Iconic landscape photographer Ansel Adams presented a well-known analogy comparing photography to music. Others may not need a full-fledged desktop app at all and would be just fine using free photo editing software on their smartphones or tablets.Įven if you’re just starting out, adding a capable editing program into your process will help. Software that’s great for professional photography, like Capture One and Adobe Photoshop, might be overkill for more casual users who would be better served with cheap photo editing software like Affinity Photo. It’s about choosing a program that will drag every last bit of image quality out of your jpegs and raw files. Finding the best photo editing software isn’t just about saving the pictures you screwed up.