The best photo editing apps for astrophotography are a great way to enhace your photos of the stars and other celestial objects.
The nature of astrophotography means while you might sometimes get a stunning photo straight out of the camera, often, to make an image perfect, you'll need to tinker with it in a photo editing suite. In this guide, we've rounded up the best on the market, with a focus on features best suited to astro shots.
Shooting the night sky in low-light conditions can prove a challenge for even the most experienced of photographers; a good software suite can help reduce any noise, balance light and enhance colors in your shots. Photo editing apps are also useful for correcting issues like vignetting and barrelling. They'll lift your best images to the next level and can turn the most unremarkable images from your shoots into works of art.
With such a wide range of photo editing apps to choose from, our reviewers have chosen only the best on the market and reviewed all the pros and cons of each app so you can make an informed choice. If you're looking to upgrade the rest of your gear, we have guides to the best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography, along with the best telescopes for seeing planets and best telescopes for deep space. You can also check out our list of the best stargazing apps to help you plan your next big shoot.
The quick list
Best photo editing app for astro
This app enables you to stack various types of calibration frames and comes with a powerful AI editing tool, but it does lack a library.
Best editing app overall
With extensive image editing and organization features, Lightroom is the most popular photo editing app on the market.
Best for large projects
A powerful image editor that can handle almost anything you throw at it — but it has a very steep learning curve.
Best for powerful editing tools
An app aimed primarily at professionals, it can tether to your camera, although the mobile app is a more accessible option.
Best for speedy editing
For quick edits, this affordable software will do the job nicely. It has many one-click editing features and AI tools to simplify your workflow and a clean interface combined to make your experience seamless.
Best for amateurs
For an introduction to Photoshop with just the basic features, this is a good choice, but there's no option to subscribe.
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Best for noise reduction
The DeepPrime XD was the best noise-removal tool we've tested, but other apps are hot on its heels and offer other features on top of that.
Best for beginners
This user-friendly software packs in lots of social media-friendly features, but not much for seasoned pros.
Best for learning techniques
The latest version of Corel PaintShop Pro has a huge range of tools to help you learn the art of editing, so many in fact it makes this app very busy.
Best for all skill levels
It has fast processing times and offers all-in-one editing for batch and layer edits, but it's let down by the interface and the price.
Best photo editing apps for astrophotography 2024
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Best photo editing app for astro
✅ You like to own the software: There's no option to subscribe to Affinity Photo, so once you buy the software, you own it.
✅You specialize in astrophotography: We were really impressed with the extensive astrophotography stacking persona and the astro macros to speed up your workflow.
❌ You want in-built organization: There is no library system, and it relies on the folders on your computer.
🔎 Affinity Photo 2 It has an astrophotography stack persona is like no other, although it has a way to go in other areas to live up to Adobe. That said, it's affordable and fairly user-friendly, and has a bunch of useful features once you delve in. ★★★★½
Affinity Photo 2 is split up into five different workspace areas, known as 'personas'. Each persona of the app is designated to a specific part of the editing process: Photo, Liquify, Develop, Tone Mapping and Export. You might make use of every different persona in one editing job.
The Develop and Photo personas are where you make your initial edits, much like in Lightroom or in Photoshop's Camera RAW. The Liquify persona is to warp or distort your images, Tone Mapping is most typically used for 32-bit HDR files and the Export persona is, as its name implies, where you export your shots. During our Affinity Photo 2 review, we spent most of our time in the Develop and Photo personas.
We particularly love the masks, which now work as well as those you'd find in Lightroom or Photoshop. Affinity also added non-destructive RAW development, meaning your original photos remain untouched no matter how much you edit them. The live mesh warping feature and layers panel also make the software even more powerful than before.
It's worth pointing out that none of these upgrades have been specifically designed for astrophotography, but that doesn't mean they won't help your astro work. At the very least, they make Affinity Photo much more capable and user-friendly than it's ever been before.
We particularly liked Affinity Photo 2's dedicated Astrophotography Stack function. Basically, it provides an easy way to combine your calibration and light frames; simply import the frames into the software and it will stack them automatically. We found it was able to align the stars very well, but if our image included a foreground, it struggled to handle it correctly. If your focus is solely on the night skies, then, you'll find this tool seriously useful, but if you're more of a nighttime landscape photographer,Photoshop might be a better bet. Still, overall we were very impressed with Affinity; not many other software suites are as proficient.
Another Astro-friendly function we enjoyed is the 'Remove Background' filter. AI helps to restore the dark sky around the stars back to its original dark color and removes color casts that may have crept into your images — particularly useful if you live in an urban area.
Affinity Photo 2 is now available as part of their universal license — you pay a one-off fee of $164.99 for Affinity Photo, Affinity Publisher and Affinity Designer. If you don't need these, you can still purchase Affinity Photo 2 individually for a one-off payment of $69.99, or $18.49 for the iPad version.
- Read our full Affinity Photo 2 review
| Attributes | Notes |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Subscription free. |
| User interface | Split into five different personas. |
| Key features | Non destructive RAW editing. |
| Astro features | Impressive astrophotography stacking tools. |
Best editing app overall
✅ You want excellent noise reduction: Lightroom introduced an AI noise reduction tool in 2023 which we think is very impressive if a little slow.
✅ You want an all-in-one image editor and catalog: It excels in both image editing and organization.
❌ You want to stack or create composites: One feature it lacks is the ability to blend layers and create composites, which are often used in astrophotography.
🔎 Adobe Lightroom If you're looking for the image editing software to rule them all, you won't be disappointed with Lightroom. It has unrivaled catalog organization and all the editing tools you need to create stunning images. ★★★★★
Adobe Lightroom used to be a tool reserved for pros, but in recent years it's found its way into the mainstream, with many amateur photographers and hobbyists loving the tools it offers. As an editing app, it's not as overwhelming to learn as other editing suites, and it also provides excellent workflow and organization tools (things Photoshop is notoriously lacking).
Lightroom is robust and capable enough to handle most tasks, and we think it's one of the best editing apps for just about any type of photography, not just astro. It can handle RAW images excellently, which any professional will know is a huge bonus. By not shooting in RAW you're losing out on color depth and detail, and Lightroom will handle and enhance these images for you in just a few clicks.
The editing toolkit is also very extensive and, in our opinion, the best out there in terms of capabilities and layout. When you're editing in Lightroom, you have complete creative control over many aspects of the image, including contrast, brightness, texture, clarity, color hue and saturation. You also have the option to smooth out any distortion and lens idiosyncrasies.
You can create and save presets, edit with masks and heal any unwanted dust spots or distractions in your images. Then, once you've finished editing, a high-quality JPEG image can be watermarked, exported and shared, all while keeping your original RAW file intact. And as Lightroom's workflow is completely non-destructive, you can go back and make edits whenever you like, as often as you like, without touching the original file. It's only when you choose to export an edited image that any changes become permanent, and even in that case, the edited file is saved separately.
Shortly after we published our Adobe Lightroom review, an AI denoise tool was introduced, which is great news for astrophotographers. With just a click of a button, it'll intelligently remove unwanted noise from your image based on the percentage you set. We found that it works incredibly well and rivals DxO's deepPrime tool, but the bigger the file and more noise reduction you do on a particular image, the longer it takes — it can take up to 5 or 6 minutes per image, depending on the speed of your computer.
Lightroom's cataloguing and organization tools are above anything else on the market. If you're going through hundreds of images from one shoot, you'll be able to quickly and easily see them all at a glance here, which can be a huge timesaver.
It's quick and easy to import your images to Lightroom after a photo session, and you can create a database of all the shots from that day, including geotags and facial recognition. You can then use flags, stars and colors to organize and rate the files, keeping the best photos and getting rid of the ones you don't want in your library.
Lightroom also excels at batch processing photos so you can import all of your images at once, batch edit (essentially copying and pasting the same editing settings onto each image), and then export them to another app for stacking. If there was one photo editing app to rule them all, it's Lightroom.
- Read our full Adobe Lightroom 2023 review
| Attributes | Notes |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Subscription only, but included in good value Photography bundle. |
| User interface | Not a very exciting layout, but simple to understand. |
| Key features | Unrivalled cataloging and organization. |
| Astro features | New AI-based denoise proves a hit with astrophotography. |
Best for large projects
✅ You want one app that can do it all: Photoshop can do pretty much anything, so you won't need multiple apps that do different things.
❌ You're a purist: If you don't believe in manipulating images or creating composites, you likely won't make use of the majority of Photoshop's features.
❌ You need good organization: Organization and cataloging aren't what Photoshop is known for — for that, you'll want Lightroom.
🔎 Adobe Photoshop Photoshop has been the industry standard for a long time, and with the introduction of AI, we don't see that changing any time soon. It's available on subscription only, but it's included in a good value Photography bundle along with Lightroom. ★★★★★
NASA uses Adobe Photoshop to enhance its images before sharing them online. Do you need more evidence that this is one of the best photo editing apps for astrophotography?
Photoshop is typically considered as an industry standard tool when it comes to photo editing, but it can be overwhelming for newcomers who might take a while to learn the ins-and-outs of all its tools. The good news is that since it's such a vastly-used piece of software, you'll find tutorials online for just about anything.
Put the time in and you'll find that it is an incredible tool for astrophotographers (and, indeed, any type of photographer), capable of doing just about anything you want.
Photoshop employs selections and layers in its editing process — a feature that other apps, among them Lightroom, have also since adopted. With layers, you can edit specific parts of a photo (for example just a fire hydrant or the color of someone's sweater) without changing the rest of the image. This is handy for complex edits because if you mess up, you can simply adjust or remove that particular layer instead of starting over. You can also label your layers to keep things organized while you edit.
Layers are an essential tool that let you stack different elements on top of each other. This flexibility allows you to move, merge, paint, hide or even cut holes in these layers, creating complex effects. Astrophotographers can use layers to enhance the soft glow of nebulas or produce stunning star trail images by combining multiple photos. In our Adobe Photoshop 2023 review, we particularly liked Adobe Sensei, a cloud AI technology that can automatically identify selections for you, making the process even easier.
Plans from Adobe are decently priced considering the variety of tools you have access to. For $19.99 a month, you can purchase a bundled Photoshop and Lightroom subscription, which is an excellent deal considering Photoshop is $20.99 on its own.
Perhaps the main downside of Adobe Photoshop is that it's geared towards heavy photo manipulation. If you simply want to make colors pop, adjust the contrast and make smaller tweaks, you're not going to be getting the full power of the software. If you don't want the full-fat version of Photoshop, you may find Photoshop Elements a bit easier to navigate — it's a little further down in this buying guide and might be more suited to your needs.
If, however, you want to be able to get fully creative with your images, or create something like composite images — stacking together two or more images to use parts of each to create one finished piece — then Photoshop is a great option.
- Read our full Adobe Photoshop 2023 review
| Attributes | Notes |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Subscription only, but included in good value Photography bundle. |
| User interface | Substantial learning curve, but fine once you know it. |
| Key features | Great features for all skill levels. |
| Astro features | Auto-align and auto-blend for astro images. |
Best for powerful editing tools
✅ You want to tether to a tablet/smartphone: The mobile version is quite affordable, so if you want to do on-location portrait photography and tether straight to a tablet to edit on the go, this is a great option.
✅ You're a studio professional: Capture One Pro is definitely aimed at professional photographers who will make use of its tethering capabilities.
❌ You don't want to spend loads: No matter whether you pay monthly or as a one-off subscription, it's expensive software.
🔎 Capture One Pro 23 A professional-level editing app that specializes in color and tethering, this software is not for beginners (and it isn't priced as such). The mobile app, however, is very reasonably priced and could prove useful for on-the-go shooting. Sadly, it doesn't offer any dedicated astro features. ★★★★½
Capture One Pro is a photo editing app that has taken a leaf from Lightroom's approach to editing rather than Photoshop's. In other words, it's designed to streamline editing and photo management rather than for heavy and creating editing tasks.
Particularly popular with professionals for how well it performs with studio photography, Capture One Pro has fantastic RAW image decoding which guarantees excellent results. It also supports a huge range of image types (including the HEIC files you'll get on newer iPhones), which makes it a valuable tool for photographers.
Capture One Pro excels in almost every aspect, particularly in fine-tuning colors, offering a wide array of editing and color-grading tools. In our Capture One Pro 23 review, we loved its ability to accurately color grade images and how well it manipulated colors in the image, as well as maintaining accurate skin tones. It's an excellent option for enhancing colors in deep sky images of nebulas and cosmic dust clouds, bringing out vibrant pinks and blues to create stunning visuals.
Once you become familiar with the basics, the software provides a unique and robust set of tools that will elevate your editing skills to new heights. It's a fantastic choice for experienced photographers who need advanced editing capabilities and a comprehensive all-in-one solution.
Like Photoshop, if you're a beginner, you'll likely find Capture One Pro's suite of tools overwhelming to begin with. This is a very advanced piece of software that's been built with professionals in mind, but you will find a bunch of built-in tutorials in the software's 'learn' feature, which can help you get to grips with some elements. Even with those, however, we wouldn't necessarily recommend Capture One Pro if you're a complete beginner, at least not unless you're willing to put a lot of time into learning its intricacies.
Amateurs might also be put off by the fact that Capture One Pro is expensive, no matter how you pay for it. Monthly subscriptions are $24/month, annual costs $179/year and a one-off payment for the license is $299. You could get two or more of the other apps in this guide for the same price, so it's probably not worth it unless you are a studio pro and use tethering as a regular part of your workflow.
Although Capture One Pro is a fantastic tool for improving workflow, many of its most recent changes appear to be more focused on photo organization than editing, making it better for photographers who photograph people or events and need to sort through a high number of images quickly.
- Read our Capture One Pro 23 review
| Attributes | Notes |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Expensive, but multiple ways to pay. |
| User interface | Clean, customizable layout. |
| Key features | Specializes in tethering. |
| Astro features | No dedicated astro features. |
Best for speedy editing
✅ You want to edit quickly: Neo features a lot of one-click editing tools that speed up workflow, especially with the use of AI tools.
❌ You want decent cataloging: Organization and cataloging aren't Luminar's strong suit, so you'd be better off opting for another editing app.
🔎 Luminar Neo This software uses a lot of AI-based tools to help create polished and professional-looking images, although it's not the best for astrophotography alone. It excels in speedy editing, although some users have reported that it can be buggy and slow. ★★★★
Before Luminar Neo came around, there was Luminar AI, a piece of software that we previously recommended in this guide to the best photo editing apps. As you can read in our Luminar AI review, we found it excellent at applying Instagram-style filters and creative edits for images. Unfortunately, it was discontinued in 2022, but Luminar Neo has since taken its place.
Now the flagship product for Luminar, Neo comes with a brand new editing engine, and it's much more capable than its predecessor at creating professional-looking images. It's far from a mere upgrade to Luminar AI, it's a completely revamped tool.
Not to worry, though, as many of the one-click AI-powered adjustments can be found in Neo, allowing you to create striking images in an instant. Alongside them, you'll now find more robust tools to do a whole lot more with your photography. Like Photoshop, Luminar Neo lets you use layers in your editing process, and it includes a developer module similar to Lightroom's features.
However, we found Luminar Neo's cataloging abilities to be quite basic. You can only flag the images, so it might not be the best option if you need a robust system for organizing and managing your images, like professionals who may need comprehensive catalogs of all their shoots.
We're yet to do a full review of Luminar Neo, but keep your eyes peeled for our full debrief on the app. Some users have reported the software being a little buggy, but hopefully, these will continue to be ironed out over time.
- Check out the Best cameras for astrophotography
| Attributes | Notes |
|---|---|
| Pricing | You pay a one-off fee. |
| User interface | Clean interface. |
| Key features | Limited cataloging features. |
| Astro features | Some helpful AI tools for astro editing. |
