As a base program, SketchUp has been developed into a powerhouse 3D modeler that just about anyone with a computer and an internet connection. It’s easy enough for clients to understand, and nuanced enough for architects and designers to quickly build their designs in digital space and get instant feedback about massing, proportion, and circulation.

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• Best Rendering Software For Sketchup Mac

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But, when you start to add extensions and plugins, you can transform SketchUp into a one-stop visualization shop that allows users to create photorealistic renderings, animations, and walkthroughs that will wow clients and strengthen the design process.

The rendering software in this list is some of the best in the world, and all provide streamlined plugins for use within the SketchUp experience. These programs are marketed towards architects looking to keep their visualization work in house without having to hire an expensive, dedicated rendering artist to keep on staff.

Here is the best rendering software to use with SketchUp.

1 Maxwell

Maxwell has been around since your parents were toying around with this new thing called ‘rendering software’ back in the last 1990’s. It’s been ubiquitous with the industry since the beginning, offering some of the most powerful rendering physics that produce incredibly real-looking images and animations.

The development team at Next Limit have done an admiral job at creating a plugin for SketchUp that is not only incredibly easy to install, it’s streamlined in a way that users will feel like it’s a natural extension of the program they know and love. You’ll be rendering in mere seconds, and with a little practice, be using SketchUp in ways you could have never imagined. Maxwell is worth every penny, especially when paired with the fastest modeling tool on the planet.

2 Artlantis

Artlantis was developed specifically with architects and design professionals in mind. This, along with a stripped-down user interface, make it the perfect rendering companion to SketchUp. It’s tools are not only compatible with the software itself, but with the way architects’ minds are trained to work from a perspective of development, process, and workflow.

Artlantis released a plugin for SketchUp around two years ago, and has continued to develop it so that it works hand in hand with the tools and camera techniques of the base program. It comes packaged with a robust material library that is filled to the brim with textures and colors that architects and interior designers frequently use.

3 Keyshot 3D

While Keyshot has yet to release a proper plugin for SketchUp, the relative newcomer on the block is such a powerful tool it’d be a shame not to mention it here. SketchUp models are easy enough to interface into the program via a downloadable extension, allowing Keyshot to take things from there.

Keyshot is a capable rendering engine, yes, but it’s real magic comes from the ability to view your rendered scene in real-time as you tweak materials, massing, camera, and lighting conditions. It provides an incredibly fast work environment that doesn’t require you to sit around while a bunch of draft renderings are produced just so you can change things and try again.

4 V-Ray

Just like Maxwell, V-Ray has been around since the beginning. It’s trajectory hasn’t given an inch as it has been continually developed into a rendering program at the top of its class. V-Ray for SketchUp offers the precision, accuracy, and flexibility the program always has, but in a package that users can navigate and implement with ease.

V-Ray is simply the best when it comes to providing true-to-life results in just about every rendering category imaginable. Whether you’re animating for Pixar or using SketchUp to render your parents’ basement renovation, V-Ray will show you the way to the promised land. And while all those features certainly come with a hit to your wallet, it’ll be worth it once you see your designs literally come to life.

5 Brighter 3D

One thing Brighter 3D has on every other rendering program on this list is that it was developed specifically for use within SketchUp. This means it’s toolset was designed to work hand-in-hand with the 3D modeler, making rendering just as fast and easy as the modeling. Brighter 3D doesn’t have many frills or extras - it’s just a solid rendering engine that should be perfect for 95% of SketchUp users out there.

The only downfall is that Brighter 3D doesn’t currently have a version for Mac users, though the developers promise one is in the works.

• January 02, 2020
• 18 min to read

Most free photo editors available on the App Store are quite basic, offering just a limited number of filters and allowing you to easily and quickly liven up your photos before posting them on social media.

But if you’re an aspiring or professional photographer, you probably need a more powerful app with a broader set of tools to use your creativity to the fullest. Besides, you probably use your Mac for photo editing because working on a large screen makes it possible to adjust the slightest details.

1. Apple’s Photos (Built-in app)

Apple’s Photos app is included for free on all recently released Macs. It does a good job at organizing your photos, but its collection of photo enhancement tools leaves much to be desired. Hopefully, our selection of the best free programs for photo editing on Mac will help you choose the right app to suit all your creative needs.

2. Luminar (7 days trial)

Luminar is another full-featured photo editor that’s popular with both Mac and Windows users. It can work as a standalone app as well as a plugin for such popular programs as Apple Photos.

Luminar uses Artificial Intelligence to enable sophisticated yet quick photo enhancements. Among these AI features are Sky Enhancer, which adds more depth and detail to the sky in your photos while leaving other areas untouched; Accent AI, which analyzes a photo and automatically applies the best combination of different effects to enhance your image; and Sun Rays, which allows you to place an artificial sun and adjust the lighting to your liking or make the sun rays already in your photo look even more incredible.

Luminar has over 60 filters you can apply to your photos to enhance them in a moment. Luminar also provides a set of powerful tools for cropping, transforming, cloning, erasing, and stamping, along with layers, brushes, and many more incredible features. Luminar supports the Touch Bar on the latest MacBook Pro, making photo editing even more effortless and pleasing.

3. Photolemur 3 (Free Version with watermark)

Photolemur is a relative newcomer on the photo editing market but it has all the chances to win the favor of beginner photographers and hobbyists. Running on Artificial Intelligence, Photolemur is a completely automatic photo enhancer, meaning that it does all the editing for you in no time. It has the simplest interface, with only a few buttons and sliders to adjust the enhancement to your liking and view the before and after results.

All you need to do is choose a photo (or a few) that you want to improve, drag and drop or import them using the Import button, and let the program make enhancements. After it’s done, you can compare the edited version with the original image by using the before–after slider and, if you want, adjust the skin tone or even enlarge the eyes using additional sliders. Pretty easy, huh?

Photolemur also offers a number of impressive styles to touch up your photos and give them a sophisticated and professional look. With this app, you don’t need to stuff your head with photo editing nuances and terms. Just run Photolemur and watch the magic happen!

4. Aurora HDR (14 days trial)

As you probably can tell from the name, Aurora HDR is designed to help photographers enhance their HDR photos, making them even more detailed and beautiful. It’s an ideal tool for editing your photos, with an extensive collection of more than 20 tools including details, tone, mapping, color, glow, and vignette. Each tool has its unique selection of controls to adjust its effects.

Aurora HDR enables you to work with brushes, layers, and masks, and provides a number of automatic AI tools for recognizing and removing noise, enhancing colors, lighting, and details, improving clarity, and adding contrast to dull areas while leaving other areas untouched.

Aurora HDR does a great job dealing with difficult lighting situations and creating full-of-life images while being easy to use.

5. Pixelmator (Trial 30 Days)

Pixelmator is a photo enhancer beloved by many Mac users, as it offers a good combination of a modern and simple interface, the ability to work on multiple layers, and powerful features that take photo editing to a whole new level. With so many editing tools, brushes, and effects, you can enhance your photos to your liking. You can choose between two versions of Pixelmator – standard and pro – depending on your needs. The standard version is great for basic photo editing with its selection of essential tools and filters, while the pro version is packed with extra brushes, tools, and effects that let you push your creativity to new boundaries. You can decide which version is suitable for you according to what features you’re looking for in a photo editing app.

6. Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020 (Trial link)

Photoshop Elements isn’t as affordable as other photo enhancers for beginner photographers. But luckily there’s a trial version available, so you can check it out before deciding whether this app is worthy of your money. Photoshop Elements acquired many powerful features from Photoshop, only Elements is simplified for amateur photographers and enthusiasts. It includes a good number of effects and filters, plus automated editing options for improving lighting, color balance, and exposure, and even opening closed eyes and reducing the effects of camera shake.

In addition to all of these awesome features, Photoshop also offers editing modes for beginners, intermediate users, and experts. Beginners will probably prefer Quick mode, as it focuses on essential tools to quickly enhance your photos by improving color, lighting, and other basic settings. Guided mode provides intermediate users with step-by-step guidance with more professional features like artistic effects, skin tone correction, and background replacement. Expert mode gives you full access to the app’s really powerful editing features and is ideal for creating stunning images.

7. Affinity Photo (Free Trial)

Affinity Photo’s interface may seem overwhelming at first, especially for novices, but when you come to grips with it you’ll find that the app is just what you’ve been looking for. Its numerous professional tools, effects, and filters encourage you to get creative with your photos. Among the coolest features Affinity Photo has to offer is a before and after view to compare the original photo with its edited version.

Affinity Photo works with 15 file types, including common ones like PDF, PSD, JPG, and GIF as well as some less popular ones. The app amazes with its abundance of basic and top-notch editing tools, allowing you to tweak your photos using all possible kinds of instruments. Affinity Photo allows you to edit HDR photos, apply artistic filters and effects, play with masks and layers, and create breathtaking compositions by combining several images in one. If you find its interface a bit much and are afraid of getting lost in all those advanced tools, you should probably look for something more suitable for your level. But Affinity Photo is worth mastering.

8. Google Photos

Google Photos is a popular cloud storage service for photos and videos. It can’t boast countless masterly tools like other photo enhancers that we review in this article, but it includes some fundamental features like filters, color adjustment sliders, and transformation tools.

Although Google Photos may not be that helpful when it comes to editing photos, it does a pretty good job at storing high-resolution images and videos with 15GB of free online storage, compared to iCloud’s mere 5GB (which you can upgrade to 50GB for a monthly fee). If you’re planning to go on a trip and take plenty of photos, then it might be smart to sign up for Google Photos to use that extra storage space when you come back.

9. PhotoScape X (Free)

A relatively new photo editing app, PhotoScape X has been gaining popularity with many Mac and PC users since its release in 2008. Its interface is simple but unconventional, with a number of tabs running along the top of the window. Each is responsible for a specific stage of editing. The Viewer tab allows you to browse and organize your photos. After you pick a photo, you can switch to the Editor tab, which includes a broad set of instruments, filters, and effects and a useful feature that enables you to compare the adjusted photo with the original.

The next tabs, including the Batch tab, mainly concentrate on editing and renaming multiple photos at once. The GIF tab allows you to easily create an animated GIF from a group of selected photos.

The downside of PhotoScape X is a lack of selection tools, so all changes are applied to the whole image rather than to a selected part.

10. Gimp (Free)

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Gimp is a free open-source photo editing app that has been on the market for over 22 years and is available for Windows, Mac, and even Linux. Unlike many free apps, Gimp doesn’t have any ads or in-app purchases. Its grey interface might seem a little old-fashioned and it may be a bit sluggish when it comes to complex effects, though.

Best Rendering Software For Sketchup Mac

Gimp offers a vast collection of advanced tools that hardly any free photo editor can boast. It has numerous enhancement options such as clone and heal brushes, layers and channels, accurate selection tools, a number of transformation instruments, and, of course, color adjustment controls. Gimp is one of the most powerful tools for enhancing photos and is beloved by so many users for its price (free) and versatility. But if you can’t come to grips with Gimp’s interface, it may be worth paying some cash for a more user-friendly program.