- 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.
- Download the free video editing and VFX software used by over 5 million creatives worldwide. 400+ effects, 70+ hours of video tutorials, perfect for beginners.
- Top 5 Best Free Video Editing Software for Mac Beginners 1. IMovie comes with every new Mac (OS X), and you don't need to pay extra money for it. The latest iMovie 11 is a great and free video editor for Mac with many great features such as movie trailer, one step effect, audio editing, etc.
- PhotoPad Free Photo Editing Software for Mac OS X. Retouch photos quickly and easily and edit and apply effects to photos and other images. Crop, rotate, resize and add effects like sepia tones.
- 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.
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.
1. Apple’s Photos (Built-in app)
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.
OpenShot is one of the best open-source free video editing software solutions in the market. It is a powerful video editor packed with numerous useful features. It has a simple-to-use, drag-and-drop interface that even beginners can operate easily. It provides advanced features like unlimited layers, video transitions with real-time previews, etc.
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)
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)
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)
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.
by Kayla Morrison • 2020-10-28 17:50:26 • Proven solutions
Mac is an excellent computer for both novice and pro users. With it, you can do basic tasks like editing videos and watching movies. But although you can edit videos using the native iMovie, you might still need to install a professional video editor on Mac for the best results. So, if you don’t know where to begin your search for the best free video editor for Mac, check out these eleven options.
Part 1. Best Free Video Editing Software for Mac
Wondershare UniConverter is the most straightforward cross-platform video file editor you can find currently. With this lightweight but powerful program, your video editing tasks will be a cakewalk. You can get started on the drag-and-drop platform that offers advanced features to crop, rotate, cut, flip, apply watermarks, add effects, add captions, and many more. Also, Wondershare UniConverter allows you to choose an output format before saving your edited clip. Overall, it’s the best video editing software for Mac in many aspects.
Wondershare UniConverter - All-in-One Video Converter
- It supports all standard video file formats like MP4, MOV, MKV, VOB, etc.
- Best free video editor for Mac to crop, rotate, cut, convert, add subtitles, and more.
- Download videos from popular sites like YouTube, Dailymotion, Vevo, etc.
- 30X faster conversion speed than any conventional converters.
- Edit, enhance & personalize your videos file.
- Download/record videos from YouTube and other 10,000 video sharing sites.
- Versatile toolbox combines video metadata, GIF maker, video compressor, and screen recorder.
- Supported OS: Windows 10/8/7, Mac OS 10.15 (Catalina), 10.14, 10.13, 10.12, 10.11, 10.10, 10.9, 10.8, 10.7, 10.6.
Below are the steps to edit videos on Mac with Wondershare UniConverter:
Step 1 Run Wondershare UniConverter.
First of all, install and run Wondershare Video Editor on your Mac and then click the Video Editor tab on the left pane. Now click one of the editing tools. In this case, I chose the Crop function. Note that after clicking an edit function, you’ll need to import a video file firstly to continue.
Step 2 Edit your video.
On the cropping window, you can now rotate your video and flip it either vertically or horizontally. On the same window, click the tabs at the top to apply effects, add captions, apply watermarks, and adjust audio volume. If you’re satisfied, click the OK.
Step 3 Save your video.
Now choose a new file format for your video on the Output Format menu below the screen. From the format window, click the Video and then select a new file format. You can also click the Device tab and choose a device-optimized format. Finally, hit the Start All button to save your new video.
Part 2. Top 9 Free Video Editing Software for Mac You Should Know
If you’re looking to have multiple options, below are nine other free video editing software for Mac to try out:
1. iMovie
URL: https://www.apple.com/imovie/
Apple iMovie is the most accessible video editing software for Mac users primarily because it comes bundled in your computer OS. If you like editing on the go with your iOS device, this free video editing app should also come in handy. However, I recommend this tool for amateur users because it has limited editing capabilities. But that aside, Apple iMovie can edit your videos by merging, applying effects/filters, and converting.
Pros:
- Free video editor.
- Support 4K video editing.
- Straightforward UI.
Cons:
- Not for pros.
- Useless Share to YouTube feature.
2. Avidemux
If you’re running Mac OS X 10.9 or newer, you can download this powerful tool to edit videos for free. Its design is simple enough to allow hassle-free non-linear editing tasks such as applying filters, adding effects, and so on. Also, Avidemux is compatible with most standard video file types like MP4, FLV, MKV, AVI, XviD, DV, TS, etc. But despite all the merits, it lacks support for batch processing.
Pros:
- Simple UI.
- Supports multiple video formats.
- Cross-platform app.
Cons:
- No batch processing.
- Confusing cut features.
3. OpenShot
OpenShot is a beautiful alternative to the Wondershare UniConverter because of its quick editing options. This software is free and open-source and runs smoothly on Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems. With OpenShot, users can easily trim videos, add filters, apply effects, and even add title templates to their videos. Even better, OpenShot exports videos with no watermark whatsoever.
Pros:
- Free and open-source.
- No watermarks.
- Supports 3D animations.
Cons:
- Frequent lagging and freezing.
- Limited editing features.
4. Kdenlive
Kdenlive is another free, open-source non-linear video editing app for Mac. Users, whether experts or not, can create and edit beautiful videos on the intuitive UI. It supports all types of video and audio formats on its multitrack platform. Also, Kdenlive has a customizable interface with simple keyboard shortcuts. Other features that you’ll enjoy include an audiometer, waveform, histogram, 2D title maker, and more.
Pros:
- Automatic backup.
- Timeline preview.
- 2D title maker.
Cons:
- Limited output options.
- Unstable on Windows.
5. Blender
Blender is one of the most popular and open-source 3D modeling software. This toolset is tailor-made for visual effect technicians, animators, video game designers, and graphic designers. On top of 3D modeling, this program can also edit raster image and unwrap UV. Also, Blender has quality skinning, smoke simulation, soft body simulation, and particle simulation features. Not to forget the frequent software updates.
Pros:
- A free, open-source software.
- Multiple editing options.
- Best for pro editors.
Cons:
- Can be overwhelming for beginners.
- Cluttered menus.
6. Davinci Resolve 16
Do you know Davinci Resolve? Well, I don’t blame you because this video editing program plays in another league. Davinci Resolve offers professional 8K editing and audio post-production in its intuitive UI. This revolutionary software has a dual timeline for navigating the edit and trim controls effortlessly. After editing your videos, Davinci Resolve allows you to preview clips quickly with a variable speed timeline. Plus, you can retime, stabilize, add background music, and more.
Pros:
- Perfect for commercial use.
- 3D sound effects.
- Fast processing.
Cons:
- Confusing interface.
- Unreliable Windows version.
7. Lightworks
Lightworks has been editing videos in the cinema industry for more than two decades now. With this kind of experience, it’s normal to expect a lot from Lightworks. But don’t be intimidated by the hype because Lightworks comes with a simple and intuitive UI. The simple timeline offers easy editing and trimming tools with real-time productivity. Also, you can directly export videos to Vimeo or YouTube and download royalty-free video and audio content.
Pros:
- Intuitive UI.
- Easy editing and trimming timeline.
- Real-time processing.
Cons:
- 720p resolution for the free version.
- No Mac menu options support.
8. HitFilm Express
HitFilm Express is a free Oscar-level video editing program with unique VFX tools to help you make top-quality films and gaming videos. However, what makes HitFilm Express stand out is its 500+ video effects that you can use to make flashes, explosions, etc. These effects are a rare reserve for advanced but costly programs like Adobe Photoshop. However, you might find the learning curve here a little steep. But once you master the software, it’s one of the best.
Pros:
- 500+ video effects.
- Free to use.
- Powerful video editing functions.
Cons:
- Lengthy initial load time.
- Not for green hands.
9. Shortcut
Finally, you can use Shortcut to edit videos professionally on your Mac. This free, open-source app supports multiple video file formats and codecs, thanks to FFmpeg. That aside, the multi-format timeline means that you don’t need to convert your videos firstly before editing on Shortcut. It boasts of impressive features like multiple video effects, neatly arranged UI, multiple format support, and more. And lastly, the multi-format timeline allows you to mix resolutions and frames quickly.
Pros:
- Excellent format support.
- Multi-format platform.
- Multiple video effects.
Cons:
![Picture editing software free mac Picture editing software free mac](/uploads/1/1/8/9/118936103/734195320.jpeg)
- Confusing UI for beginners.
- A bit costly.
Picture Editing Software Free Mac
Conclusion
Avid Video Editing software, free download For Mac
Did I leave out anything? Hope not! With iMovie, all Mac users can edit videos for free. However, I recommend a third-party option like Wondershare UniConverter because iMovie lacks many essential video editing features. With the UniConverter, you'll enjoy an open and straightforward platform with a ton of features.