Adobe's Photoshop Elements has plenty of rivals that are less expensive, but it's been the leader in this category for many years because information technology manages to combine powerful editing tools with easy-to-use 'guided edits' that can help even beginners create impressive results.

The 2022 Photoshop Elements update adds fun new AI features to its powerful drove of tools. Adobe called these new artificial intelligence techniques 'Sensei' and they automatically perform editing tasks that might normally require hours of piece of work.

A new set of Artistic effects mimic a variety of artistic styles, such every bit cubist and post-impressionist. These are fun to experiment with. You can, for case, utilise the artistic effect to the unabridged photo, or just to the subject area or background.

You tin can also apply simple blithe furnishings, such every bit falling snowflakes, autumn leaves, or flickering flames to your photos and save them equally a video clip.

As usual Photoshop Elements includes Guided Edits to help use some of the powerful tools. A new guided edit for the 2022 version is the ability to change the aspect ratio of a photo past extending the groundwork of a photo. There's also a guided edit for refining photos of animals.

Some of our favourite guided edits introduced in earlier versions include the Perfect Landscapes guided edit that helps you change the sky or background on a mural photograph for greater dramatic effect. We also like the 1 that tin exist used for a group shot with one person standing off to the side - yous tin can select that person and bring them closer in to the rest of the group. You tin can fifty-fifty adjust the angle and tilt of their face.

At that place'southward as well the Moving Photos tool, which provides a series of automatic effects for turning even so photos into animated GIFs.

Yous can buy Photoshop Elements 2022 from the Mac App Shop for £89.99, but it's worth noting that if you purchase directly from Adobe (Adobe UK / Adobe United states of america) you can save a few pounds and also become a 2-pack that includes both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 2022 (for video-editing) for £130.36/$149.99. These are one time purchases, no subscription options here.

Read our full review of Photoshop Elements 2022.

The Pixelmator range of products offers really practiced value for money, but can be a little disruptive at times. At that place are two mobile versions - Pixelmator for iPhone, and Pixelmator Photograph for the iPad - and ii Mac versions. The original Mac version of Pixelmator that we reviewed a couple of years agone has at present been renamed Pixelmator Classic and costs £25.99, while Pixelmator Pro sits at the top of the range, and was recently updated to v2.2 (as well as getting a small toll cut).

Version 2.0 of Pixelmator added native support for Apple's M1 fries, and version 2.2 adds support for macOS Monterey - including a drove of photo-editing shortcuts that can be used with the new Shortcuts app.

There are precise tools for selecting objects and colours, and both preset and customizable brush styles, all of which are neatly arranged in a palette that runs downwards the correct-hand side of the main editing window.

Over on the left yous'll discover the Layers palette, which is key to using many of the app's more than powerful features. You can create both raster (bitmap) and vector layers, and utilize masks to isolate specific parts of a layer or image, and at that place are powerful and precise histograms for adjusting colour and lighting.

The programme too provides a useful selection of text and vector graphics tools, then that you can pattern documents that get beyond pure photography.

Information technology'due south not, admittedly, the most intuitive program for newcomers to get to grips with, and tends fill the screen with controls and palettes and but assume that you know what you're doing. Withal, the recent ii.0.6 update added some new video tooltips that tin help to explain how many of the main tools work, and point you towards some online tutorials if you demand a piddling more assistance.

Pixelmator Pro is a real deal at just £35.99 but right now information technology'due south 50% off - so you lot can get it for £19.99, and at that place's a 15-day free trial available likewise. You can download Pixelmator Pro from the Mac App Store.

Gimp (which we await at later in this article) may be free, but it's not the most user-friendly plan around. Seashore started life as a 'fork' of Gimp - a kind of clone that took Gimp equally its starting point - but it has developed a singled-out identity of its ain over the years.

It doesn't offer the same level of editing power as Gimp, but Seashore is a lot more straightforward to apply. A simple toolbar running across the superlative of the editing window provides quick access to features such every bit a crop tool, pen, paintbrush, color dropper, and clone tool. There's also a Text tool for adding captions and annotations.

As y'all select each tool, a 2d context-sensitive toolbar appears beneath it that offers additional options for that detail tool. So selecting the paintbrush volition show options for adjusting the shape and size of the brush, forth with features such as different materials and castor textures.

There'due south a option of colour effects and filters, and - unusually for open-source software - it even provides a transmission that explains how the various effects piece of work to help yous get started. More than advanced tools include colour adjustment, and controls for brightness and contrast, forth with precise selection tools that allow you to employ edits simply to specific areas of an paradigm.

The app also supports layers for creating composite images, and blastoff channels for adjusting transparency. The app'due south interface is a little eccentric - such equally the sneaky vanishing dialogue boxes that sometimes plow transparent while you're using them - but Seashore is a peachy option for getting started with photo editing without spending a penny.

You can download it from the Mac App Store.

Affinity Photograph has long been a top seller as it provides a actually powerful choice of photograph-editing tools for only under £l/$50.

You lot will, however, need a fleck of patience in club to become to grips with all those tools. The app makes few concessions for beginners, and its interface throws a rather intimidating assortment of palettes, tools, and menu commands at you right from the start. Fortunately, the principal Start screen does include some sample files that you tin can download and experiment with, along with links to a selection of online video tutorials to assistance you lot get started.

And, if you persevere, yous'll find that Affinity Photo has all the editing tools yous're ever likely to demand. At that place are dozens of filters and effects, including some fun 'liquify' effects that allow you to distort images like putty. And, to help keep everything under control, yous can too view simultaneous 'before' and 'after' versions of your photos to see how your changes will look.

Analogousness Photo allows yous to edit HDR photos that you shoot on the latest iPhones, every bit well every bit stitching multiple photos together to create panoramas. It can even edit 360-degree shots taken with specialist cameras for virtual reality projects.

There are precise selection tools and layers that allow y'all to combine elements from different photos into dramatic composite images, and Affinity Photo is available on Windows and in that location'southward an iOS version for the iPad as well, so information technology's a good choice for people who need to work with photos on a variety of devices.

You tin can download it from the Mac App Shop.

For some reason, Google decided to kill off its pop Picasa photo app a few years ago, and its photographic offerings at present focus on the online Google Photos service.

This is essentially Google's version of Apple'southward Photos and iCloud. In that location's a unproblematic app available for Macs and iOS devices that allows yous to upload your photos to the Google website - and videos likewise, if you want - and so sync them across all your devices (every bit long equally they're signed into your Google business relationship). You can view all your photos online using a web browser on your Mac, and organise them into albums for easy browsing.

The actual editing tools are pretty basic, limited to a pick of simple filters, and slider controls for adjusting lighting and colour, along with tools for cropping, rotation and adjusting attribute ratio. You can also combine a set of photos to create a collage or animated slideshow, but Google Photos' editing tools are certainly more limited than Photos on the Mac and most of the other photo-editing apps that we review here.

However, Google Photos does have one large strong point that might tempt you away from but sticking with iCloud. High-res photos and video can have upwardly a lot of storage space, and when you sign up for a Google account its Google Bulldoze service gives you lot 15GB of free online storage for your files - compared to just 5GB for iCloud Drive (although yous can upgrade your iCloud Drive to 50GB for merely 79p/99c a month, which is actually pretty good value - here'southward a list of iCloud Drive prices).

If you lot're going on holiday and plan to accept a stack of photos on your trip, then it might exist worth signing up for Google Photos just for the extra storage, and then using Photos or another app to do some serious editing when you lot get back home.

Gimp is a popular open up-source photo-editor that has been available for many years, and which runs on Macs, Windows and even Linux (its full name is GNU Image Manipulation Program, named afterward the GNU version of Linux). Merely while information technology'south free to download, Gimp's powerful editing tools are low-cal years beyond the simple selfie filters and effects that you lot detect in most free apps. There are no ads and no in-app purchases to tempt greenbacks out of you, either.

The downside of Gimp's Linux background is that its interface will come as a bit of a shock to most Mac users. Instead of colourful icons and helpful tools, Gimp fills its main editing screen with ho-hum greyness icons and long menus and dialogue boxes containing annoyingly small text descriptions.

The app can besides experience a footling sluggish when applying some of its more complex effects, which suggests that it hasn't been optimised to take advantage of Mac-specific technologies such as Apple'due south Metallic graphics organisation.

But if you're adamant to avert spending any money at all then y'all'll find that Gimp offers a range of powerful tools that are rarely found in a costless app such equally this.

There are dozens of filters and effects, with a handy carve up-screen view that gives yous 'earlier' and 'subsequently' views of your photos. In that location are even a few animated effects, such as 'moving ridge' and 'ripple' that you can employ to create GIF files for the web. Gimp besides has many of the same editing tools as more than expensive rivals such as Photoshop Elements, with precise selection tools, layers, clone castor, and a variety of transformation tools, such as crop, calibration and shear. And, if you're feeling actually dauntless, you can delve into some very powerful and precise color and lighting controls besides.

Gimp is undoubtedly a powerful and versatile photo-editor, and it seems churlish to criticise a free app such every bit this - but the program's unfriendly interface could deter quite a few people, so it might be worth parting with some greenbacks if you'd rather piece of work with something a little more user-friendly.

PhotoScape X is a relative newcomer when compared to photo-editing veterans like Photoshop Elements, but this free app has proved popular with many users on both Macs and Windows PCs. It'southward likewise quite unusual, equally it completely ignores the traditional interface design of most of its photo-editing rivals.

Instead of tool bars and palettes, PhotoScape X displays its main editing window with a series of tabs running along the top of the window. Each tab focuses on a specific task, starting with the Viewer tab that provides a quick preview of an entire folder of photos at once.

You tin can then select a specific photo that y'all desire to work on and switch into the Editor tab. This includes a wide range filters, effects and lighting controls, with a handy 'Compare' push that shows 'earlier' and 'after' versions of your photos. You lot tin also tidy up your photos using options such as crimson-eye removal, and a 'healing' brush to eliminate scratches and other blemishes.

The other tabs at the meridian of the editing window tend to focus on working with multiple photos, including the Batch tab, which allows y'all to crop, resize or utilize effects to a whole group of photos all at once. Nosotros besides similar the GIF tab, which allows you to quickly combine a series of photos into an animated GIF for use on the spider web.

One surface area where PhotoScape X does fall short is with its rather limited selection tools - which means that you mostly take to utilise edits and effects to an entire photo rather than selected areas within an prototype. At that place is a Pro version of the app available every bit an in-app purchase that provides additional editing tools for £38.99/$39.99, simply that seems a trivial pricey when compared to affordable rivals such equally Pixelmator.

You can download information technology from the Mac App Store.