How to Edit Photos on Mac

What Apple Photos Can't Do

Apple Photos on Mac handles basic adjustments well — exposure, saturation, cropping, and red-eye removal. But it can't remove a person from a photo, replace a background, swap the sky, or fix complex issues like harsh shadows or color casts. For those edits, most people reach for Photoshop, which costs $22.99/month and takes serious time to learn. AI editing tools give you Photoshop-level results without the software, the subscription, or the learning curve. You describe the edit, the AI handles the execution.

Photo Edits You Can Do on Mac

• Remove unwanted objects — people, power lines, signs, trash, or anything distracting
• Replace or remove backgrounds — clean product shots, new scenery, or transparent backgrounds
• Fix lighting problems — brighten underexposed photos, tame harsh flash, even out shadows
• Enhance quality — sharpen soft images, reduce noise from high ISO, upscale resolution
• Sky replacement — swap overcast skies for blue sky, sunset, or dramatic storm clouds
• Creative transforms — vintage film looks, paintings, anime style, color grading

Fast Mac Editing Workflow

The fastest way to edit photos on Mac is to open EditThisPic in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox and drag your photo directly from Finder or the Desktop into the editor. No file picker needed — just drag and drop. You can also paste images from the clipboard with Cmd+V if you've copied a screenshot or image from another app. After editing, the download goes to your Downloads folder. For repeat use, bookmark the page or pin the tab.

Free Mac Photo Editors Compared

Preview handles basic crops and annotations. Apple Photos does exposure and color adjustments. GIMP is free but has a notoriously complex interface that takes weeks to learn. Pixelmator Pro is $50 one-time but still requires manual selection and masking skills. Photoshop is $22.99/month with a steep learning curve. EditThisPic in the browser gives you the results of these tools without learning any of them. Describe what you want changed and the AI does the technical work. Best for object removal, background changes, and fixes that would take multiple steps in manual editors.

Tips for Mac Users

Mac Retina displays show more detail than most screens, so your edits will look sharp. Use specific prompts for the best results: 'remove the person wearing the red jacket on the left' works better than 'clean up the photo.' For RAW files from a DSLR, export as JPG or PNG first since browser tools don't support RAW formats directly. If you regularly edit the same type of photo, keep a note of your best prompts — you can reuse them for consistent results across batches.

Common Mac Photo Editing Scenarios

Real estate agents clean up property photos — removing clutter, brightening dark rooms, and replacing gray skies with blue ones. Small business owners create product images with white backgrounds for their website or Etsy shop. Students fix group project photos and presentation images. Parents rescue family photos with unwanted photobombers or bad lighting. Freelancers quickly edit client deliverables without opening a full editing suite. All of these take seconds with AI compared to minutes or hours in traditional software.