Finding the best video editing software, with which you can create really good videos with amazing effects is difficult. To help with your search, I’ve tested all kinds of video editing software in the past. And over time, I’ve created my own list of favourite video editing programs . I’ll go through my pick for best software for editing, so if you are in search of the best video editing program for your needs, you can find one in this article.
If you’re looking for some great software to edit photos, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve gathered 10 excellent pieces of software for editing photos and making your pictures come alive. There is software here for Windows, Mac, and even online tools if you wish to edit photos online.
What is the best software to use for photo editing? Finding the best photo editing software can be a challenge. There are tons of choices available on the internet, but not all of them are good. The programs need to be fast, easy to use, and provide many useful features. So, which one will you choose? Check out this list of the top 8 photo editing software programs.
Why Should You Edit Your Photos?
Photo editing is part of the job if you’re a photographer. Through editing, you can make your already stunning photos even more perfect by adjusting metrics like exposure, white balance and color. https://d4f40e6b07691d75bff9034026c1c608.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Plus, editing your photos helps to reduce the size of your image files. This is especially important if you plan on posting your images online to your photography website or to a social media account. Smaller images will improve your WordPress sites’ loading speed, which will in turn improve your search engine rankings. And, smaller image files post faster and with better quality on your social accounts.
So, photo editing is a win for you all around!
Having an intuitive and easy-to-use photo editing software can help you save time on photo editing while taking your images to the next level.
Let’s take a look at some of the best photo editing software available online today. We’ll be evaluating these software on three core principles:
- Ease of Use
- Functionality
- Opportunities for Expansion
In other words, how intuitive are these programs to learn? What capabilities do they have — and not have — as photo editors? And finally, do they offer opportunities to expand their functionality through additions like plugins or presets?
Without further ado, let’s see what these photo editing software have to offer!
1. Adobe Lightroom
It’s impossible to ignore Adobe Lightroom when talking about the best photo editing software for photographers. In fact, Adobe products are considered the gold-standard when it comes to image editing software.
But why? What makes Lightroom so great? Let’s take a look.
Adobe Lightroom Interface
If Photoshop comes off as too complex and cumbersome, then you’re sure to love Lightroom’s simple, beginner-friendly interface.
Lightroom’s clean and easy workspace allows you to focus on what’s important — your image. The left-hand panel gives you quick access to your image library, so you can toggle between photos as you edit. Within the right-hand panel, you’ll find drop-down menus for making quick adjustments, adding keywords to your images and more.
In order to really get into your photo editing, you’ll need to access Lightroom’s horizontal tabs along the top of the workspace. All of your basic and advanced photo editing tools live in the Develop module. From there, you can manipulate your photo with lens correction, split toning, effects and other basic adjustments.
Having a centralized panel for all of your photo editing tools sets Lightroom apart and makes it super intuitive to use!
And, in the Develop module’s left-hand panel, Lightroom keeps stock of your photo edits in a drop-down labeled History. That way, you can easily scroll back through your image edits, make changes and review your edits before saving them in a custom preset.
Also, you may notice that Lightroom gives you a guided walkthrough of each module the first time you open the program after downloading the software. Unlike some other in-app tours, Lightroom’s tutorial hits all the highlights so you don’t miss a thing. With this brief introduction alone, you’ll be able to get started on your own edits.
Multi-Use Program
This program is more than just a photo editor. It’s a photo organizer, too. Lightroom allows you to easily store and rank your images inside the program, which eliminates the need for an external photo organizing program. Simply assign your photos a star rating based on editing priority — or any other metric for that matter — and get to work!
It’s clear that Adobe designed Lightroom to work for photographers at every skill level. So rest assured, Lightroom’s navigable interface doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful. That’s what makes Lightroom all the more impressive — it doesn’t sacrifice functionality for ease of use!
Lightroom Key Features
For most freelance photo editors, Adobe Lightroom offers all the tools you’ll need to create stunning portrait, landscape, real estate and other photography. Lightroom’s host of fantastic features includes:https://d4f40e6b07691d75bff9034026c1c608.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
- Face detection for photo organization
- Camera and lens-based corrections
- Brush and gradient adjustments
- Fixing and blurring tools
- Presets and professional filters
- Customizable sliders
- Multiple device support and sync
You can get Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop together here in Adobe’s Creative Cloud Plan.
Adobe Lightroom Extras
Given its library of pre-made editing solutions called presets, Lightroom is one of the most expansive photo editors on the market. These presets make it easier than ever to achieve a specific look in your photos. Simply find a preset package you like via Lightroom’s preset marketplace or online, then apply it to one or more of your images for a flawless edit.
Of course, presets work wonderfully for batch editing your photos at a break-neck pace. And, you can even design your own custom presets, which work like editing recipes for future photo edits. You can always edit pre-made or custom presets before you apply them, or you can adjust their sliders for a tailored application, depending on your photo.
With Lightroom’s presets, you have the opportunity to continually expand the software’s editing capabilities.
Not to mention, many third-party plugins and applications have integrated with Lightroom to make using the program even easier. Envira Gallery, for example, includes Adobe Lightroom to WordPress integration that allows you to easily sync your Lightroom photo galleries with your photography website.
Cost
Adobe Lightroom is available as a singular app, or as part of one of Adobe’s Creative Cloud packages. You can get Lightroom and Photoshop together for just $9.99/month.
2. Skylum Luminar
For many reasons, Luminar has quickly grown to become one of the the most popular editing tools for professional photographers around the world. For one, you pay a one-time flat fee for the program rather than a monthly subscription like Adobe. And, Luminar offers a ton of built-in tools and accessories!
Luminar is a one-stop shop for photo editing that can be used by itself or as a plugin in with Lightroom, Photoshop and even Apple Photos.
Skylum Luminar Interface
Believe it or not, Skylum Luminar uses the same keyboard shortcuts that Adobe’s Lightroom does. This is especially helpful if you’re already familiar with Lightroom’s interface. If that’s true of you, you’ll find switching to Luminar an easy transition given the consistent keyboard shortcuts between the two software.
And, like Lightroom, you can use Luminar as both a photo editor and a photo organizer. Once again, this means that you can upload your images to your Luminar Library so that all of your photo editing workflow is centralized in one place!
Like Lightroom, you can then sort, tag and categorize your images within the Luminar Library to make them easier to find. Many also find the Luminar Library to be simpler and more intuitive even than Lightroom’s library.
Where Luminar excels over Lightroom is its preset workspace options. Luminar provides preset workspaces each specifically designed with an editing task in mind. For example, Luminar’s preset workspaces include:https://d4f40e6b07691d75bff9034026c1c608.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
- Professional
- Quick & Awesome
- Essentials
- Aerial Photography
- Black and White
- Landscape
- Portrait
- Street
In addition to those presets, you can create your own workspace by saving the tools you use most often to a blank workspace.
If this feature sounds familiar, it’s because Photoshop also provides preset workspaces. But, you’ll note that Luminar’s preset workspace options are much more extensive and cover a greater number of photography-specific needs. Anything to streamline your photo editing!
Skylum’s Luminar also offers more editing tools than Lightroom but fewer than Photoshop. Having more editing tools is both an advantage and a disadvantage — they make the program more challenging to navigate, but they also allow you to do more with your photos.
Here’s what we love about Luminar’s editing tools:
3. Affinity Photo 1.10
It has the power of Photoshop but without the subscription
SPECIFICATIONS
PC: Processor not quoted, 2GB RAM (4GB recommended), Windows 7 SP1 to 10Mac: 64-bit Core Duo 2 or better, 2GB RAM, OS X 10.9 or laterHard drive: 670MBMinimum screen resolution: 1280×768 pixels
REASONS TO BUY
+Powerful tools+Cheap to buy
REASONS TO AVOID
-No cataloguing tools-Quite technicalAdvertisement
We complain that there’s too much Photoshop doesn’t do, but the fact is for many photographers this kind of old-school image-editor is exactly what they need. And Affinity Photo gives you exactly the same thing, but subscription-free, via a single extra-low payment. Affinity Photo is sold at a budget price point, but it has the tools and the features and the power to compete with Photoshop head-on. Serif has focused particularly heavily on the retouching market, with cloning, healing and retouching tools, an Inpainting tool for automatic object removal and a dedicated Liquify persona (workspace) for localized image distortion effects. Affinity Photo is an extremely powerful photo editor with more tools and features than there’s space to list here, from focus stacking and HDR tonemapping to high-end frequency separation. Now up to version 1.10, Affinity Photo has been steadily improved and evolved since its launch, but Affinity has yet to charge for any upgrade.
Read more: Affinity Photo 1.8 review
4. Capture One Pro 21
Pricier than Lightroom but more powerful, with better raw processing
SPECIFICATIONS
PC: 2-core CPU or better, 8GB RAM, Windows 7 SP1 to 10Mac: 2-core CPU or better, 8GB RAM, OS X 10.12.6 or laterHard drive: 10GBMinimum screen resolution: 1200×800 pixels
REASONS TO BUY
+Excellent raw processing+Layers based adjustments+Great tethering tools
REASONS TO AVOID
-ExpensiveAdvertisement
Capture One works both as tethered capture and editing tool for studio photographers with a ‘sessions’ based workflow and as a Lightroom-style image cataloguing, searching and non-destructive editing tool. It works in a single window rather than in Lightroom-style ‘modules’ and has a highly customizable set of ‘tool tabs’. One of the key differences is its layers-based local adjustment system which makes it much easier to see and edit your changes to your work, and this now includes ‘parametric’ linear and radial gradient masks which you can edit later. Capture One’s conversions look smoother and sharper than Lightroom’s, and Phase One’s new co-operative arrangement with Fujifilm means it can produce just about the best Fujifilm processing you’ll see and also recreate Fujifilm’s Film Simulation modes. Fujifilm, Nikon and Sony users can get discounted one-brand versions of the software – but choose the all-cameras version if you work on files from multiple cameras.
5. DxO PhotoLab 5
PhotoLab can make even modest gear produce spectacular results
SPECIFICATIONS
PC: Intel Core 2 or AMD Athlon 64 X2, 4GB RAM (8GB recommended), Windows 7 SP1 to 10Mac: Intel Core i5 or higher, 4GB RAM (6GB recommended), OS X 10.12 or laterHard drive: 4GBMinimum screen resolution: Not quoted
REASONS TO BUY
+Superb raw processing+Excellent lens corrections
REASONS TO AVOID
-Doesn’t support Fujifilm X-Trans sensors-PhotoLibrary still quite primitiveAdvertisementhttps://64f148010a4b4733376b6797338e2dcb.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
DxO PhotoLab is the replacement for the old DxO Optics Pro, adding local adjustment tools from DxO’s acquisition of the Nik Collection software to make it a more powerful all-round photo-editing solution. You use the PhotoLibrary window to browse your image folders, create Projects and carry out basic filtering and housekeeping tasks, but PhotoLab’s real strength is its superb raw processing, amazingly effective DeepPRIME denoise tool (Elite edition only), excellent local image adjustments and highly effective (and automatic) lens corrections. The image quality produced by PhotoLab is second to none. On the downside, you’ll need the more expensive Elite edition to get DxO’s DeepPRIME and ClearView Plus features, and if you want to apply perspective corrections (once built into Optics Pro) you’ll need the DxO ViewPoint add-on too. DxO has also added PureRAW to its software suite – a raw batch processing tool that turns regular raw files into ‘Linear DNGs’. Other programs still treat these as raw files with all the tonal and color headroom you would expect, but they have DxO’s superior demosaicing, noise reduction and lens corrections pre-applied. PhotoLab 5, just announced, at last brings compatibility with Fujifilm X-Trans files, plus a new selection/masking tool and more.
Read: DxO Photolab 5 review
6. DxO Nik Collection 4.2
New and improved, Nik Collection 4 is still the best plug-in suite ever
SPECIFICATIONS
PC: Intel Core 2 or AMD Athlon 64 X2, 4GB RAM (8GB recommended), Windows 7 64-bit SP1 to 10Mac: Intel Core i5 or higher, 4GB RAM (8GB recommended), OS X 10.12 or laterHard drive: 4GBMinimum screen resolution: Not quoted
REASONS TO BUY
+The world’s best plug-in suite+New Perspective Efex plug-in+New non-destructive workflow
REASONS TO AVOID
-Ideally needs a ‘host’ programAdvertisement
Nik Collection 4 is the latest version of the celebrated Nik suite, and consists of eight separate plug-ins which can also be used as standalone programs. Analog Efex Pro is brilliant at analog/darkroom effects, while Color Efex Pro is a hugely powerful suite of filters for individual use or combined into ‘recipes’. Silver Efex Pro remains the best digital black and white plug-in ever and is updated in this version with a fresh, modern interface, a new ClearView option and more powerful selective control points. Viveza gets the same treatment and is elevated from a relatively simple local adjustment tool into a much more powerful plug-in. HDR Efex Pro is pretty handy as an HDR merging/effects tool, and while Sharpener Pro and Dfine feel pretty dated now, they can still be useful for output sharpening and noise reduction respectively. And then there’s Perspective Efex, DxO’s most recent addition, which offers powerful lens and perspective corrections, tilt-shift effects and advanced wide-angle distortion correction. You can use the Nik Collection 4 plug-ins with Photoshop, Lightroom and from within DxO PhotoLab – or use them as external editors with other programs like Capture One. The version 4.2 update improves compatibility with Photoshop running in M1 mode on the new M1 Macs.
Read more: DxO Nik Collection 4 review
7. ON1 Photo RAW 2022
ON1 Photo RAW 2022 is like the Swiss Army Knife of editing tools
SPECIFICATIONS
PC: Intel Core 2 Duo, Xeon, or better, 4GB RAM (16GB recommended), Windows 7 to 10Mac: Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM (16GB recommended), OS X 10.12 or laterHard drive: 1.5GBMinimum screen resolution: 1280×720 pixelsTODAY’S BEST DEALS$30.99VIEW AT AMAZON$47.92View at Amazon
REASONS TO BUY
+Great range of effects+Support for layers+Non-destructive editing
REASONS TO AVOID
-Some duplication of tools-Browsing vs catalogs is confusingAdvertisement
ON1 Photo RAW is perhaps the single most complete solution of all the programs here, and the 2022 version is the best yet, with new Sky Replacement AI, the integration of ON1 NoNoise AI and more. There’s also an optional ON1 subscription service for Adobe style image sharing and synchronizing with mobile devices. ON1 Photo RAW 2022 has a built-in hybrid browsing and cataloguing module that gives you fuss-free exploring of your image folders but more powerful search tools if you need them. It has an Edit module with Develop, Effects, Portrait and Local (adjustment) panels, and the Effects module alone has a vast array of filters that can be adjusted, masked and combined in an infinite array of permutations. It pulls off a particularly amazing trick, incorporating layers, masking and compositing tools into its fully non-destructive workflow. ON1 Photo RAW might not be as well-known as some rivals, but it’s worth any keen photographer taking a look, especially with its fresh, crisp and modern new interface.
Conclusion
The best software for editing photos. There are a lot of options out there and sometimes they can be a little overwhelming. If you have experience, you may prefer something with more manual control, or specific tools that your editing process requires. On the other hand, if you’re just starting out, maybe there’s a free option with a limited set of features that gives you a little more room to grow before making an investment in editing software.