Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. Thomas and John Knoll created it in 1988. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster graphics editing, but in digital art.
It described adobe Photoshop as 'is the commercial photo editor that set the standard in creative illustration and design work with a sophisticated, layer-based workflow and robust, professional feature set' and is one of the leading apps in the Photos & Graphics category. There are over 100 alternatives to Adobe Photoshop for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Mac, Online / Web-based, iPhone and iPad. The best alternative is GIMP, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like Adobe Photoshop are Affinity Photo (Paid), Krita (Free, Open Source), Paint.NET (Free Personal) and Photopea (Free).
Best Adobe Photoshop Alternatives
Photoshop alternatives have come on leaps and bounds in recent years. While Adobe's quality image editing software is still a firm favourite among designers, there are whole host of reasons why you may want to find other software – including the subscription model that's part of Photoshop. Or perhaps you want to support smaller development houses, or simply don't need the abundance of features Photoshop has to offer.
Photoshop is now such a ubiquitous brand that, like Google, it has become a verb. Rather than editing images, you Photoshop them. While Adobe must be enjoying the PR benefits of this, it might steer you away from trying other software and, although we are Photoshop fans, we humbly disagree with that line of thinking.
It's worth exploring these Photoshop alternatives because many of them equal Adobe's software in terms of power, producing super-professional results. Others are only a fraction of the price, or even totally free.
1. GIMP
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.It is probably the closest alternative to Adobe Photoshop, at least from those I know. For me personally too complicated but if you know how to use it, you can do many things you can do with Photoshop too. What I also noticed is that it loads very quickly on Linux.
Features
- Painting — Full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone, etc.Sub-pixel sampling for all paint tools for high quality anti-aliasing.Extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool.Supports custom brushes and patterns.
- Advanced Manipulation—Full alpha channel support,Layers and channels,Multiple ,Undo/Redo (limited only by diskspace),Editable text layers,Transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip Selection tools including rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, free, fuzzy ,Foreground extraction tool ,Advanced path tool doing bezier and polygonal selections. ,Transformable paths, transformable selections. Quickmask to paint a selection.
- Advanced scripting capabilities (Scheme, Python, Perl)
- Load and save animations in a convenient frame-as-layer format
- File formats supported include bmp, gif, jpeg, mng, pcx, pdf, png, ps, psd, svg, tiff, tga, xpm, and many others
2. Pixlr
Pixlr® makes it easy to transform everyday images into stunning works of art. Whether you’re applying a quick fix to your photos or adding your personal touch with effects, overlays, or borders, Pixlr has everything you need to make your moments beautiful.
Features
- Fast, powerful, smart, and very simple! The best online photo editor for daily photo editing
- PICTURE COLLAGE MAKER
- REMOVE BACKGROUND
- FILTERS & EFFECTS
3. Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo is a professional, full-featured raster graphics editor. Working in Affinity Photo is always live and you can pan and zoom at 60fps, with live previews and non destructive application..If you could create your own photo editing software, it would work like this. Whether it’s quick corrections, delicate retouching, or immersing yourself in complex fine art with hundreds of layers, Affinity Photo has you covered.
Features
- It provides layer-based editing for a non-destructive workflow. Panorama, HDR merge, 360-degree image editing are very useful for professionals.
- It's very close to the photoshop experience, you can probably do everything that PS do.
- Raw Editing
- HDR Merge
- Panorama Stitching
- Focus Stacking
- Batch Processing
- 360 Image Editing
- PSD Editing
- Unlimited Layers
- Smart Object Support
- Digital Painting
PicMonkey is a photo editing solution that provides creative tools for photo editing and graphic design.Power your brand with photo editing and design
Create scroll-stopping images for Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and more. Ads, logos? Them too.
Features
- Super artsy effects like Edge Sketch and Posterize dial up the drama.
- Tools like Touch Up, Color Changer, and our background remover get the job done right.
- Stunning templates for logos, banners, thumbnails, and more
- 9,000+ graphics & textures
5. Krita
Krita is a professional Free and open source (FOSS) painting program. It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone withith concept art, texture and matte painters, illustrations and comics.Krita is a professional FREE and open source painting program. It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone.
Features
- concept art
- texture and matte painters
- illustrations and comics
6. Fotor Photo Editor
The Fotor online editor is a powerful photo editing and graphic designing tool which offers all major editing functions plus our patented HDR technologies.Free online photo editor for everyone.Free to edit photos with Fotor's photo editor in just a few clicks. It covers all online photo editing tools, so you can crop images, resize images, add text to photos, even make photo collages, and create graphic designs easily.
Features
- Fotor’s online photo editor comes packed with tons of great tools to help you perfect your photos. You can enhance photos, retouch portraits, remove backgrounds, and apply effects. Take a look at some of our most popular photo editing features.
- Amazing photo effects
- Wrinkle remover
- Powerful blemish remover
7. Photopea
Online photo editor, which can work with PSD, XCF and Sketch files (Photoshop, Gimp and Sketch App). Convert between PSD, XCF, JPG, PNG and many other formats.
Features
- Fully supports PSD format with adjustment layers, layer effects, paths, layer masks etc.
- It has most features which Photoshop and its Browser Based.
8. Pixelmator
Pixelmator is a powerful, beautiful, and easy to use image editor. Featuring an elegant and streamlined single-window interface, it puts all the focus on the images you edit, rather than what's around them.Professional image editing tools that anyone can use.
Powerful tools for perfecting your photos.The collection of powerful, nondestructive color adjustments in Pixelmator Pro lets you edit the colors in your photos in any way you want. And with full support for RAW photos, a collection of stunning adjustment presets, and incredible retouching tools, it couldn’t be easier to turn good-looking photos spectacular.
Features
- ML Crop
- Quick Fill
- Stroke with Brush
- full support for RAW photos
9. Corel PaintShop Pro
Enter a world of infinite creativity with the comprehensive photo-editing and graphic design power of PaintShop Pro X8. Accelerate your photo editing with enhanced layers, more precise selection tools, faster brushes and extensive productivity-boosting improvements.
Features
- Powerful effects and editing tools
- Good assortment of vector drawing tools
- Automatic noise removal
- Photoshop-like features at a lower price
10. Paint.NET
Paint.net is a free and very capable image editing software for Windows. Great alternative to Photoshop for people that do not need all the stuff PS offers.
Features
- Free to use. Great application with a simple user interface.
- its free and feature loaded.
- Simple in design, yet comprehensive in features.