The best image editing software today

Choosing the best image editing software used to be easy. You would just say Photoshop, and that would be it. Some people still do.

The fact is, though, that the whole field of image editing has opened up to a far wider audience who want to do a lot more with their images – and more quickly and simply – than Photoshop was ever designed for. This is how Life after Photoshop came about.

Image editing software now has to do more than retouching, compositing and detailed Photoshop style manipulation. Photographers want software that will organize and catalog their images, offer creative and inspiring preset effects, let them try out different image ‘looks’ on single images, add an effect to whole folders full of images at a time… and so on.

The fact is, everyone will be looking for something different in their software, so trying to put this list in order of merit really doesn’t make much sense. This is even more true for people like me who use two or more applications to get the full spread of features they want. So it seems to me the simplest and most ‘neutral’ way to list these programs is in alphabetical order. I do have my favorites, of course.

I work exclusively on a Mac, but all the programs but one in this list come in both Mac and Windows versions. The reviews and tutorials on Life after Photoshop are based on these Mac versions and I make the assumption (rightly, I hope) that the Windows versions will be the same.

I have nothing against Windows and Windows software. However, I’ve tried both ACDSee and PaintShop Pro and I’m not keen. Both seem to me to be Adobe wannabes that trade off being almost as good for not quite as much money.

This article is designed to offer a simple overview of the photo editing software market and Photoshop alternatives in particular. You can follow the links t o the individual reviews for more information, and I always recommend you download trial versions of programs to try them out and get a sense of how well they fit with your own shooting and editing style.

Note: Life after Photoshop is funded by affiliate revenue. This is now pretty much universal amongst online publishers. If you click on a link to download a trial version or buy a program, Life after Photoshop may receive a commission from the publisher. It makes no difference to the amount you pay and helps offset this site’s running costs.

Adobe Lightroom Classic • Mac and PC

The ‘desktop’ version of Lightroom is powerful, sophisticated and great value, though somewhat slow and dated-looking

For many photographers, Lightroom Classic will do everything they once needed Photoshop for but twice as efficiently with a fully non-destructive workflow and a large library of one-click preset effects. It is starting to look somewhat dated, especially next to the newer Lightroom CC (or just plain ‘Lightroom’ to Adobe), it’s not exactly fast and you do need to import images into the library, but its organisation tools are very good and it supports both plug-ins and external editors.

Adobe Lightroom (CC)

Best for mobile photography and cloud-based image organization and editing, though locks you into expensive cloud storage

If your top priority is to have all your images available everywhere ‘in the cloud’, then you should choose Lightroom over Lightroom Classic. It does have drawbacks, limitations and restrictions, however. You can’t use plug-is, or indeed any other external editor than Photoshop, It doesn’t have Lightroom Classic’s Virtual Copies or in-depth organizing tools, and you will need Adobe’s 1TB cloud storage at $9.99 per month.

Adobe Photoshop • Mac and PC

Still the best traditional compositing, layering and retouching tool of all, but strictly limited in other areas

It might sound like a cop-out, especially on a site like Life after Photoshop, which is all about Photoshop alternatives. But the fact is that for this kind of work Photoshop is still the best. But it does mean getting an Adobe Photography Plan subscription, and though the tools are slick, Photoshop is not the quickest or most memory-efficient software by any means.

Affinity Photo • Mac and PC

The best Photoshop alternative for offering the same professional power but for a rock-bottom single payment

Affinity Photo runs Photoshop a close second, in my opinion. It’s a little more technical, but it’s extremely good at tone mapping and HDR (far better than Photoshop, in my opinion), it has built-in focus stacking and panorama merge tools and can match Photoshop’s layering and compositing tools. It’s also very cheap and there’s no subscription.

• Affinity Photo 1.5 review
• Affinity Photo for iPad review

Camera Bag Pro • Mac and PC

Best for low-cost one-click image effects with both presets and manual control and a real quality feel

Camera Bag Pro is a standalone app rather than a plug-in, and it offers a large selection of creative preset effects with some pretty advanced adjustment tools for modifying these or adding your own. This is pretty much all it does, but it deserves a place on this list as a low-cost external effects tool for Lightroom Classic, Capture One or other programs that support external editors.

• CameraBag Pro 2021 review

Capture One 22 • Mac and PC

This Lightroom Classic alternative is slicker, faster and more powerful – and also offers much better RAW processing

I would probably give Lightroom Classic the edge for image catalog organization, but Capture One Pro beats it on just about every other front. It offers both Lightroom-style catalogs and a ‘Sessions’ workflow, which isn’t just for tethered shooting in a studio – you can also use it as a regular ‘live’ folder browser (no imports needed) – it has far superior layers-based local adjustments and its RAW processing is visibly better than Adobe’s. It is expensive, but quality usually is.

DxO PhotoLab 5 • Mac and PC

Best for outright RAW processing quality, powerful local adjustments and amazing noise removal (Elite edition)

DxO’s RAW processing is simply superb. It typically squeezes more detail out of RAW files than you thought your camera capable of – even more so with cheaper consumer gear – and its DeepPRIME high ISO noise reduction is the best there is. Its lens corrections go further than others to correct edge softness too, and version 5 adds support for Fujifilm X-Trans files. Its browsing/cataloguing tools are basic, but as a premium quality non-destructive RAW processing and editing tool, it’s right in the top tier.

DxO Nik Collection 4 • Mac and PC

The best set of plug-ins ever for photo effects, analog film looks, black and white, HDR and photo filter effects

This is still the best creative plug-in suite there is, in my book. Some of the plug-ins are less useful today, like Dfine, Sharpener Pro and (IMHO) Viveza, but Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro are spectacular, HDR Efex Pro is handy both as a plug-in and a standalone tool, and Perspective Efex is useful too if you don’t want to use your host software’s perspective tools. Best of all, the creative presets are excellent, and there are so many permutations, with so many in-depth adjustments, that you may never get to the bottom of what these plug-ins can do.

DxO PureRAW • Mac and PC

Best for high-quality RAW conversions, producing DxO-processed ‘Linear DNG’ RAW files for use in other programs

This is an interesting alternative from DxO. It basically takes the RAW engine from PhotoLab and uses it in a simple batch processing engine to turn your RAW files into optimized JPEGs or Linear DNGs – which work like RAW files in other programs except that DxO’s superior demosaicing and processing is pre-applied. Other programs treat these as regular RAW files, but PureRAW’s DNGs bypass the often inferior RAW processing – or you can simply generate ready-to-share JPEGs instead.

• DxO PureRAW 1.2 review

Exposure X7 • Mac and PC

Best for analog film effects and presets, efficient image cataloguing and everyday adjustment tools

Exposure X7 is at heart an analog effects and image enhancement tool, but this is backed up with a disarmingly simple yet powerful cataloguing system, effective everyday image fixing and enhancement tools, and all with a fully non-destructive workflow with virtual copies for trying out different treatments. Its library of preset effects is amongst the best there is, and if you don’t want to use it as a standalone tool it also works as a Lightroom or Photoshop plug-in, or as an external editor for other software.

ON1 Photo RAW 2022 • Mac and PC

Best all-in-one software for doing everything from organizing, editing, effects and layers all under one roof

ON1 Photo RAW is a very capable all-in-one tool that is perhaps the only software that can genuinely claim to do everything. It does have a few rough edges, so its layering and selection tools aren’t quite up their with Photoshop’s, its HDR merge alignment isn’t great and its new AI sky replacement is somewhat patchy – but these are small complaints against this software’s huge scope and equally huge value for money. Even better, its large library of preset effects are both striking and inspiring.

Pixelmator Pro 2 • Mac only

Best Photoshop alternative for Mac users, offering the same blend of layers, type and vector tools but more effects and more speed

I like Pixelmator Pro a lot. It seems to have a bit of an identity crisis, covering photo-editing, design, painting and illustration, but it’s fast, effective and very likeable. It’s not as in-depth as Photoshop or Affinity Photo but it covers the basics perfectly well and throws in some unexpectedly clever tools and image effects. If you need a quick photo editor with some surprising good effects it’s great; if you need a tool for combining photos, text and shapes for illustrations and other graphics, it’s better still.

• Pixelmator Pro 2.1.2 review

What do I use?

This changes fairly often according to the latest software updates and what I’m reviewing or writing tutorials about at the time.

My regular go-to tools, however, are:

Capture One: for cataloguing, organising, seamless RAW editing, basic enhancements and as a digital hub for other external editors and plug-ins
Exposure X: for a number of favorite preset effects with a style that none of the others can easily recreate
DxO Nik Collection: for essentially the same reason, and as an almost unending source of inspiration
Pixelmator Pro: for routine image resizing, web optimisation and export, annotations and illustrations – and some effects not available elsewhere

The best photo editing software for organizing, editing, RAW and effects