Adobe Photoshop for Mac review: Top photo editing app keeps getting better

At a glance

Expert note

Pros

• Large range of photo editing tools, including those that feed the AI
• Multiplatform publisher offering office, web and mobile applications
• Regularly updated
• Compatible with dozens of plugins
• Guides and practical advice for beginners
• Take charge of online collaboration

Disadvantages

• Inflated office application (s)
• Relatively expensive
• No life license

Our verdict

Adobe Photoshop remains the best photo editor for professionals. It is stable, reliable, rich in functionalities and actively developed; It won’t disappoint.

Price during the examination

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Best prices today: Adobe Photoshop

Adobe launched Photoshop for the first time exclusively for Macintosh in 1990. Since then, the software has become the default photo editor for creation professionals on all platforms. Today, the application is available on all the main operating systems and continues to follow the latest trends in the industry, including the Boom of the current AI.

While many competitors have published other photo retouching applications, very few brands have managed to gain a fraction of Adobe’s relevance in this space. Nevertheless, Photoshop is expensive and if it is worth recurring costs will depend on your budget and your personal needs.

Adobe Photoshop is available on macos, iOS, iPados, Windows, Android and the Web. While all customers serve the same main objective, the actual features set differs depending on the platform you use. For example, some of the desktop tools are not currently available on the mobile and on the web. As such, this review focuses on the Mac version of Photoshop.

Start with Photoshop

Unlike Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop is not available on the Mac App Store. To install the MacOS customer, you will first have to download the Creative Cloud application launcher from the web, which then automatically installs more than half a dozen other Adobe applications for maintenance and others. It will flood your launcher (or your application library on MacOS Tahoe) with unnecessary icons and overload your Mac with background processes that could drain the battery and have an impact on its performance. It’s a nightmare. The alternative uses the Photoshop web version, but some features are missing.

Despite the Bloatware, Photoshop worked fluidly on my M2 MacBook Air performing the beta of the MacOS Tahoe developer. Compared to the web application, the user interface of the native Mac client seems a bit exceeded, but it works. You can change the theme and other preferences, but a modern overhaul is objectively late.

If you are new to Photoshop, you will likely appreciate the advice and video guides grouped with the application. Thanks to these explanators, you can discover exactly what every main tool does and quickly learn how complex software works.

Foundry

Before examining the traditional features of Photoshop, let’s explore the latest features that are fueled by artificial intelligence. Adobe Firefly is the company’s engine of the company, and it is natively cooked in Photoshop. Although the use of AI in photo editing can be a controversial subject, some intelligent tools help creatives to make more and less time, without necessarily eliminating the original photo of its artistic essence.

For example, noise reduction tools and stains erasure exist for eons. The Photoshop application powered by AI simply improves these existing features to improve the output. Thus, you can surround intrusive objects and ensure that the AI generates an appropriate background that goes with the rest of the image. You also get high -end or develop photos while minimizing pixelation. It is the subtle type of AI that maintains the realism of the entrance.

Otherwise, you get wilderness in Photoshop for those who want to completely transform their content. For example, you can generate images from zero using text prompts and insert them realistically (shadows and everything) in your project. You can also try different variants of the same object to see what visually works in a particular context.

Likewise, you can isolate the subject in your shot and make AI generate new backgrounds or sky styles, which allows marketing specialists to take more easily products of products. Similar to Lightroom, you can also apply filters manufactured by AI which adapt unique to your individual photos.

Foundry

Like most AI features, the output can sometimes be unpredictable. However, the features have generally worked reliably for me, and they are undoubtedly more precise than asking Chatgpt to modify a photo in a specific way. It should be noted, however, that certain generative features consume Adobe Firefly credits. If you lack AI tokens, you can buy others via a separate Firefly subscription, which starts at $ 9.99 / £ 9.98 per month.

Classic photoshop features

Foundry

Even before the AI boom, Adobe Photoshop dominated photo retouching tables due to its advanced capacities. To start, the software uses a long -standing superposition system, which facilitates changes and applies changes without affecting the original image. If you are not sure of a certain change or effect, you can easily deactivate, reorganize or delete the respective layer without having an impact on the rest of your project.

Other non -AI features include different brush styles for scribbles, cloning tool, a ton of fonts for the text inserted, cropping, mixture, color balance adjustments, buffer, masking, healing, distortion, deformation, change of change, many export options, etc. And with Adobe, third -party plugins, you can compare software with more specific tools than Adobe does not offer native. There is a reason why the word Photoshop has become the essential verb of any modified image – it is incredibly powerful and fundamentally unlimited in its capacities.

Foundry

In terms of performance, I did not meet any bugs or major delay when using Photoshop on my MacBook. If it feels slow, you can go to the application settings and modify certain relevant options to make the experience more fluid. For example, you can choose between devices and cloud treatment for certain AI features. Likewise, you can accelerate certain tools by prioritizing speed on specific results and dictating the amount of RAM that the software can use.

Photoshop prices and availability

To access Photoshop on MacOS (or any other platform), you will have to pay a subscription after the expiration of your free 7-day trial. Adobe offers three main levels:

Photoshop: The vanilla level offers photoshop access to all platforms, in addition to 100 GB of cloud storage, for $ 34.49 / £ 32.98 per month and cancel at any time. If you have long -term photo editing needs, you can opt for the annual plan of $ 275.88 with a monthly invoicing of $ 22.99 / £ 21.98. However, the cancellation of this last plan will, however, result in additional costs. To maximize your savings, you can pay $ 263.88 / £ 262.51 in advance for a year of access.

At the time of writing the time of writing Adobe, Adobe has a 50% reduction for the first three months in the United Kingdom, which means that you can get it for £ 9.98 per month for three months, before paying the high price of the rest of the quarter.

Photograph bundle: This reduced level unlocks Photoshop, Lightroom and 1 TB of cloud storage for $ 29.99 / £ 28.99 per month (cancel at any time). Similar to vanilla level, you can choose an annual plan to save dollars and get it for $ 19.99 / £ 19.97 per month. Whether you opt for monthly invoicing or pay everything at once, this bundle will cost you $ 239.88 / £ 238.42 per year.

Creative Cloud Pro Bundle: If you count on other Adobe software, you can pay $ 104.99 / £ 99.89 per month for the Creative Cloud Pro pack, at any time). This unlocks Photoshop, Lightroom, Acrobat, Illustrator and more than a dozen other applications. The annual plan is a monthly payment of $ 69.99 / £ 66.49, while an initial payment would reduce it to $ 779.88 / 773.86 £ for the year.

Adobe US has a 40% reduction for the first year, bringing the price back to $ 41.99 per month paid monthly on the annual level.

Adobe UK has 50% reduction for three months, bringing the price to £ 32.66 per month for three months.

Eligible students can apply additional discounts when subscribing to the Creative Cloud Pro pack.

The price structure does not make much sense, and the photograph bundle is the best value even if you just want Photoshop. You always get approximately 10 times of additional cloud storage for costs significantly lower than Photoshop vanilla.

For more information on Adobe pricing and the latest offers, read Adobe Creative Clouding: How to get the best offer.

Should you subscribe to Adobe Photoshop?

Whether you were polishing a portrait, you designed a poster, preparing marketing media or creating a digital banner, Photoshop will be able to meet your needs. And because of its popularity, you can find hundreds of solid tutorials on YouTube and other sites if you are new on the platform. The application is aimed at basic changes and advanced workflows, so whatever your level of experience, you can find ways to effectively use Photoshop.

The only reason you may want to avoid using Photoshop is his income model. It is not cheap, and for many reasons, some users avoid services with recurring subscription fees. Fortunately, there are many Photoshop alternatives which are completely free, such as photopaa, or invoice unique costs, including the pixelmator belonging to apples. Although their features between – in particular those focused on AI – are not identical to those of Photoshop, they can always produce similar results.

However, if your work revolves around manipulation of images or if you are a potential artist, Adobe Photoshop is absolutely worth the price. In the end, Adobe Photoshop remains the best photo editor for professionals. It is stable, reliable, rich in functionalities and actively developed; It won’t disappoint.