I think you'll find that processing a raw image is faster and easier than trying to do things to a jpeg.

I don't use nor do I like Photos. Aperture was much better, and Lightroom/Photoshop is what I use. Though I have been playing around with Affinity (on a PC) and it looks promising, and On1 Raw, which is positioned to give Lightroom/Adobe Camera Raw a run for it's money.

I use Lightroom primarily for it's catalog and organizational/management tools. There is nothing like it outside of a full DAM enterprise application (Digital Asset Management). I convert to jpeg only for output for clients, printing and/or uploading to social media. Once the files get to their destination, they are deleted. I use an intermediary file, a 16 bit ProPhoto color space psd file where I do the bulk of my post-Lightroom editing, and I save that with all the layers and objects that I create during that process. But I toss all of my jpegs. In LR you can create an export (conversion) preset for each destination, and I name and save those. Much easier to manage.