be applied with a simple swipe. This free app includes more than 60 filters that can be infinitely adjusted to meet your needs. Live filters make it easy to use while shooting, and simple editing tools provide easy fixes for brightness, sharpness, highlights, and more. While the Pomelo filter app isn’t as robust as many of the others listed here, its strength is in its simplicity. Download Pomelo for free, and take your photos from meh to marvelous.
Not to overwhelm you, but there are plenty more iPhone photo filter apps available, and more are being created every day. While you can certainly experiment with them all, the ten apps mentioned above have garnered thousands of downloads and received glowing user reviews. Install your favorite and enjoy experimenting with your photos! And if you're feeling particularly creative, check out the photo collage apps for iPhone we've selected.