Best Photo Editing Program: Professional, Cheap and Basic Software Compared
Finding the best photo editing program depends on what you actually need it to do. A studio photographer retouching 200 RAW files per week needs different tools than a small business owner cropping product images for Instagram. Choosing the wrong tier means either paying for features you’ll never use or hitting a ceiling six months in when your skills exceed the software’s capability.
This guide compares the best professional photo editing software for serious users, top rated photo editing software across different price tiers, cheap photo editing software that doesn’t compromise on core tools, and the best basic photo editing software for beginners who want clean results without a learning curve.
Best Professional Photo Editing Software
The best professional photo editing software by market share is Adobe Lightroom Classic combined with Photoshop. Lightroom handles RAW processing, batch editing, library organization, and color grading across thousands of files. Photoshop handles pixel-level retouching, compositing, and output for print. The combined Creative Cloud Photography Plan runs $9.99/month, which makes it one of the most accessible best photo editing program options relative to its capability.
Capture One Pro is the primary alternative to Lightroom for studio photographers. It offers superior tethered shooting, a more flexible layer system, and color science that many portrait photographers prefer. It costs $24/month or $299 for a perpetual license. Affinity Photo ($69.99 one-time on desktop) competes directly with Photoshop for retouching work at a fraction of the ongoing cost.
Top Rated Photo Editing Software by Category
Top rated photo editing software rankings vary by use case. For RAW processing: Lightroom Classic and Capture One consistently top professional polls. For portrait retouching: Photoshop and PortraitPro rate highest. For landscape and nature: Luminar Neo’s AI masking tools rank well. For speed on large libraries: ON1 Photo RAW processes batches noticeably faster than Lightroom on machines with 16GB of RAM or less.
Cheap Photo Editing Software Worth Considering
Cheap photo editing software doesn’t mean limited. Affinity Photo at $69.99 is a one-time purchase with no subscription, and its feature set rivals Photoshop for most retouching tasks. GIMP is free and open-source — it handles layers, masks, curves, and most non-destructive workflows, though its interface requires more learning time than commercial alternatives.
For a cheap photo editing program with a subscription model, Lightroom alone (without Photoshop) costs $4.99/month and covers the core editing, organization, and export workflow that most photographers need 90% of the time. DxO PhotoLab offers a perpetual license starting at $139 with arguably the best noise reduction engine currently available — worth the single purchase if high-ISO shooting is central to your work.
Best Basic Photo Editing Software for Beginners
The best basic photo editing software for someone starting out is Lightroom (the simplified cloud version at $4.99/month) or Luminar Neo. Both have preset-based workflows where a single click applies a complete look — then you adjust sliders to taste. The learning curve is 2 to 4 hours to functional competence rather than the weeks Photoshop requires.
Google Photos offers the best basic photo editing software experience if you’re working primarily on a phone. Its AI-based adjustments, background removal, and automatic color correction handle 80% of what most casual users need for free. For desktop work at no cost, the best basic photo editing program is Photopea — a browser-based Photoshop alternative that runs without installation and reads and writes PSD files natively.