There’s no shortage of third-party editing apps for editing photos on your Mac. However, the built-in Photos app on macOS is a capable photo editor that probably satisfies the needs of most people.

It can handle almost everything you throw at it, and its uncomplicated approach to editing makes it relatively easy to learn. Rather than paying for premium apps like Affinity Photo or a Photoshop subscription, here are a few reasons you should consider Apple Photos first.

1
All the Essential Edits Are Covered

Apple provides all the essential editing options in the macOS Photos app. These are the same options you see in most photo-editing apps, and they should easily meet the needs of those who only want to touch up photos, crop them, or apply filters to enhance their appearance.

To give you an idea, Photos has tools to adjust different aspects of photos, like exposure, shadows, brightness, and contrast. Similarly, there’s the ability to control the white balance and color intensity, sharpen photos, add a vignette, and reduce noise. Another useful tool is Red-Eye, which allows you to remove red discoloration from people’s eyes.

Besides, the Photos app packs a decent collection of filters that you can apply to your photos to achieve a certain look. Lastly, there’s the ability to flip and crop photos. For the latter, you get a bunch of predefined aspect ratios to crop photos quickly, along with a custom option for freeform cropping.

Accessing these editing options in the Photos app on a Mac is easy. Open the photo you want to edit and click the “Edit” button in the top-right corner. Then, click the arrow to the left of a tool in the right sidebar to expand it. To access some options, like Filters and Crop, you need to use the tab bar at the top.

2
Photos Has Advanced Features When You Need Them

Alongside the essential editing tools above, Apple throws in a few advanced features in the Photos app. These are useful for those who need to perform slightly more advanced editing operations, like adjusting specific hues in photos or removing undesired objects.

For example, the Photos app has tools like Levels and Curves, which let you fine-tune the tonal range of pictures by adjusting properties like shadows, highlights, contrast, and more. Then, there’s the Selective Color feature that allows you to make selective color adjustments to fix imbalances or enhance the appeal of objects in your pictures.

Last but not least, Apple also offers the Clean Up tool in Photos. As the name implies, Clean Up lets you remove undesired objects from photos on your Mac without much editing know-how. Available as part of the Apple Intelligence suite, it works on all Mac models powered by Apple’s M1 or later chips with on macOS Sequoia 15.1 or above. You can also use Clean Up on your iPhone to remove distractions from your photos.

All the advanced editing features are accessible in the Photos app in the same way as the essential ones.

3
There’s Support for Third-Party Integration

As if its editing suite isn’t enough, Apple also offers support for third-party integrations in the Photos app. This allows you to integrate certain third-party apps into Photos to enhance its functionality. For instance, if you prefer using the Skitch app for markup, you can integrate it into Photos. That way, you can access and use Skitch to mark up photos within the Photos app itself.

To integrate an app into Photos, first download it to your Mac. Then, launch “System Settings” and go to General > Login Items & Extensions. Here, scroll down to the “Extensions” section and click the “i” button next to “Photos Editing.” Finally, toggle on the switch next to the apps you want to integrate into Photos.

Once you integrate an app into Photos, accessing it is easy. Open the photo you want to edit, hit “Edit” in the top-right corner, click the Extensions button (three dots within a circle), and select the app. Photos will open the photo in that app, where you can perform the operations. Save the changes, and you’ll be back to the Photos app’s native interface.

4
Edits Aren’t Permanent

Apple takes a non-destructive approach to photo editing in the Photos app. This means when you make changes to a photo, they are stored separately—the original version remains unchanged. As a result, you can edit a photo without worrying about permanently altering it. And, when needed, easily undo the edits and revert to the original version in no time.

That said, if you want both the original and edited versions of a photo, you can do that, too, thanks to the Duplicate feature. Simply Control-click the photo you want to duplicate in your library and select the “Duplicate 1 Photo” option. Now, open this photo, perform your edits, and hit “Save”. You’ll now have an edited version of the photo with the original photo still intact.

5
Support for RAW Editing

Taking pictures in the RAW format retains all the data from your device’s cameras. This gives you greater flexibility in editing, so you can adjust exposure, shadows, highlights, white balance, and other settings without losing image quality.

If you, too, prefer taking photos in RAW, the Photos app makes it easy to edit them on your Mac. Editing RAW photos in Photos is the same as editing photos in JPEG or another format. If your device takes photos in multiple formats, be sure you’re opening the RAW photo in the Photos app at the time of editing. RAW photos have a “RAW” label on their thumbnail in the top-left corner.

6
It’s Easy to Learn and Simple to Use

Generally speaking, there’s a steep learning curve associated with many photo-editing apps. This, in part, is due to their interface, which is often too complicated because of the various advanced tools and functionalities these apps offer to serve even those with advanced editing needs.

With the macOS Photos app, though, it’s a different story. Sure, it, too, offers a few advanced editing functions, but it still lacks complex tools, like layers and masks, for instance. As such, the interface remains relatively easy to understand and navigate than the apps that pack those options.

Likewise, Apple has designed most tools in the Photos app to be easy to use, requiring very few clicks to get the desired result. Some of these tools even offer auto-adjustment options, which let you apply corrections to a photo automatically with a simple click. As a result, even if someone doesn’t have prior photo-editing experience, they can still comfortably perform edits in Photos.

To use the auto-adjustment option, simply click the radio button next to the tool, and it’ll make the adjustments. You can compare adjustments with the original version by pressing the M key on your keyboard.

7
Photos Comes With macOS for Free

Available as a built-in app on macOS, Photos is completely free to use. This means you can use its entire suite of editing tools, from essentials like Crop, Filter, and Adjust to advanced options like RAW editing, Curves, Levels, and Clean Up, without paying extra.

Sure, you can find other free photo-editing programs for Macs. But Apple makes a solid case for its Photos app by offering access to all the essential tools under one roof while keeping the editing experience easy.

Photos is a comprehensive solution for editing, managing, and organizing your photo and video library on your Mac. If you haven’t tried it for editing photos yet, now’s the time. While at it, don’t forget to check out the various nifty features the macOS Photos app offers.