Best Photoshop Alternatives If You Want to Avoid Adobe

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Photoshop is a program that has become synonymous with photo editing – so much so that people use its name as a verb – but given the recent furore over the terms and conditions attached to Adobe products and how content stored in the cloud can be used to AI, you may be looking for something else.

Adobe is currently struggling to clarify its approach to owning content and AI training data, but even if you’re happy with the company’s policies, Photoshop will still cost you at least $9.99 per month. In an age where we’ve all already signed up for a ton of digital subscriptions, it’s worth thinking twice about.

So, here are some of the best Photoshop alternatives to consider. All of them are either free or cheaper than Adobe’s flagship photo editor.

GIMP

GIMP has many features. 1 credit

GIMP , the GNU image management program, has been around since 1995, and you’ll often find it at the top of lists of Photoshop alternatives. It’s completely free, open source, and has a wide range of features and plugins to experiment with. If you can do something in Photoshop, you can often do it in GIMP, and usually in a similar way.

The program’s layout is also similar to Photoshop, from the colors to the floating panels, and that makes the switch a little easier for Adobe suite users. With support for layers and layer masks, advanced tools such as fuzzy selection and gradient fill, it is a comprehensive image editor that supports an active community of loyal developers and users.

  • GIMP , free for Windows and macOS.

Photo peas

Photopea works right in your browser tab. 1 credit

In recent years, web apps have become almost as capable as their desktop counterparts, and in the image editing category , Photopea is one of the best. In addition to a variety of tools covering brushes, shapes, text, retouching and more, there’s support for layers and layer masks, as well as a variety of Photoshop-style filters.

Photopea clearly used Photoshop as inspiration for everything from the web app’s layout to its menu names, so those ditching Adobe products should feel right at home. There’s seamless support for PSD files and cloud storage services, and a $5/month subscription removes ads, gives you more cancellation options, and adds AI images.

  • Photopea , free with ads or $5/month online

Paint.net

Paint.net is a well-established image editor for Windows. 1 credit

Like GIMP, Paint.net has been around for a long time, first appearing in 2004 as a computer science project. Since then, it’s a robust and functional free image editor for Windows users, with many features also available in Photoshop: filters and effects, layer manipulation, and all the basic drawing and editing tools you need.

While you can do a lot with Paint.net, it’s also easy to use and accessible for those new to image editing, with all the options you need—from colors to zoom levels to object alignment—appearing in obvious places when you need them. You can also do a lot by adapting the interface to suit your needs.

Pixel editor

Use Pixlr Editor wherever you have Internet access. 1 credit

Another web-based photo editing suite, Pixlr Editor , launches quickly from a browser tab and includes core Photoshop features like layer management, advanced selection, image restoration and retouching, and a range of filters ranging from glows and color washes to shadows. and mosaics. . The online app is capable of some advanced photo editing techniques.

The interface works very well, allowing you to undo changes you don’t like at any time, and giving you easy access to all the key tools you’ll need. Premium subscriptions are available starting at $0.99 per month if you want to remove ads and get features like AI image creation. There is also a simpler web app called Pixlr Express that may be more suitable for you.

Crete

Krita specializes in digital art as well as photo editing. 1 credit

Krita is more similar to Adobe Illustrator than Adobe Photoshop, although it includes so many great features that we included it here, as well as many photo editing and digital painting techniques. You get plenty of selection, drawing, and image adjustment tools to play with, all in an elegant and intuitive interface.

What’s also impressive is how fast Krita works, so you’re not slowed down waiting for panels to open or switch from one tool to another. There’s full layer control for your images, a variety of filters and effects, and greater flexibility in how program elements are positioned on screen and how the app behaves.

  • Krita , free for Windows and macOS.

Close photo

There is a one-time fee for Affinity Photo. Photo: Affinity Photo

One paid option we’ll mention here is Affinity Photo : at the time of writing, it’s available for $34.99, which, crucially, is a one-time fee rather than a subscription. Unfortunately, there’s no free trial, but you get a lot for your money, including hundreds of tools and enough features to create just about any digital photo effect you want.

With full layer support, the ability to create your own brushes (in addition to the extensive library of built-in brushes), and comprehensive RAW processing in addition to all the usual features you’d expect to find, it’s a choice for power users and professionals looking to break out of the Adobe ecosystem.

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