Editing basics

You can use the Photos editing tools to easily make simple changes to your photos, such as rotating them or cropping them to get the best framing.

A photo in editing view with editing tools on the right

When you change a photo, Photos keeps the original so you can always undo your changes and revert to the original look.

Changes you make to a photo appear everywhere the photo appears in your library—every album, project, and so on. If you want to give a photo a unique look that appears in one version of the photo, first duplicate the photo and work on the copy.

Edit a photo

To edit a photo, first you open it in editing view, where you can see the editing tools.

Do one of the following:

If you have badges displayed, edited photos appear with a toolbox badge Toolbox badge.

For more information about editing a photo in different ways, see Crop and straighten photos, Adjust a photo, Retouch photos, Remove red-eye, and Apply filters for special looks.

Duplicate a photo

If you want to create different versions of a photo, you duplicate it and work on the copy.

  1. Select the photo you want to copy.

  2. Choose Image > Duplicate [number] Photos (or press Command-D).

Compare photos before and after editing

While editing a photo, you can compare the edited version with the original.

Image of photo before and after editing
  1. Double-click a photo to open it, then click Edit in the toolbar.

  2. Hold down the M key to see the original photo. Release the M key to see the photo with edits.

Choose to use a RAW file as the original

Some cameras allow you to shoot photos in both RAW and JPEG formats simultaneously. When you import photos from these cameras, Photos uses the JPEG file as the original—but you can tell it to use the RAW file as the original instead.

Undo changes to a photo

You can quickly undo any change you don’t like. If you want to discard all the changes you’ve made to a photo and start over, you can revert the photo to the original image.