The Best Free Paid Image Editors For Mac

Michael Muchmore The Best Video Editing Software for 2019 Whether you're a weekend GoPro shooter or a full-time video professional, you need editing software that's powerful but easy to use. Here's how the best video editing software stacks up. Edit Video on Your PC Nothing makes an impression like moving images with sound.

That's why digital video continues to grow in importance online. Couple that trend with the ever-increasing availability of devices capable of high-resolution video recording—smartphones, GoPros, DSLRs—and the case for ever more powerful video editing software becomes clear. Further, the software must be usable by nonprofessionals, and it has to keep up with new formats such as HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding), 360-degree VR video, and 4K and above. Increasingly, new capabilities trickle down from professional-level software to the consumer category. That's a good thing for nonprofessional movie editors, since the more-consumer-oriented software makes formerly difficult procedures a cinch for them.

Read on for a survey of the latest trends in video editing software and our top picks in the field. Multicam, Motion Tracking, and Yet More Motion Advanced abilities continue to make their way into accessible, affordable, and consumer-friendly video editing software as each new generation of software is released. For example, multicam editing, which lets you switch among camera angles of the same scene shot with multiple video cameras, used to be a feature relegated to pro-level software.

Now this and many other advanced effects are available in programs designed for use by nonprofessional enthusiasts. Another impressive effect that has made its way into consumer-level video editing software is motion tracking, which lets you attach an object or effect to something moving in your video. You might use it to put a blur over the face of someone you don't want to show up in your video. You specify the target face, and the app takes care of the rest, tracking the face and moving the effect to follow it. This used to be the sole province of special effects software such as Adobe After Effects. Corel VideoStudio was the first of the consumer products to include motion tracking, and it still leads the pack in the depth and usability of its motion-tracking tool, though several others now include the capability. The 4K Factor Support for 4K video source content has become pretty standard in video editing software, but the support varies among the products.

For example, some but not all of the applications can import Sony XAVC and XAVC-S formats, which are used by Sony's popular DSLRs, camcorders, and professional video cameras. The same holds true for the H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. Most of the applications here now can import and export HEVC, though there are still a few holdouts. 360-Degree VR Support. Several of the products here (Adobe Premiere Elements is a notable exception) still support 3D video editing if that's your thing, though the this has been replaced by 360-degree VR footage like that shot by the as the current home-theater fad. As is often the case, our Editors' Choice, CyberLink PowerDirector was the first product in this group to offer support for this new kind of video media. Other programs have jumped on board with 360 VR support, including Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro X, and Magix Movie Edit Pro.

Support varies, with some apps including 360-compatible titles, stabilization, and motion tracking. PowerDirector is notable for including those last two. Final Cut offers a useful tool that removes the camera and tripod from the image, often an issue with 360-degree footage. Video Editing 101 Of course, none of the extras matter if an app can't do the most basic editing tasks. At this point, however, all of the products included here do a good job of letting you join, trim, and split video clips. They also let you make use of special effects such as animated transitions, picture-in-picture (PiP), chroma-key (the technique that lets you place a subject against any background, often known as green screening), and filters that enhance colors or apply creative effects and distortions. With most of them you can add a multitude of timeline tracks that can accommodate video clips, effects, audio, and text overlays.

LUTs and CLUTs One of the capabilities that has been making its way into consumer-level video editing software is support for LUTs (lookup tables), also known as CLUTs (color lookup tables). This staple of pro-level software lets you quickly change the look of a video to give it a specific mood.

For example, think of the dark blue look of thriller movies like The Revenant. You can download LUTs for free from several sites or use those included with some video software to give your video a specific look. One well-known LUT type is the kind that can make a daytime scene look like it was shot at night. Where the Action Is Many video editing apps now include tools that cater to users of such as the GoPro Hero7 Black.

For example, several offer automated freeze-frame along with speedup, slowdown, and reverse time effects. CyberLink PowerDirector's Action Camera Center pulls together freeze frame with stabilization, slo-mo, and fish-eye correction, and color correction for underwater footage. Magix Movie Edit Pro Premium includes the third-party NewBlue ActionCam Package of effects. And Wondershare Filmora lets you subscribe to new effect packs on an ongoing basis.

Titles That Zing. I've been seeing a lot of attention paid to creating title effects in the applications over the past year. Apple Final Cut Pro X has added 3D title creation, which is pretty spiffy, letting you extrude 2D titles and rotate them on three axes. Corel VideoStudio in its latest version also adds 3D Titling, though not as powerful as Apple's. PowerDirector's Title Designer offers transparency, gradient color, border, blur level, and reflection in titles; Magix has impressive title templates, complete with animations. Premiere Elements offers a nifty title effect in which your video fills the text characters. Look for an application that lets you edit titles in WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) mode, so that you can type, format, and time it right over the video preview.

Gathering Speed Video editing is one of the most computing-intensive activities around, so you'll want the or desktop you can afford if you're serious about cutting your own movies. Most applications help speed up the editing process by creating a proxy file of lower resolution, so that normal editing and previewing aren't slowed down by the huge full-resolution files. Particularly intensive is the process of rendering your finished product into a standard video file that will by playable on the target device of choice, be that an HDTV, a laptop, or a smartphone. Most of the software can take advantage of your computer's graphics processor to speed this up. Be sure to check the performance section in each review linked here to see how speedy or slow the application is. In rendering speed testing, CyberLink and Pinnacle have been my perennial champs. Other measures of performance include startup time and simple stability.

Again, video editing is a taxing activity for any computer, involving many components. In the past, video editing programs took longer than most other apps to start up, and unexpected shutdowns were unfortunately common, even in top apps from top developers such as Adobe and Apple. The stability situation has greatly improved, but the complexity of the process, which increases as more powerful effects are added, means crashes will likely never be fully eliminated, and they often raise their ugly heads after a program update, as I found with the latest version of Pinnacle Studio. Free Video Editing Software If you don't want to invest a lot of money and effort into your video editing exploits, there are a few free options. Of course, if you use a Mac, the excellent iMovie comes with it.

For PC users, 's Photos app (as of the Fall Creators Update) lets you join, trim, and even add background music, 3D animated effects, and titles to video. There are also some free video apps on the Windows Store, including, PowerDirector Mobile, Movie Maker, and Magix Movie Edit Touch. Some of these are quite basic, but the Magix app is fairly capable, with clip joining, transitions, and effects, in a very touch-friendly interface.

Free video editing software often comes with legal and technical limitations, however. Some widely used codecs require licensing fees on the part of the software maker, meaning they can't offer free software that can handle these standard file formats. That said, the impressive open-source does a lot of the same things that the paid applications in this roundup do, including things like chroma-keying and picture-in-picture. Shotcut is completely open-source and free, while another free option, Lightworks has paid options that remove a 720p output resolution limit. Note also that both Shotcut and Lightworks run on Linux as well as Windows and Mac. What About Apple?

Though Mac users don't have the sheer number of software choices available for PCs, Apple fans interested in editing video are well served, by four products in particular. At the entry level, the surprisingly capable and enjoyable-to-use iMovie comes free with every Mac sold since at least 2011. IMovie only offers two video tracks, but does good job with chroma-keying, and its Trailers feature makes it easy to produce slick, Hollywood-style productions. In the midrange, there's Adobe Premiere Elements, which is cross-platform between Macs and PCs, and offers a lot more features and lots of help with creating effects. Professionals and prosumers have powerful, though pricey options in. Final Cut is a deceptively simple application that resembles iMovie in its interface and ease of use, but it offers massively deep capabilities, and many third-party apps integrate with it for even more power. It also makes excellent use of the Touch Bar on the latest MacBook Pro, as shown in photo above.

Premiere Pro uses a more traditional timeline and adds a large ecosystem of companion apps and plug-ins. It also excels in collaboration features. Audio Editing We still live in the days of talkies, so you want to be able to in your digital moves as well as the images.

Most of the products included here offer canned background music, and many, such as Pinnacle Studio, can even tailor the soundtrack to the exact length of your movie. All of these programs can separate audio and video tracks, and most can clean up background noise and add environmental audio effects such as concert hall reverb. A couple of the products have an auto-ducking feature, which lowers background music during dialog—a definite pro-level plus.

What's Not Here There are more video editing software applications than we can fit into this roundup of the best options, which includes only software rated three stars and higher. The best known among them is probably, which was recently acquired by Magix from Sony.

Sony's product used a very cluttered interface that more resembled high-end professional video editing software from the early days of the craft. Magix has made some progress in simplifying it and bringing it up to par with the competition, but more work is needed for it to be included here.

The Best Free Paid Image Editor For Mac

Another program, simply has too outdated an interface, making common tasks difficult. Longtime pro video editors will note the absence of Avid Media Composer, which is simply too unwieldy for PCMag's primarily consumer audience. There are a couple of more interesting applications—NCH VideoPad and AVS Video Editor among them—that we simply haven't tested yet. The Finish Line The video editing application you choose depends on your budget, the equipment you're using, and how serious you are. Fortunately, you're spoiled for choice with the products available. Peruse our in-depth reviews of enthusiast-level video editing software reviews linked below to see which is the right one for you.

Pros: Clear, flexible interface. Lots of organizational tools.

Responsive speed. Ultimate power in video editing. Rich ecosystem of video production apps.

Excellent stabilization. Unlimited multi-cam angles. Cons: No keyword tagging for media.

Some techniques require additional applications such as After Effects or SpeedGrade. Bottom Line: An expansive professional-level digital video editing program, Premiere Pro CC has everything today's pro video editor needs, particularly when it comes to collaboration.

Pros: Wide selection of fun video-creation tools. Clear, simple interface. Support for 360-degree VR, 4K Ultra HD, and 3D media. Multipoint Motion tracking.

Multicam editing. HTML5 video page creation. Stop-motion tool.

Cons: Middle-of-the-road rendering speeds. No search for effects or media. Only 20 video overlay tracks. Bottom Line: Corel continues to offer one of the most feature-packed consumer video editing packages around.

The 2018 update adds even more including 360-degree support, 3D titles, and action-cam lens correction. Pros: Clear interface.

Edits 360-degree VR content. Fast rendering performance in testing. Tons of effects. Multicam editing. 4K and H.265 support. Tagging and star ratings for media.

Good audio tools. Cons: Motion tracking issues on one test PC. Occasional crashes in testing. Uneven 360-degree VR implementation. Bottom Line: Pinnacle Studio is a fast, full-featured, near-professional-level video-editing application with support for 360-degree VR, 3D, and multicam edits. New color grading and four-point editing make it even more appealing, though our testing uncovered some instabilities. Pros: Lots of video effects.

Good titling tools. Trailer-like movie templates. Solid audio editing tools.

Strong disc authoring. Fast rendering.

Good stability. 360-degree media support.

Cons: Not much help with difficult procedures. Lacks import and organization tools. Extra costs and coded downloads for some video formats. Bottom Line: Now with faster rendering, Movie Edit Pro offers solid stability, up-to-date support for 4K, 360-degree, and multicam editing, but it trails other video editing software in ease-of-use. Pros: Magnetic, trackless timeline.

Superior organization tools, including libraries, ratings, tagging, auto analysis for faces, scenes. Support for 360-degree footage and HDR. Multicam support. Fast performance. MacBook Touch Bar support. Cons: Nontraditional timeline-editing may turn off longtime editors.

Can't import projects from previous versions without a third-party plug-in. No stabilization or motion tracking for 360-degree video. Bottom Line: Apple's professional-level video editing software, Final Cut Pro X, brings a wealth of power in an interface simple for pros and consumers alike. Recent highlights include rich support for 360-degree content and improved stability. Pros: Inexpensive.

Plenty of video effects. Good audio tools. Solid file format support, including H.265. Compatible with 4K content. Burns DVD, Blu-ray, and AVCHD.

Cons: Light on features. Outdated, unconventional interface. No 360 or 3D support. No motion tracking.

No direct output to social networks. Bottom Line: For less money than the competition, Nero offers a wide array of enthusiast-level video editing capabilities, but the interface is dated and it trails in support for new formats and techniques. Pros: Beautifully simple interface.

Best Image Editors

Color matching for consistent movie looks. Classy themes. Great chroma-keying tool. Lots of audio tools.

Theater feature shares movies to all your Apple gear. Cons: Not as flexible as some PC video editors. In the name of simplicity, some useful controls are missing. Does not support tagging. Lacks multicam or motion tracking capabilities.

Limited to two video tracks. Bottom Line: Apple's excellent entry-level desktop video editing application can turn your footage and photos into impressive productions.

PDF is a familiar file format for most people. Adobe first introduced it in 1993, and later standardized it in 2008 to allow anyone to create PDF files and the tools necessary to do so. These days there are too many PDF editors to choose from, and they all seem to do the same task. Most of them aren’t worth your time, but it’s also quite difficult to get much done for free. So here are our top picks for editing and creating PDFs on your Mac. How to Print to PDF in macOS Your Mac can create PDFs natively, which means just about any desktop publishing app can become a PDF editor.

You’ll miss out on features like interactive forms, but there’s no quicker way to share a document or web page as a PDF. To export as a PDF in macOS:. Click File Print in your editor, browser, or other relevant application. Find the PDF drop-down at the bottom of the Print dialog. Click it and choose Save as PDF.

Give your file a name, specify a password if required under Security Options, then click Save. Editing PDFs With Preview In short: Part of macOS. Fine for markup, signing documents, and simple PDF management; not a “true” PDF editor or creator.

Preview is an app that comes pre-installed as part of macOS. It’s a barebones document viewer, but it also includes a few handy PDF tools. Unfortunately, it’s not a PDF creator.

You can’t design interactive documents or forms from scratch using Preview, but you can make rudimentary edits to existing ones. Its best features are its markup and annotation tools. Preview also allows you to rearrange page order, delete pages, import new pages, and export individual pages as separate documents. You can’t edit existing PDF elements or create new ones, which means you can’t “edit” the PDF so much as annotate it. Preview functions as a better PDF viewer than an editor.

You can sign forms using its in-built signature feature, enter text into forms and save the input, and mark up a PDF with shapes, arrows, custom text, and your own scribble. These tools are easy to use and look great on the page, but it’s a far cry from a proper editor. Some users report that Preview does not display its changes correctly in other editors, though I’ve had no problems arise from this when using the app to sign and return forms. Editing PDFs With LibreOffice Draw In short: Proper free PDF editing and creation with an open source look and feel, warts and all. There’s a lot to love about the open-source office suite LibreOffice, not least the Draw app’s ability to edit PDF files. We’re not talking simple markup a la Preview, but full-blown PDF editing.

To get started, launch Draw and point it at the PDF file you want to edit. Once Draw opens your file, it converts shape elements into fixed images which you can resize and move. You can also move or fill text boxes, though any pre-filled data will be lost upon import. You can add your own shapes and boxes, form elements, charts, tables, and so on.

The biggest problem with LibreOffice Draw is its interpretation of certain PDF files. The formatting can appear slightly off, with weird text kerning and style interpretation. It’s also a fairly limited PDF creator.

Form creation tools are hidden away under View Toolbars Form Controls. These can even create working interactive forms, but the tools are far from advanced. Download: LibreOffice (Free) Editing PDFs With Adobe Acrobat Pro DC In short: Pricey but complete, perfect for editing and creating PDF files from scratch. It’s also the only app on this list to include optical character recognition (OCR).

Adobe created the PDF, and it’s still providing one of the best solutions for PDF editing, creation, and all the basic tasks in between. DC stands for “Document Cloud” which should give you an idea of what Adobe is going for: a cloud-reliant subscription-based all-in-one solution.

At $15 per month, the biggest barrier to entry is the price, though you can try for free before you buy. For your money you get one of the best tools of its kind. Acrobat allows you to take the standard “desktop publishing” blank page route, but it’s also a master of conversion. This means you can design your document in Pages, Word, or even an app like Illustrator, then convert with Acrobat, add some PDF jazz, and keep it all handy in the cloud. You can even snap a picture with your camera, then turn it into an interactive document. Every time you open a PDF, Acrobat will scan it and make text searchable using OCR. Editing tools are second to none, and you won’t have to worry about the weird formatting issues seen in free solutions like LibreOffice.

A clear differentiation between edit and view mode means you won’t accidentally screw up formatting while trying to fill out a form. If you can afford it, you won’t be disappointed. Download: Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (Free trial, subscription required) Editing PDFs With PDF Expert In short: An affordable single-license premium PDF editor that lacks some creative tools, but plays nicely with most PDF files. Readdle’s PDF Expert is a premium tool, but it’s a one-off purchase. For $60 you’ll get a competent editor that allows for proper PDF document editing that’s a step above what Preview offers. Unfortunately PDF creation from scratch isn’t an option here, and a few of the editing tools leave something to be desired. The app is a competent editor for basic text, markup, and image-related duties.

You can fix typos, add a new photo to your resume, or add hyperlinks, but there are no tools for adding new shapes and form fields. However, it does include tools for merging, annotation, signing documents, and a fast search.

Mac Os Image Editor

If you need a good editor and can’t commit to a Creative Cloud subscription, PDF Expert might just fit the bill. There’s a seven-day free trial upon downloading, so you can test out the features and decide if the app goes far enough with its limited tools. It’s worth noting that the app enjoys positive reviews and a 4.5/5 star rating on the Mac App Store.

Download: PDF Expert ($60) Forget the Other PDF Editors I tried a fair few PDF editors while coming up with this list, and Adobe Acrobat Pro DC was probably the best solution. Windows users can use apps like Nitro and Foxit for common PDF tasks, but the scene is a little more limited on a Mac.

In particular, look out for fake landing pages masquerading as official websites, especially if they suggest using a third party “installer” app for downloads. For online tools, check out our roundup of browser-based PDF editors that let you edit documents for free.