How to choose the best photo-editing softwareīefore you make your choice, it’s worth considering what you really need out of your photo editor. For now though, let’s take a look at how to pick the best photo-editing software for you. Alternatively, if monochrome is your thing, we also have a handy dedicated guide to the best software for black & white editing. If your budget for photo editing is zero, we have a whole dedicated guide to the best free photo editing software. These tools can be more powerful than you might expect. Just be aware that many of these software publishers are themselves pushing towards a subscription model, notably Luminar Neo and Capture One.Īfter our main list, we’ve also taken a look at another option – the dedicated photo editing programs created by camera manufacturers. Every program on this list can be paid for up front, whereupon it’s yours for life – or, even better, is completely free to use. There are still plenty of photo editing programs that don’t require you to sign your life away indefinitely, and so we’ve collated in this guide all the best photo editing software that doesn’t require a subscription. Forever – or, at least, for as long as you want to keep editing photos.īut that doesn’t need to be your only option. One-time Photoshop purchase is no longer possible, with everything ported over to Adobe’s Creative Cloud platform, and subscriptions start at around $10/£10 per month. However, if you want to use Adobe software, these days your only option is to subscribe to it. So you might not be blamed for asking why we need a guide to the best photo editing software at all? And amid the photography community, Adobe’s Lightroom is practically ubiquitous, its power for quick editing and its cataloguing functionality seemingly second to none.

Don’t want to make monthly payments to Adobe? Looking for an alternative to Photoshop? Our guide to the best photo editing software includes only programs that are subscription-free.Īdobe’s Photoshop has become so synonymous with photo-editing that it has become a genericised trademark all of its own, with everyone on the street known what it means when something is ‘photoshopped’.

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