Are you looking for the best photo editing software?
Whether you are a professional photographer or a hobbyist, using a photo editor can help you to give you photos that extra glance. We have reached out to 33 experts and asked them: which photo editing software would you recommend others to use and why?
Without further ado, here are the ones they recommend you to use.
Top Photo Editing Software 2023
1. Adobe Photoshop (19 votes)
Adobe Photoshop is at the core of just about every creative project, from photo editing and compositing to digital painting, animation and graphic design.
2. Adobe Lightroom (13 votes)
Adobe Lightroom is an image manipulation software. It allows importing/saving, viewing, organizing, tagging, editing, and sharing large numbers of digital images.
3. Canva (6 votes)
Canva is a graphic design platform. It allows you to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and other visual content by using an easy drag-and-drop feature and professional layouts.
4. Affinity Photo (4 votes)
Affinity offers a full suite including Publisher, Photo, Designer and Workbooks. Affinity Designers is the ultimate graphic design and illustration app to bring your visions to life with.
4. GIMP (4 votes)
GIMP is a free cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows and more operating systems. You can further enhance your productivity with GIMP thanks to many customization options and 3rd party plugins.
4. Luminar (4 votes)
Luminar is a professional portrait editing tool. It comes with a comprehensive сollection of tools to perfect your studio and outdoor portraits.
7. Capture One (3 votes)
Capture One is a photo editing software. It lets you render the highest-quality images and make better photos with precision tools and smart shortcuts.
8. Adobe Illustrator (2 votes)
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and design program.
8. Snapseed (2 votes)
Snapseed is a complete and professional photo editor developed by Google. It enables you to enhance photos and apply digital filters.
As expected, the Adobe Creative Cloud is ruling in the photo editing department. Especially Adobe Photoshop is extremely popular and gets highly recommended by the experts that we asked.
You can’t rule out Canva tho. The online graphic design tool is fully cloud-based and is gaining popularity quickly. Even professional photographers are turning to this tool more often.
Again, it really depends on your project to decide which software you want to pick. Most of the photographers are using multiple software depending on what they want to achieve.
Read What The Experts Said
Find out what each expert had to say about their photo editing software. Select the software from the list below.
Nicholas Boris
Laurence Norah
✓ Adobe Lightroom
Personally for the majority of my photo editing work I use Adobe Lightroom. This is because it allows me to both manage my photography catalog, as well as edit my photos, meaning I can do the majority of my photography workflow within the software. Lightroom is also specifically designed for photographers, with all the tools that most photographers need for photo editing.
Of course, Lightroom does require a monthly subscription, and there’s quite a steep learning curve. I’ve also had positive results working with Skylum Luminar, which is a lot easier to pick up and use if you’re just starting out, and comes with a lot of easy AI powered tools that let me achieve useful effects very quickly, such as replacing a sky in a shot, or adding objects.
Daniel Toledo
We use alternatives to adobe suite. We use specifically Affinity Photo, Krita, and GIMP.
✓ Affinity Photo
The first is very very good, nothing to miss from adobe photoshop, and is a lot cheaper than adobe subscription.
✓ GIMP
✓ Krita
GIMP and Krita are free and open software, very good for small business or freelancers.
I know the standard for the industry is adobe, but if someone needs to send something to print, it always can be sent in high-quality editable pdf and is good to go.
Maximilian Benner
✓ Adobe Lightroom
When I started out as an event photographer, I used Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom made it easy to go through hundreds of photos that all need pretty basic retouching. That said, it is a sluggish piece of software and can get frustrating when working on low end computers.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
When I started photography school, I left behind Lightroom and exclusively used Photoshop. Even though Lightroom is a useful too, Photoshop offers many more options for fine grained control for low volume, in depth retouching. Unfortunately, just like Lightroom, Photoshop certainly isn’t a speed champion. That’s why I eventually ended up with Affinity Photo. It offers most of the tools of Photoshop but comes with an unreal speed improvement. Everything works smoothly, even on my 2015 low end Max Book Pro. And, if that didn’t convince you, you can get Affinity Photo for a one time payment, forever. No subscription.
Daniel Foley
✓ GIMP
GIMP is so much more than a photo editor, it offers a lot of incredible Photoshop features for free. Considering it is free, it provides multiple professional-quality functions that fine-tune snaps and create artworks from scratch.
It’s highly customizable and there a lot of super useful plugins from the Gimp Community, most of which are free.
Compatible with a lot of operating systems.
It has far fewer updates than Photoshop too, which can really be annoying and halt your work progress at the most crucial times.
Allison Chaney
✓ Canva
Canva is great for editing photos if you are looking to add graphic elements or stylize a photo.
✓ Pixlr
Pixlr is another web based photo editing tool, similar to PhotoShop. It has the basic tools you need for editing images, and a free version.
Joseph Black
The best photo editing software in the world must be Adobe Photoshop, right? It’s an easy answer, but the wrong one!
The best photo editing software isn’t necessarily from Adobe! There are plenty of Photoshop and Lightroom rivals that bring very different tools, styles, effects and possibilities for keen photographers.
Remember that Photoshop is also for artists, designers, videographers and illustrators too. There’s a lot in Photoshop you won’t need, and there’s only a finite amount of space inside Photoshop for photography-specific tools.
So Photoshop is great at what it does, but what it does start to look pretty limited. Which is why the other programs on our list all deserve a long, hard look? Many are cheaper, many are simpler, and many are smarter.
Lightroom is so powerful you may not need Photoshop at all, Affinity Photo does everything that Photoshop does at a fraction of the price, Capture One Pro is like Lightroom for pros and DxO PhotoLab can make the results from ordinary cameras and lenses look better than you could ever have imagined.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
If you’re looking for cheaper all-in-one photo editors, get Adobe Photoshop Elements if you must, but first take a look at ON1 Photo RAW2020, Exposure X5 and Skylum Luminar. Adobe might still be the big name in photo editing, but don’t decide anything until you see what its rivals can do!
Here is the list of different software names that’s also a substitute for Adobe Photoshop.
✓ Affinity Photo
✓ PhaseOne Capture One Pro 20
✓ DxO Nik Collection 3
✓ Luminar 4
It depends on the needs of the designer which one he will select, as per his requirements.
Ryszard (Rick) Gold
The software tools I use in my graphic design business are Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
I use the Adobe software mostly because of the sheer amount of experience I have with the software. You comfort level and familiarity with software really helps. Adobe has been producing graphics software for decades and has become the de facto standard for most graphic designers like myself. They continuously leverage new levels of power offered by modern computers and advances in computer engineering, such as AI, to improve the tools at our disposal. For example, the relatively new “Content Aware Fill” tool in Photoshop intelligently gathers image information around a selected area and fills in a void. This would allow you to completely remove a subject from a photo, then fills in what the background behind it should be.
✓ Adobe Illustrator
Illustrator allows me to create vector based graphics, that is, graphics that can be scaled to any size required without image degradation. Using tools that allow you to create shapes and lines, fills and textures, i use it to create marketing items such as logos, business cards, icons and even full brochures. Again, with Adobes long history, it’s the program I choose to use because of it’s industry standard status. One of the interesting advancements in recent years is an intelligent tracing command. You can take a pixel based image and Illustrator will find contours and generate vector line art based on the image. This can be an incredibly useful way to start a project that otherwise may have taken hours of manual tracing to achieve.
The fact Adobe software is industry standard means excellent compatibility. When I’m talking with printing shops, the vast majority of them support and even require the file in Adobe formats. Feature sets aside, compatibility is the key if you are a graphic design business. If you can’t give print ready files to a printing company in prepared formats, you can’t properly print your clients project.
One note of dissent though, Adobes implementation of Photoshop on iPad is an absolute embarrassment. When it was announced, Graphic Designer everywhere rejoiced, but we were all incredibly disappointed when it was finally delivered. We understood that the interface would have to change because of it’s move to a touch input, but there was practically zero common elements. There was no way of easily translating usage from desktop to iPad. I personally spent a few hours trying before deleting the app, the absolute lack of features, the unnecessary different usage made it incredibly frustrating.
Catherine Nguyen
I use a combination of Adobe LightRoom, Bridge, and Photoshop.
✓ Adobe Bridge
I mostly use Bridge to rename batches of my files quickly.
✓ Adobe Lightroom
I use Lightroom as my primary catalog of images. I also use Lightroom as a way to preview my images and do a first-round edit by getting rid of those which I will not submit to the client. Then, I use LightRoom’s Develop feature to correct for color temperature, exposure, contrast, reduce noise, correct for lens distortion, etc.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
If I find that further in-depth masking and editing need to be done, I take the photo from LightRoom into Photoshop and complete my retouching there. Lastly, I use LightRoom to export my images in the requisite file formats for my clients.
I recommend LightRoom because it is a very powerful organizing as well as editing tool. It is an integral part of my post-production process. It allows you to develop your RAW images as well as manage your image catalog, assign metadata and export or print your images. In addition, there are Map, Slideshow, Book and Web features.
Jase Rodley
✓ Adobe Suite
Of course, there is going to be no better alternative than the leader of the pack Adobe suite, which offers everything you want, and is the likely the package you would be used in most workplaces.
Although there is little to offer in the way of competition for professional editing, there are some great phone Apps which allow enough of a resource to the more casual editor.
✓ Instrafitter
One of my current favourites being instrafitter, which allows you to put a number of border styles around your photo, given them the perfect vintage feel of a polaroid, and adding an extra pop to your photos when sharing.
Jose Gomez
✓ Adobe Photoshop
There is no doubt in this one. Photoshop is the best software out there for photo editing. It has a massive community behind it, and Adobe is always improving it and enhancing its features.
It is a super complete software that allows you to do all kinds of image editing tasks. The learning curve may be challenging at first, but it is worth it.
Sieglinde Van Damme
✓ Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom is my favorite software for two reasons:
1. The easy-to-use, visual slider system takes your photograph from good to great in just a few quick steps. Then simply copy your adjustments and apply to the other photographs in the same series with just one click (minor additional tweaks may still be needed).
2. Feel the need to experiment? Simply create virtual copies in Lightroom to play with, and never lose the original nor fill a folder with way too many saved alternatives. Use the star rating to keep the side-by-side good experiments apart from the ones that need more creative thought. Export the successful ones only as the finished work.
Farhan Karim
Today, if you want to get a cool photo, you really should not only make the best shot itself but process it, apply some filters and get the right result. Modern photo editing software allows you to change the colours, retouch faces, swap backgrounds, delete unwanted objects. Here is my top 3 pick of photo editing soft:
✓ Adobe Lightroom
Adobe is one of the biggest names in photo editing and in software in general. Lightroom is a perfect tool for any enthusiast. It allows you to take photos from your phone or camera, edit them on your PC or smartphone, or maybe both. It’s a cross-platform app with a simple and intuitive interface.
Lightroom is not only about beautiful presets but also it allows you to do some manual editing to get the best result.
Also, it has a smart catalogue tool that uses AI. It gives your photos handy tags and allows you to keep them in order to not lose even one when you need it most.
✓ Skylum Luminar
This software is a great alternative for Lightroom. It has an immense number of cool filters, lens correction, and other stuff that lets you up to your game.
Luminar is a powerful software that would suffice an enthusiast as well as a beginner. Workflow mimics Lightroom in many ways to make switching from one to another painless. Also, you have all the manual tuning stuff that is very important to experienced users.
✓ Fotor
This program is an online photo editing suite, utilizing exclusive technology to bring an unprecedented level of editing control to anyone and everyone. While the ‘collage’ and ‘edit’ features are already enjoyed by millions of users, daily, the new ‘design’ feature gives the common user the ability to design any form of graphics and cover, limited only by imagination.
Madhsudhan Khemchandani
For over two years, I have been using Photoshop and Canva for eye-catching images.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop allows me creating new images, editing screenshots and exporting as a web which compress the images without losing the quality. The reduced size is essential in the web world. The only downside of Photoshop is that it’s not free, and you also need a good computer to perform some tasks.
✓ Canva
I use Canva to create amazing thumbnails for my YouTube videos. The tool allows creating images which users want to click on. Canva is a free tool, but it offers a paid version which comes with many great backgrounds, elements, and images to work without finding the images on Google.
✓ Snapseed
In terms of mobile, I use Snapseed as it offers some of the great tools such as auto-enhance, dual exposure, curves etc. If an image is taken on my mobile, I edit and compress the image in Snapseed and upload to my website straight away.
Gintaras Steponkus
✓ Skylum Luminar Interface
I am a professional photographer, and I have used many photo editing software, among which mostly used editing software is Skylum Luminar Interface. It is somehow similar to Adobe’s lightroom interface. As that of Lightroom, I can use the software for both the photo editor and photo organizer. I can sort, tag, and categorize the images within the library to make them easy to find and centralize my editing work. The software offers me the workspace that is designed explicitly for editing tasks and every creative mind. The workspace includes:
* Essentials
* Professional
* Black & White
* Aerial Photography
* Landscape
* Portrait
* Street
I became a fan of this popular editing software because of its AI slider, which automatically fixes my photos with brightness, clarity, toning, and other necessary adjustments. The software comes with its own set of HD looks that once is applied to the image; it will fine-tune it to fix everything in the photo. I have found this editing software more effective than other options so would also recommend other photographers to give it a try.
Charlie Wright
✓ Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is our number one tool when working on any graphic design project. We love its interface because it offers various targeted workspace layouts, as well as 3D applications and a high level of customisable options.
✓ Canva
In a nutshell, Canva offers more than a hundred of fonts and designs you can choose from. Its templates are very easy to use, and most of its applications are mobile-friendly, which makes the tool much valuable.
✓ Adobe Illustrator
We have always used Adobe Illustrator due to its higher compatibility with all our devices. Additionally, its mathematical equations generate all the graphics, which ensures that your designs can be printed in any dimension (as they are highly precise).
Andy Barker
I’m a street & travel photographer, photography teacher and tour guide based in Vietnam. I use Adobe Lightroom to edit my “good” photos and Snapseed for my “fun” photos.
✓ Adobe Lightroom
As a street photographer, I edit my photos very lightly, often tweaking little more than exposure, shadows and highlights. I never heavily edit or manipulate my photos. So why would I recommend the relatively expensive Lightroom software, if I don’t really use it to edit? Well, because it’s the by far the best way to catalogue and organise your pictures. And when you have hundreds of thousands of photos on multiple hard drives this becomes very important. I found when I started using Lightroom I began to enjoy looking at my own photos much more, which meant I did it more often, which in turn improved my photography.
✓ Snapseed
I use the Snapseed app to edit photos I take with my smartphone, and photos I bluetooth to my phone from my camera. I use the app to lightly tweak my images in a very similar way to Lightroom. I like the simple and intuitive user experience of the Snapseed and found it a good way to accelerate my image sharing workflow.
Jermaine Amado
I have been a portrait/wedding photographer for 15 years. During my editing process for every shoot, I use 3 different programs:
✓ Adobe Lightroom
This is my favorite program to cull my images and to correct the light and colors.
✓ PortraitPro Studio Max
The next step in my editing process is correct facial redness, smooth out the skin, and whiten teeth if needed. I love this program because you can create presets for different types of situations.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
In the last step of my editing process I remove any unwanted objects in the final image. A distracting car, people in the distance, stray hairs, or fresh pimples.
Nicole Garcia
I’m a graphic artist and I also handle a creative team that makes the bulk of the graphic designs you see on our site. In Most Craft, we utilize 2 software for our images, and I truly recommend all of them. These are Photoshop and the Canva photo editor.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a mammoth image editing software that everyone is familiar with. In our company, we use this to retouch, make complex edits, and make new images out of the old ones. Depending on your skill level, anything is possible with this software. However, it can be challenging if you’re working with dozens of images on a tight schedule. That’s why utilizing the other tool is a great big thing.
✓ Canva
We use the Canva photo editor for efficiency. The broad template collection you can easily access is a lifesaver. It saves you time and effort because the design template and stock images are easily available for you to tweak. Whether it be for a social media post or banner for your site, creating one in Canva is a breeze.
Mike Charles
✓ Adobe Lightroom
For my workflow the software that I find the most powerful and efficient is Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom is the industry leader in software that is able to easily catalogue a large number of photos. The photo editing features are also very powerful and can handle any editing need from the most basic to the most advance. There is a monthly subscription cost for using Lightroom but Adobe constantly updates the software. There is also a bit of a learning curve but there are numerous free online tutorials that can help a new user get started.
✓ Luminar
The other image editing software that I use in my workflow is Luminar. This can be used as stand-alone software or as a plug into Adobe. It features a number of advanced features that can speed up edits to photos such as sky replacement or Artificial Intelligence-based editing. It’s available for a nominal cost and if you find that you’d like to do some more powerful edits than what Adobe Lightroom provides it’s a valuable piece of software to add to your toolbox
Patrick Nugent
I have 3 different categories of software:
✓ Capture One
For image capture there is no better software than Capture One. If you currently shoot in a studio environment, and are not tethering your camera to your computer with Capture One, it’s time to revolutionize your work flow. Capture One is the industry standard for image capture, along with a fast preview render, it allows you to set custom crops and image adjustments that you can see in real time to ensure that you get the photos that you need. When there is little room for error, reviewing in real time to check your exposure, focus and composition will keep you ahead of the game.
✓ Photo Mechanic
While a lot of people swear by Adobe Lightroom for their image review and organization, I like to lean on Photo Mechanic. Photo Mechanic is a blazing fast, barebones tool for reviewing your images. When you have a client over your shoulder, being able to quickly flip through hundreds of photos, tag, mark and narrow down selections is a high priority. This is what Photo Mechanic does best – curate your collection of images. It’s not an organization or editing tool, it does previews well and keeps things flowing. Additionally it’s a nice easy way to rename and set your ITPC info to all of your files.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
At this point, Adobe Photoshop is a household name and is synonymous with edited images. There is a reason for that. As a 20+ year user of Photoshop, the folks over at Adobe continue to make things better, faster and more efficient. There is a reason for their reign as the kings of image manipulation and it’s not ending any time soon. While a lot of the ‘one click’ tools are very gimmicky, they offer an excellent starting point and usually offer a ‘good enough’ result for the average person at home. If you are serious about image editing, you use Photoshop.
Monica Lent
✓ Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom Classic is still the best photo editing software for the majority of photographers.
It supports a wide variety of camera makes and models, is easy for beginners to learn through free content online, and allows you plenty of flexibility and performance as a professional as well.
The downside of Adobe Lightroom is that the latest version is only available on a subscription model. While it’s good because Adobe regularly releases new features and performance improvements, the cost is higher in the long run for most users.
But if you like getting new features and improvements on a regular basis, the $20/mo photography package from Adobe is a great option and includes Photoshop as well.
Capture One Pro is an excellent photography processing tool, especially if you’re shooting with a system that isn’t well supported by Lightroom.
For example, Fujifilm RAW photos often lose detail as a result of the way Lightroom decodes the files captured by an X Trans sensor. Instead of adding a pre-processing step to your workflow with an additional tool like Irident X Transformer, it might be more efficient to work entirely in Capture One.
Apart from processing certain types of files, the distinction between Lightroom Classic and Capture One Pro is mostly up to personal preference. The former is simply more popular and has more learning material online than the latter.
If you want to own the software outright instead of paying a monthly subscription, Capture One Pro offers both a lifetime license and a subscription option. I’d recommend any user start with a monthly subscription to get a feel for the tool and see how it suits their workflow.
Ray Allen
✓ Adobe Photoshop
After over 10 years of personal and professional use, Adobe Photoshop continues to be my preferred photo editing and graphics software. I’ve used Photoshop for traditional photographic touch ups and editing as well as for more graphic and editorial projects. The tools and features continue to evolve with more specific nuanced editing options becoming available every year. It’s amazing to see how much the digital creative industry has evolved in the 21st century, and Photoshop continues to be the standard bearer.
Adil Advani
✓ Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is the most recommended software for photo editing. Because it has a lot of features for editing and it’s a comprehensive and powerful software, and despite its reputation for being complicated it can actually be used with relative ease by photographers of all ability levels and graphic designers.
Orsolya Kis
✓ Adobe Photoshop
For photo editing and any kind of photo manipulation, I would highly recommend Adobe Photoshop. The Adobe Cloud has a few more photography-related apps, but I strongly believe that Photoshop is the most important one.
I love the fact that Adobe keeps improving the app! I have been using it for 18 years now, and Photoshop has come a long way over the years, constantly updating. It’s very useful for both graphic designers and photographers. Basically, Photoshop allows creatives to do anything you can imagine. You can turn very simple photos into masterpieces, you can do realistic collages, so it is an absolute must for designers. Also, there are lots of online tutorials, so it’s easy to learn, even for beginners.
Kim Brown
✓ GIMP
I am not a professional by any means, but I work in marketing and there were times where I needed to edit photos. I would highly recommend GIMP to anyone who is working on a tight budget.
It is a free, open source image editor program that is very similar to Photoshop. I liked that I could easily scale photos and improve colour quality. You can use layers in this program which makes it useful to professionals as well as beginners. Plus, no watermarks!
Aaron Hockley
For basic editing using tools that you might already have, take a look at using Apple Photos if you have an iPhone or Google Photos if you use Android. These programs have increasingly-sophisticated editing tools and take advantage of artificial intelligence to make your photos even better. Both offer cloud sync options and have companion apps that can be installed on your desktop computer for backup and sync as well.
✓ Adobe Lightroom
✓ Adobe Photoshop
If you want to take things to the next level, regardless of whether you’re using Windows or a Mac, the Adobe Photography Bundle is one heck of a deal at $10/month. You’ll get access to the full versions of Lightroom and Photoshop. Lightroom will help manage your image collection and provide a powerful set of editing tools for your images. Photoshop takes things to the next level to provide detailed retouching and composite tools for advanced users. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but these are the industry standard tools and time you spend learning them will pay off in the long run.
Brandon Ballweg
The photo editing software that I recommend is Capture One and Affinity Photo.
✓ Capture One
Capture One is used to make your initial photo adjustments like exposure, color/white balance, sharpening, and organizing your collections of photos. The control you have with Capture One over the color palette of your images is really unrivaled by any other photo editor.
Adobe Lightroom used to be basically the only game in town for this type of photo editing but Capture One has surpassed them, although Lightroom is still a viable option.
✓ Affinity Photo
For more advanced edits, like when I need to cut out sections of a photo, do more advanced dodging and burning, or graphic design, I use Affinity Photo, which is a direct competitor to Adobe Photoshop. I like the results I get with Affinity Photo better than what I was getting with Photoshop, plus it’s actually cheaper.
Irma Stefanova
✓ Photoshop Lightroom
Speaking of photo editing software, I will answer Photoshop Lightroom, because the filters are no longer up to date, and Lightroom has a lot of features. You can do absolutely anything related to a photo’s light aspects, in detail.
✓ Canva
The other photo editing software I use is Canva, but I use it to create graphics, social network posts, newsletters, and in truth absolutely everything related to creation. Canva is a very easy-to-use and intuitive software which has a lot of elements and options for visual creation that allow you to create on a professional level.
William Angelos
✓ Adobe Photoshop
I think that if we’re talking about the best everyone is going to think about Adobe Photoshop. It has all the features and can do just about anything anyone might need to do. It is however super expensive, and for most people it is complete overkill.
✓ Affinity Photo
Most people will just never need to do all that this program can do. For those people there is Affinity Photo by Serif. Rather than charge a monthly fee they just charge a 1 time price of $50. Adobe Photoshop is something you rent at $10 a month. Affinity Photo does +90% of what Photoshop does. So when cost and actual use is considered for me Affinity Photo is my choice for best photo editing tool.
Samiksha S Rawool
✓ Canva
I very often use Canva to edit high quality images and media assets for my blog. This tool has a web interface and does not need to be downloaded to local computer. It is very easy to use for picture editing. It has drag and drop feature which is very intuitive.
✓ Shutterstock Editor
I use this free picture editing tool to implement some advanced level filters and editing functionality. Shutterstock also offers royalty free pictures and media assets with a one-month free trial for 10 image downloads.
Curtis Bickler
✓ Adobe Photoshop
For photo editing, there’s no substitute for Adobe Photoshop. Any designer or illustrator could name a few alternatives, but there’s a reason the name has become the verb we use to describe altering photos.
Joshua Galinato
As a photographer & graphic designer I have been using the Adobe Suite for over 10 years now. When it comes to editing photos it’s really down to the two main photo editing software:
✓ Adobe Lightroom
Great for organising albums and grading photos.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
Great for manipulating photos even further.
Having said that, this year I wanted to try my hands on open source software. The equivalent would be:
✓ Darktable
Lightroom equivalent.
✓ GIMP
Photoshop equivalent.
Although the free alternatives are similar, I can’t deny that the Adobe products are far better and more intuitive to use.
If I was an amateur with a small budget, GIMP & Darktable would do just fine. If I’m in a professional environment, I would need to use Photoshop & Lightroom.
12 replies on “Best Photo Editing Software 2023– Voted By 33 Experts”
The Affinity is by far the closest to the editing software kit of Adobe and that it is invincible compared to Adobe’s price, which works seamlessly and makes an almost unbeatable image.
Snapseed was initially created as an iPad app by Nik Software, a company with an excellent reputation in the photography industry for its image editing tools, plug-ins, and presets. Professional photographers have been using these tools for many years, usually as plug-ins with their professional image editing software.
I don’t know why anyone uses anything other than photoshop. I am no expert, but I find it brilliant.
We have been using some of these for years now. Very helpful.
Adobe Photoshop,adobe illustrater and canva is best photoediting software, i use all, I simply want to tell you that I definitely liked this article. Thank you for sharing
Really loved reading what experts said. I use almost all of them. But for quick and quality designs its canva that makes most sense for me. Thanks for sharing this.
I so appreciate your blog post about the best photo editing software. I’m grateful to see that you’ve included a disclosure that some of the links in this article are affiliate links. That’s very helpful and a smart thing to do!
I thought it was interesting to see the different photographers’ recommendations and what they think is the best photo editing software. I, too, am a photographer, so I’m glad that you mentioned this software.
I use Abobe Photoshop personally. It works very fine for me. I am a Cinematographer in the film industry and know how to use these apps for effective work.
Excellent article! it is very helpful image to young freelancer. I appreciate your knowledge.
Really enjoyed reading your post. I personally use photoshop.
This is a great article. Very insightful. Thanks for the post.