Apple Photomator: Lightroom lite with an uncertain future

David Lee

20/1/2026

Translation: Katherine Martin

Pictures: David Lee

Apple’s RAW editing software doesn’t hold a candle to Adobe Lightroom, but it’s still good value for money. It remains unclear what Apple’s plans for Photomator are.

Two of Photomator’s downsides are immediately obvious. Firstly, the program only runs on Macs. Secondly, just like Adobe Lightroom, it’s only available with a subscription. If that’s enough to make you stop reading now, I won’t hold it against you.

Okay, I guess we’re all on the same page now. If you have a Mac and are on the lookout for a Lightroom alternative, it’s worth checking out Apple’s rival software. It’s also subscription-based, although much cheaper. Photomator’s available for 30 francs or 35 euros per year, or 120 francs or euros for a lifetime subscription. Adobe Lightroom, by contrast, costs more than that in the first year of use alone.

Even so, the word «lifelong» makes me feel suspicious. Especially when you consider that Apple actually launched a Lightroom competitor – Aperture – in 2005, only to ditch it in 2014. Shortly afterwards, the software stopped working when Apple switched from 32 to 64 bit, and didn’t port Aperture.

Photomator isn’t included in Apple’s new Creator Studio subscription. Which is strange, given it’s supposed to be targeted at creative professionals. The image editor Pixelmator (not to be confused with Photomator) does come included in the bundle. However, like every other Creator Studio app, it’s a one-time purchase. Photomator’s existing subscription structure will probably get in the way of the new subscription.

Pessimists have put forward another theory as to why Photomator doesn’t come with Creator Studio. Namely, that Apple plans to discontinue the program anyway. Personally, I think that’s fairly unlikely. But seeing as Apple once killed Aperture, I can’t rule it out.

How Photomator works

Like most RAW converters, Photomator’s divided into two main elements: image management and individual image editing. The image manager allows you to modify several photos at the same time, for example by using presets or automatic colour correction. However, it’s pretty cumbersome. Before you do anything else, you need to open the Workflows submenu in the context menu, then add most processes. Still, it’s good that you can set up your own workflows.

One of Photomator’s notable features is that it can access images in your Photos app. That’s down to the fact that both apps are Apple products. If you use Photos in combination with iCloud, you’ll have all your images on all your devices. Photomator can automatically save every image you’ve edited into your Photos app. Seeing as Photos is a self-contained library whose individual files aren’t externally accessible, this isn’t a given. It’s also exactly why I’ve been avoiding the Photos app. If you’re a sceptic like me, you can switch off the feature completely in Photomator.

Image management is less convenient than in Lightroom

Like Lightroom, Photomator allows you to rate photos with up to five stars. There’s also a second system you can use to mark or filter out images. A cool aspect of the system for new users is that it recognises and adapts ratings and markings in XMP files from Lightroom. Plus, the keyboard shortcuts are also largely the same. Unfortunately, it takes what feels like an eternity for changes to stars and markers to be displayed – almost ten seconds on my Mac with an M4 chip and 16 GB of RAM.

Any keywords you’ve used in Lightroom won’t be transferred over, as Photomator doesn’t have a keyword function. All you can see is the key EXIF metadata, and there’s no way of filtering by specifications such as lens model or ISO sensitivity. Although there are filters for time and location, you can’t retrospectively change times if the clock on your camera was set incorrectly.

Photomator doesn’t allow you to automatically stitch several photos into a panorama or an HDR image. However, you could use an external tool for that if need be. The thing I’m missing more is the option to create virtual copies. In Lightroom, I do that every day. Rather than copying the image file, the RAW developer creates a second set of settings it applies to the same file.

If a photo’s available in both RAW and JPEG, Photomator always combines the two as one thumbnail. In Lightroom, you can choose whether these should be displayed individually or combined. You can edit both versions initially, but once you start editing the RAW, you can no longer edit the JPEG, and vice versa.

Images can be sorted by name, creation date or modification date. Lightroom provides plenty of other options, including the ability to sort photos by EXIF data such as aperture or focal length. Most importantly, it sorts the images in a fraction of a second, even when a folder contains over 3,000 images. Photomator, on the other hand, can’t deal with large image stocks. Sorting them takes forever.

Editing: ample features

The editing side of the software is more promising. Although Lightroom again has the upper hand, Photomator boasts an astonishing number of features in relation to its modest price tag. In addition to all the key functions, the software sports advanced features such as automatic sky detection and AI-based denoising and upscaling. It also works at a decent speed. While certain image management processes run at a snail’s pace, editing is speedy. AI noise reduction, for example, works significantly faster than in Lightroom. What’s more, Photomator can both denoise and upscale an image at once, whereas Lightroom still only does one or the other.

Photomator’s missing a few of Lightroom’s well-known features. What I personally feel it’s lacking most is the reproduction of camera colour profiles. In Lightroom, you can use these to reproduce the specific JPEG colour style of a camera in RAW. Though not 100 per cent accurate, it does the job. I’ve also got used to Lightroom’s lens error correction feature. Photomator, however, has neither lens profiles nor any way to manually correct distortions and chromatic aberrations. The program doesn’t have a Dehaze feature either. However, you can set the structure and clarity for highlights, mids and lows separately. Lastly, although Photomator can straighten all three axes, it can only straighten one of them automatically.

Algorithm quality

When it comes to RAW developers, it’s important to consider not just the availability of a particular function, but how it works. In this respect, too, there are some glaring differences between Photomator and Lightroom.

In this backlit shot, the harsh light has made details in both the shadows and the sky disappear. You’d usually use a RAW developer to try and correct this.

Here’s what it looks like in Lightroom after clicking on the automatic tone correction button:

Here’s what it looks like in Photomator:

I chose the automatic setting in my example to rule out any errors on my part. Seeing as it just involves one click, I couldn’t go wrong.

There was nothing I wanted to change about the Lightroom image – it was already good enough. So I tried to achieve a similar result in Pixelmator by making manual corrections. My attempt was semi-successful, but I still prefer Lightroom’s one-click edit.

Lightroom also gives you the option to modify the sky, with automatic selection working perfectly despite the numerous wires in the photo. I overdid the colouring a little to demonstrate that you can adjust the sky colour independently of the rest of the image.

This process doesn’t work in Photomator. The software only recognises part of the sky, so editing it results in a colour mismatch. In theory, you can modify an automatic mask manually using the brush or other tools. In this instance, however, that’d involve immense effort.

In simpler cases, the detection features are definitely up to scratch. Photomator did a perfect job of recognising and selecting the background in this image. As a result, I managed to reduce its saturation and brightness to better emphasise the subject.

David Lee

Senior Editor

David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.ch

My interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.

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