For ecommerce sellers, effective product photography is one of the main factors that drive conversions. Customers can touch or experience your products physically, so it’s up to you to make them come to life for online shoppers.
That’s why we’ve put together key tools and resources for beautiful DIY product photography and a step-by-step guide to every aspect of the shoot.
While getting the right shot is important, it’s what you do with it afterwards that really takes it home. No matter how well you shoot your photos, there are always ways to improve with photo editing afterwards.
Best Photo Editor Overall Best for Editing Novices Best Budget Pro Photo Editor Best for Sharing Photos Best Free Editor for Mac Users Best Open-Source Photo Editor Product. As far as Mac photo editing software goes, you should be able to find a basic editing program for under $100, typically starting for as little as $30. Paying more than $100 will often land you a professional editing program with additional editing tools and presets compared to the basic versions. Top 10 Best Free Video Editing Software in 2018 for Mac Users Many people are looking of free Mac video editing software since they have tons of videos and are eager to edit the videos either for better presentation or preservation. It is equally as capable and stands out as the best photo editing software for Mac. With it, you will be able to do many edits to your photos. These will range from the basic functions like cropping pictures and resizing them. More advanced features like removing, blurring and making the background transparent can be done using this free photo editor.
We’ve rounded up a list of the best free photo editing software and apps, plus some paid ones, that you can use to make your shots really shine online.
Paid options usually offer the best photo editing software and tools available, since paid products often respond to feature requests and ship updates more consistently. However, if you’re on a budget or you just need a quick solution for simple editing, a free alternative can definitely work for you.
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Thanks for subscribing. You’ll start receiving free tips and resources soon. In the meantime, start building your store with a free 14-day trial of Shopify.GIMPGIMP is arguably the most sophisticated and best free photo editor. You can use this free image editing software to retouch, edit and draw. You’ll have to download the program to your computer before you begin.FotorFotor is a browser-based option that offers editing and beauty retouching. Its High Dynamic Range feature can be particularly useful: You can take three photos with different exposures to combine them into a single image, with the best light and tone from each of the separate photos. It’s one of the best free photo editors out there, and you can also go pro for added features for a small monthly fee.InkscapeInkscape is a free photo editing software that you download to your computer. The “professional vector graphics editor for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux” allows you to create and manipulate objects, change colors and add text, among other features.PixlrPixlr is a free photo editing software that has both a mobile app and a web app. Features include a sponge tool, brush tool, red eye correction, gradient and more. You can also pay for the Pro version for upgraded features, or stick with the free image editing software option.Photoshop ExpressAnother Adobe product, Photoshop Express is an app for your phone. You can use it to crop, fix red eye, share on social media and more. We’d pretty much recommend all of Adobe’s image editing products — it’s tough to choose which is the single best free photo editor from their suite.Photo POS ProWith specific versions for professional and novice photo editors alike, Photo POS Pro is a free photo editing software that you download to your computer. Remove backgrounds and unwanted objects, apply color correction, and create borders and overlays.InPixioDownload the free picture editing software InPixio to “create beautiful photos — with 1 click!” Built for those new to photo editing, the list of features is short but valuable for simple editing needs.BeFunkyBeFunky is a browser-based and free picture editing software, with an optional upgraded paid version. The free edition allows users to crop, resize, rotate, and adjust exposure and lighting to your images.FreeOnlinePhotoEditor.comA very basic but easy-to-use and browser-based free picture editing software is FreeOnlinePhotoEditor.com. Crop, rotate, adjust colors, add borders and effects, and create text overlays for your pictures.CanvaCanva is a free photo editing tool that many use to create graphics and brochures. The browser-based photo editor also has an paid version you can upgrade to access more advanced features.SnappaWith Snappa's drag-and-drop editor, it’s quick and easy to create your own graphics for blog posts, social media profiles and ads. The tool provides access to more than half a million free stock photos, 70,000+ vectors and shapes, and 200+ fonts. It's free to download up to 5 files per month, or $10 a month for unlimited downloads.
Need photos for your website?
Burst is a free high quality stock photo site powered by Shopify. Browse 1000s of product and lifestyle images for commercial use.
Best low-cost photo editing software and appsPhotoshop Elements
The Adobe Photoshop suite is the ultimate in photo editing. Photoshop Elements offers every image editing tool you need and then some. This is some of the best photo editing software out there, which also means that it’s not cheap.
Note: Consider also Photoshop CC, the latest edition of Photoshop that only costs $9.99 every month.
Photoshop LightroomElements offers huge functionality in editing photos one-by-one. Lightroom focuses on editing in batches. So it retains many of the features you’d find in Elements, but is especially valuable for organizing and editing a large number of pictures.ON1 Effects
ON1 Effects boasts itself as a “one-stop solution” due to its robust list of features. Stackable filters, presets and textures allow flexibility to complete all of the edits you need to get the look you want.
FiverrFiverr is a marketplace for small, inexpensive gigs. Many service providers on Fiverr edit photos, some with experience in ecommerce or even specific industries. Too many to sift through? Rank your options by “Recommended,” “High Rating” or “Express Gigs.”TuciaIf you don’t want to hunt down the right individual to send photos to, consider Tucia, an agency that has edited over 3.7 million photos. There are three tiers of service for different features, starting at $8/image. One guarantee we love: unlimited free revisions.Portrait ProfessionalsIf your images feature human models, take a look at Portrait Professionals. It’s a downloadable tool that’s optimized for airbrushing portraits to fix blemishes and reshape the face.7. PixelzStarting at $1.45 per image, Pixelz uses proprietary software to strip your images of their backgrounds so that you can substitute something in its place (for example, pure white or the right shade of blue). It promises a 24-hour turnaround. This is best for simpler editing projects, since it’s automated instead of edited by hand.8. Bright RiverBright River (formerly Mister Clipping) draws clipping paths by hand, not with automated software, to remove the backgrounds of your photos. Prices start at $0.99 per image.9. KeyShotKeyShot is an image rendering software that can create 3D visuals and models. Major brands often use it to create their marketing materials. It’s the priciest item on this list of best photo editing software, but you can play around with a fully functional license for free.10. PicMonkeyPicMonkey is the final tool on the list of best photo editing software; it was originally built on a single feature: the option to make a collage. Now you can use it to create templates for a consistent look and feel across all your visuals.
Shopify Academy Course: Product Photography
Photographer Jeff Delacruz shares how you can create your own photo studio and take beautiful product photos for less than $50.
Git. What’s the best photo editing software, apps and tools in your opinion? Share your recommendations in the comments below!
When you think of image editors on any platform, your mind goes straight to Photoshop. For most of us, paying Adobe’s high costs will get us an app that does more than we really need or care to do. As a result, we feel Pixelmator will win the hearts of most users on the Mac. It handles just about every image editing task you’d think to throw at it, and for less than the cost of two months of a Photoshop subscription.
Pixelmator![]()
Platform: OS X
Price: $30 Download Page Features
Note: This doesn’t even begin to dive into the features in Photoshop, which are too long to name here. You can visit Adobe’s official Photoshop page to learn more, but even they don’t detail every single feature. Your best bet is to make use of their 30-day trial and explore for yourself.
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Where It Excels
Pixelmator does so much for such a low price. Thanks to Adobe, we’ve come to expect powerful image editing tools to cost at least a few hundred dollars. You can buy Pixelmator for only $30 and it’ll do most everything you need. Cost-efficiency doesn’t make an app worth buying, of course, but you can do so much with this one that it’s hard to believe the price is so low.
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If you take a look at the feature set you’ll notice it looks a lot like Photoshop’s. You won’t find some things (more on that later), but it can do the tasks most of us care about. You can repair photos with the healing brush, manipulate the structure of an image with the liquify tool, make all sorts of color adjustments with common tools like curves and levels but also employ filters for quick edits, save to a variety of formats (including Photoshop), and a ton more. Pixelmator has shapes and drawing tools, too, in case you’re creating images that aren’t just photos. You can add styles to those shapes, photos, or other elements quickly. The same works for layers. Pixelmator works a lot like Photoshop but with a more user-friendly and attractive interface. If you don’t feel like paying for Adobe software anymore, a small learning curve will have casual Photoshop users working well in Pixelmator very quickly.
Another huge advantage? Pixelmator is very fast. You don’t have to wait for much of anything. It utilizes a lot of OS X core technologies to stay optimized, and in version 3.0 FX the developers rebuilt its engine with speed enhancements in mind. The software just runs very quickly. For those with older hardware who feel Photoshop chugs along at too leisurely of a pace, Pixelmator will operate with less lag.
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Where It Falls Short
You’ll realize Pixelmator isn’t Photoshop in several areas if they pertain to you. It doesn’t have a Camera RAW plug-in, which is immensely useful for those who shoot in RAW. It’s practically an application in itself. Pixelmator also can’t handle HDR (only through artificial means) animation, 3D rendering, color management, fine-grained space-efficient web image export, and a variety of other specific tasks that you may or may not need. For most, these shortcomings will not matter. To photographers and designers, however, they might. Of course, if you focus on photography and require complex editing you may prefer using Photoshop Lightroom anyway, and can use Pixelmator for your other image editing needs. Regardless, if you don’t need anything mentioned here you won’t feel Pixelmator falls short at all. Best free wysiwyg web editor.
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The Competition
If you don’t want to pay the hefty cost of Photoshop, you’ve come to the right section. Here are a few options that can help you do some of what Photoshop can do for a much lower price.
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Adobe Photoshop ($19 per month) still reigns king as the image editor of the “elite” but not of the people. If you need to handle more complex tasks or have every feature imaginable at your disposal, you want Photoshop. Of course, you’ll have to pay for that privilege. Photoshop, as many of us know, doesn’t come cheap.
GIMP (Free) has been the go-to open source image editor for awhile, and it can do many things Photoshop can do. If you prefer Photoshop’s interface, however, you might want to check out GIMPshop (Free) instead, as it is basically the same program made to emulate the style of Photoshop.
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Seashore (Free) is another image editor based on the GIMP’s technology, but has an interface that fits more with Mac OS X. It also focuses on providing basic image editing tools for most users rather than acting as a full replacement for Photoshop (or other expensive image editing software). If you just need to make basic edits, it is worth a look.
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LiveQuartz ($2) is another simple image editor. It comes with layer support, brushes and other tools, plus a few basic filters. It’s another decent option for basic edits.
Pixen (Free) is a more specialized image editor for pixel artists. It’s worth mentioning here because Photoshop’s tools for low-resolution artwork are pretty bad and Pixen makes for a good supplement (if you need one).
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Best Mac Image Editor
Lifehacker’s App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.
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December 2020
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