The GIMP

I have used the GIMP for years as a professional photographer and for web design. It works just like Photoshop and can use all of the photoshop add-ons. It is absolutely free as it is open source. The learning curve may be a little steep but it is extremely powerful!
Lots of tutorials on Youtube and others.
And yes there is a Mac version, if you go to the download page.
Here is the web address.
https://www.gimp.org/

I second the GIMP

... but will say again, the learning curve is steep... but that's true of ANY full-featured photo editing program. You just have to bite the bullet and put in the time and effort to learn what you want to do. There are tutorials and help files available.

Affinity Photo (paid), Photopea (like Photoshop Online, free)

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/

https://www.photopea.com/

Thank you! I will check them

Thank you! I will check them out, and get back to you all.

Affinity Photo

We use the Affinity software suite to produce MRH. Affinity's programs (Photo, Designer, Publisher) are direct replacements for Adobe's PhotoShop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

Affinity's programs are far less costly yet they have 95%+ of the functionality of Adobe's products. Affinity's apps also have one distinct advantage -- they all use the same identical interface features, so once you learn one, you've got a leg up on the rest of them.

Adobe's products have become bloatware, they're huge and they have an inconsistent interface. For example editing text in Photoshop drives me absolutely nuts because it's unlike any of the other Adobe apps, but editing text in Affinity Photo is a dream come true as to its simplicity and power. It's essentially identical to editing text in Publisher or Designer.

We can't say enough good things about the Affinity suite of apps. Far less of a hassle to use than Adobe's apps, yet they're plenty capable.

As for GIMP, I found it quirky and having a very steep learning curve. With Affinity Photo, I watched a couple 10 min tutorial videos and I was off and running.

One more for GIMP - and a comment on hardware

Hi,

it definitely is the GIMP for me...

Being a Linux User, there are less options - which is fine with me GIMP is the #1 choice for Linux. The other reason: I've been using GIMP on and off for more than a dozen years now. Even though I'm not an expert, it is the software that I know best. I think it is more about being comfortable with a software than the software's 1000th feature...

Aside from the actual software, the hardware used for photo editing does matter. For any reasonable editing, I find the quality of the computer mouse to be a factor - those simple office mice or touchpads just don't work well. Best option is a Wacom Tablet (once you get used to it), or at least use a high-quality mouse.

Have fun!

GIMP

I'm using GIMP too - since years and I'm also a MAC-User.

Check out Pixelmator too..

If you have an iMac, Pixelmator works really well on the platform as an app.

I use it to do photo backdrop editing, I've also done all my fascia panels with it too.

https://www.pixelmator.com/mac/

Jason...

 

is GIMP on Mac slow?

jbirdweb and engineer:

What version of GIMP are you using on your Macs? Are you experiencing any quirkiness or slowness with any of the the tools? 

I ask because I also have used and really like the GIMP for years. But since updating to Big Sur some GIMP tools and features run slowly or badly. I still use it for all my photo editing, as it does everything and more that I need.

A friend on another forum recently installed Affinity Photo on his Mac and after having insurmountable problems despite many sessions with Apple Support, removed it. 

My sense is some of the difficulties are the result of Apple's OS now not playing well with some 3rd party software.

GIMP hopes to update it's Mac version. Currently it appears the latest version for Mac is  2.10.24 and has yet to be ugraded to 2.10.28

GIMP is my choice for Mac

Dee, With the drawbacks noted in my reply directly above this one, and the question about Affinity Photo's compatibility with the latest Mac operating system, I still really like using GIMP on my iMac. I have been using it for many years. It offers more features than I'll ever need. 

I have used it exclusively for editing photos for forum posts and magazine articles like this one for MRH 

I have also used it for more creative "editing" like this winter scene where all the snow effects were created with GIMP,  

and occasional things like this fun, experiment.

I have presented Model railroad workshops using GIMP and have heard the comments about it having a steep learning curve. Many of those came from former PhotoShop users. At the same time I have had GIMP users say the same thing when they tried to switch to PhotoShop.

As barr-ceo said above, All powerful editing software has a steep learning curve.

There are good and awful tutorials online. The people I have discussed GIMP with the most learned primarily by experimenting on their own. If you decide to try it and have questions, feel free to ask me for whatever help I can offer.

Not quite true

That doesn’t ring true in my experience. I’ve been a computer geek for decades and used all kinds of software. Some have a very intuitive UI design and other software's UI can be very clunky to use.

I found it very easy to start using Affinity Photo having come from Photoshop. I’ve tried GIMP and it drives me nuts. Affinity by contrast was very easy. A couple ten minute YouTube tutorials and I was off and running with Affinity.

I may have to look into Affinity

I’ve been using Photoshop and Lightroom and various plug-ins for years as a digital darkroom in Landscape Photography, but even the bundled subscription price of these for photographers adds up in a hurry.  I generally like the product but find it pricey and the constant changes on the cloud make it an effort to maintain competency and it’s a continual project it seems to keep my stand-in plug-ins (Nik for example) working with new upgrades.

Has anyone done advanced digital filter work in Affinity?  Like a graduated ND filter for example, or specifically has anyone gotten the NIK filters work with it?

More comments on Affinity

Each Affinity app is a one-time $50 and you're done. Updates so far have been free.

Once I have gotten used to Affinity Photo (just took an hour or two of use), I have come to prefer how it does things. Photoshop now feels convoluted by comparison. Same with Affinity Designer (Illustrator alternative) and Affinity Publisher (InDesign alternative).

One of the real joys is how similar the interface is between all the Affinity apps. I can open an Affinity Photo file with image, text, and effects over in Affinity Publisher or Affinity Designer and it opens right up and works the same. Try opening a PSD file with InDesign and do that.

Sorry

I hope I didn't mislead you, but I run on Win10.

I'm a tad overwhelmed. I have

I'm a tad overwhelmed.

I have been doing some research on the net to see which ones are compatible with the latest version of iMac Big Sur.

Affinity runs on Macs just fine

Hey Dee!

Entering the world of photo editing I see. Loads of fun! (no sarcasm intended.....I photo edit for pleasure and have enjoyed it tremendously).

 Macbook Pro-Big Sur-Affinity photo for years now.

Well, xmas is not too far

Well, xmas is not too far away, and my wife keeps asking me what I want; so Affinity might be on that list.

Perhaps I should try their free trial.

It would sure be nice to add steam and smoke to an image like this.

I noticed on their site, it can works on Big Sur 11.0, but I have version 11.6

GIMP: speed on a MAC

I have no problems with GIMP on my MAC, it's running fine and smooth.

MacOS: 11.2.3

GIMP: 2.10.12

Ok, I should update, current version is 2.10.28.

What else?

OK. So GIMP is the best. But it also has a huge learning curve. Is there anything else out there that is easy for a newbie to learn to use? Personally, I prefer free. But that's just a place to start.

Learning curve...

ANY photo editing software is going to have a "huge learning curve". Photo editing is a complex procedure with literally thousands of operations possible, and requires a detailed interface to work with all the options.

It's pretty obvious, actually...   you can have a GOOD piece of software, or you can have one that's simple to use.

Pick ONE.

It depends

It all depends on how computer savvy you are. If you’re not a computer person, then all software will have a significant learning curve for you.

Also, not all software is created equal. As someone who has managed software developers in my day job for a couple decades, I can tell you some user interface designs can totally suck, and others can be a breeze to learn — the developers' interface design skills play a large part on how easy or how difficult something can be.

The trick with any software is to get past how to think like the interface designers did. I can tell you Adobe Photoshop is powerful software, but speaking as a software designer, the interface has inconsistencies that can drive you nuts. It’s the inconsistencies that cause the real pain with learning any software.

Having worked with Affinity apps for a while now, I’ve found the inconsistencies to be few. After a couple hours and a couple 10 minute tutorials, I was “thinking Affinity” and found 90% of what I was doing I could “guess” how to do it and I would be right. Several of their processes are superior to Photoshop and I found myself saying, why doesn’t Photoshop do it this way? This is great!

I've found well designed software takes advantage of “interface memory” … in other words, how you do common tasks in other software is also how you do that same task here, like creating and editing text. If the software does it differently because the developers decided their way was “better” then that’s a strike against them. Obtuse and arcane variations can greatly increase the learning curve.

And if you don’t have much experience working on computers, then yes, photo editing will have a huge learning curve for you.

How much do you need?

I guess what I forgot to mention is: How much editing do you really need? From what I can tell, there is no way to fix fuzzy or blurry. And all the editing I've ever actually done is cropping, lightening/darkening and some minor tweaking. I'm not going to do "artsy" "craftsy". Just need a simple software, free is preferable. Some of the freebies I've tried can do a good job, and then, "oh yeah" you have to pay to continue to use them. So-called free.Free for 30 days? And yes, back a few years ago, Adobe had a free one. I went bananas trying to figure it out. Like JoeF says, there's web designers and then there's web designers. ? I'm paraphrasing, Joe. I did have a simple one from the old PhotoWorks, but that quit working and is no longer supported anywhere. Oh well, if I win the lottery, I'll buy the best.

Software, capabilities and interfaces

Hi,

firstly, the question about "what functions are actually needed" is probably the one that should have come first As I mentioned previously, I've been using GIMP for a very long time. In all of that time, I have used less than 10% of its functions, I guess. Most basic editing (crop, resize, straighten, global correction of color, applying global effects, ...) is quite easy and simple to learn. Even some of the more advanced things are easy, but at some point you'll stumble across "unexpected" things, first and foremost the "Layers" - which are simple *after* you understand them...

So, I would say that GIMP is probably the best free choice. It has been stable for many years, there are lots of tutorials, even some print books. Most other free software just does not have the same maturity and level of support (as far as I know).

If you look into the "pay" market, that is a different story. For years, Photoshop was the #1 choice (nothing came close to it). Actually, GIMP was the #2 choice back then.

As for "doing the interface right" - Affinity seems to be the "new kid on the block"... As such, the designers working on Affinity have the chance to learn from others, namely Photoshop and GIMP. I would expect them to do better.

As a summary, it seems there are two recommendations as of 2021:

- pay option: Affinity

- free option: GIMP

Other software packages have been mentioned, but seem to be very low on the list, e.g. Photoshop, Corel, ...

Have fun!

PS: Does anyone remember "Paint Shop Pro"? Yeah, back in the 1990ies... The switch to GIMP was painful, but I never looked back.

PPS: There is a long-standing animosity: Who is good at using GIMP will not like Photoshop and vice versa. It's always been like that.