Updated: Oct 17, 2023 By: Dessign Team
Are you looking for the best free Photoshop alternatives? If you are just a beginner or student and don't want to spend money on premium Photoshop or image editing software, we put together a great list of the top best Photoshop alternatives for any graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, and creative artists looking for something more accessible and less expensive to use.
Photoshop is the industry standard when it comes to image editing, but you do not always have to use Photoshop to edit photos or create image collages.
Photoshop is the industry standard when it comes to image editing, but you do not always have to use Photoshop to edit photos or create image collages, there are many other great software both downloadable and online to help you easier and simple edit your images.
A creative cloud subscription can get a bit expensive for beginners or even anyone needed just to change a few images or add simple photo effects to your images. Maybe you just want to resize some photos and add text to them, then you don't need to pay $20.99/month or for the light Photoshop version $9.99/mo if you can use a simple Photoshop alternative and achieve similar results.
Our list is full of easier, cheaper, simpler alternatives to Photoshop. Best places to get your free stock photos so you can edit them in your free photo editor software, or if you need some free illustrations for your web project.
Free Photoshop Alternatives for Anyone on a Budget
If you searching for the best alternative to your standard Photoshop, we search for the best ones that have as many cool features as Photoshop itself to help you get the most out of the free one.
Just because the software both for mac and windows or online mode is free doesn't mean that they are not as good as photoshop, some of them could be even better and more user-friendly for beginners.
1. Canva
- Platform: Browser, iOS
- Rating: 4.9/5.0
- Ease of Use: Easy
Launched in 2013, Canva is an online design and publishing tool with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere.
Canva is the best free fully editing photo retouching software for the creative community, with photo manipulation, to the color picker, you can design and create the most beautiful brochures, business cards, flyers or anything you can imagine.
Canva is also great for creating online images for banners, ads, and Facebook banner ads with just a few clicks any beginner can create the most beautiful graphic designs for free.
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Free plan forever
- User-friendly
- Multiple pre-installed templates
Cons:
- Not as many filters as Photoshop
- No RAW filter
- No PSD format support
- Limited flexibility
2. Pixlr
- Platform: Browser, iOS, Android
- Rating: 4.7/5.0
- Ease of Use: Hard
Pixlr the Online Photo Editor very similar to photoshop that lets you edit photos and create great designs right in your browser for Free. Experience next-level, intuitive photo editing and graphical design with AI-powered tools for quick yet professional edits. Our editor opens almost any image format such as PSD (Photoshop), PXD, JPEG, PNG (transparent), WebP, SVG and more. Start from an empty canvas or select one of our professionally crafted templates.
Say goodbye to boring and repetitive editing tasks with AI design tools. One-click is all it takes to remove backgrounds perfectly from your photos, cut out every strand of hair, and more! Let AI and Machine Learning take your photo editing and background removal to a new level!
Pros:
- Easy to use
- HTML5 ready
- User-friendly
- History tools included
Cons:
- Not as many features as Photoshop
- No RAW filter
- Need internet access
- Slow at times
3. Gimp
- Platform: Windows, Linux, macOS
- Rating: 4.8/5.0
- Ease of Use: Medium
GIMP is a cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows, and more operating systems. It is free software, you can change its source code and distribute your changes. This is the most popular photoshop alternative software, very well known in the design industry as the open-source of photoshop, with so many similar features as photoshop for free. Gimp is also close to Photoshop that is free to use for personal or commercial use.
Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools to get your job done. You can further enhance your productivity with GIMP thanks to many customization options and 3rd party plugins.
GIMP provides the tools needed for high-quality image manipulation. From retouching to restoring to creative composites, the only limit is your imagination. The file format support ranges from the common likes of JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, and TIFF to special use formats such as the multi-resolution and multi-color-depth Windows icon files. The architecture allows extending GIMP’s format capabilities with a plug-in.
Pros:
- Free forever
- support image slicing
- History tools included
- lots of features
Cons:
- hard to navigate
- No RAW filter
- Complicated UI
- Slow at times
4. Sumo App
- Platform: Browser
- Rating: 4.9/5.0
- Ease of Use: Medium
Draw images, create music, edit videos, enhance photos, develop new apps and build 3D models. Online apps, tutorials, and community to inspire you to the next level. No need to install anything on your device, all you need is an internet connection and dive into our creative world! The perfect alternative to photoshop and everything is online, super easy to use with so many widgets and features, the interface is very similar to photoshop so you will feel as if you using free photoshop.
Paint your masterpiece. Write a song. Direct your movie. Build your new home. Share them to your friends and family or receive feedbacks from our community! Get feedback and new ideas from the users of our community. Share your work with millions of people all around the world ready to help you refine your techniques and abilities.
Pros:
- Good UI
- Similar to Photoshop layout
- History tools included
- lots of features
Cons:
- on page ads
- No RAW filter
- No slice, or spot healing tool
- Slow at times
5. PhotoScape X
- Platform: Windows, macOS
- Rating: 4.7/5.0
- Ease of Use: Medium
Everything you need to edit photos, Fun and Easy Photo Editor for beginners and professionals looking for the best free photoshop as an alternative.
PhotoScape X is an all-in-one photo editing software that provides photo-related features such as Photo Viewer, Editor, Cut Out, Batch, Collage, Combine, Create GIF, Color Picker, Screen Capture, RAW images and More.
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- Customizable interface
- History tools included
- lots of features
Cons:
- No built-in effects
- No RAW filter
- No slice, or spot healing tool
- Slow at times
6. Photoshop Express Free
- Platform: Windows, macOS
- Rating: 4.9/5.0
- Ease of Use: Easy
Photoshop Express gives you everything you need to quickly edit and transform images so they stand out on social and everywhere else.
And with the option to add premium features, you can make advanced edits in a snap.
Polish your shots with intelligent Photoshop tools that take care of complex tasks like cutouts, dehaze, and noise reduction. Try out fun features that let you automatically generate scrapbooks and create custom stickers from your favorite shots.
Edit, collage, and mix images with multiple layers and create something new without ever leaving the app. Upgrade to Photoshop Express with Premium features to make advanced healing edits, work with RAW images, use HSL sliders, and more.
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- Similar to Photoshop layout
- HSL sliders
- lots of features
Cons:
- No built-in effects
- No RAW filter
- Mostly for mobile use
- no PSD support
7. Darktable
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS
- Rating: 4.8/5.0
- Ease of Use: Medium
darktable is an open-source photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.
darktable edits your images non-destructively all the way through its pipeline. Your original image is never modified! Professional color management features ensure fidelity all the way to print and GPU accelerated processing means you can speed up your workflow using your video card.
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- Supports Windows, OS, and Linux
- RAW filter support
- lots of features
Cons:
- No built-in effects
- crashes often
- no PSD support
8. PhotoPos Pro
- Platform: Windows, macOS
- Rating: 4.8/5.0 Stars
- Ease of Use: Easy
Photo Pos Pro – Complete photo editing suite supports everything you'll need to enhance photos and create stunning artworks if you looking for something easier than photoshop and free.
Manipulate Photos Smoothly & Easily – Convert Any image into stunning artwork, easily create, edit, enhance, print, and manipulate your digital photos and computer graphics and easily create eye-catching graphics
With +10,000,000 Downloads, Photo Pos Pro became one of the most popular photo editors around the world! Version 3 has free and premium photo editing features offers users a wide variety of possibilities in the fields of Image Enhancing and Image Editing and in the field of Computer Graphics Design.
Using the editor you can perform various tasks, from simple basic tasks to complex tasks; you can edit existing images, create new works based on existing images, create new works from scratch and more.
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- Similar to Photoshop layout
- RAW files support
- lots of tutorials
Cons:
- No built-in effects
- Limited export files
- Slow at times
- no PSD support
9. Krita
- Platform: Windows, Linux, iOS
- Rating: 4.7/5.0
- Ease of Use: Medium
Krita is a professional FREE and open-source painting program. It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone. The Krita project was started by the KDE community in 1998. Krita is still part of the KDE community: all Krita contributors are KDE community members!
An intuitive user interface that stays out of your way. The dockers and panels can be moved and customized for your specific workflow. Once you have your setup, you can save it as your own workspace. You can also create your own shortcuts for commonly used tools.
Over 100 professionally made brushes that come preloaded. These brushes give a good range of effects so you can see the variety of brushes that Krita has to offer.
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- pre-installed templates
- RAW files support
- Supports PSD files
Cons:
- No built-in effects
- No history toolbar
- No RAW filter
- Can be slow at times
10. Photopea
- Platform: Browser
- Rating: 4.6/5.0
- Ease of Use: Easy
Photopea is a web-based raster graphics editor used for image editing, making illustrations, web design or converting between different image formats. Photopea is advertising-supported software. It is compatible with multiple web browsers, including Opera, Edge, Chrome, and Firefox.
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- Similar to Photoshop layout
- Supports PSD
- lots of tutorials
Cons:
- Display ads
- Limited export files
- Slow at times
- Needs internet/browser
11. Paint.net
- Platform: Windows, iOS
- Rating: 4.7/5.0
- Ease of Use: Medium
Paint.NET is image and photo editing software for PCs that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo special effects and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft and is now maintained and developed by Rick Brewster. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool.
Pros:
- User-friendly for beginners
- Similar to Photoshop layout
- Layer & files
- lots of tutorials and support
Cons:
- Outdated UI
- No PSD support
- Slow at times
- Only for Windows
