Hello, everyone!
If you're a creator, blogger, or website owner, you've probably used Adobe Photoshop at some point in your life.
Even students and other individuals use it a lot for photo editing.
However, the high subscription cost of Photoshop has left many of us scratching our heads and looking for alternatives to the monthly fee.
Today, we'll introduce you to some cost-effective yet powerful alternatives to Photoshop's subscription.
The burden of an Adobe Photoshop subscription
Photoshop has long been a staple in graphic design and image editing, but in recent years it's moved to a subscription model, and the cost of paying every month has become a major concern, especially for freelancers, small creators, and website owners.
"I can't afford to pay for just one month of use, so I'm looking for an alternative!"
For this reason, a number of alternative programs have become popular for those who want to save money but not sacrifice features.
1. Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo is a powerful image editing tool that you can buy once and use for life. It offers a Photoshop-like interface and a wide range of advanced features (layers, filters, brushes, etc.), making it accessible to beginners as well as professionals.
It's known for its fast work speed and stable performance, and can handle even complex image retouching, compositing, and color correction tasks with ease. With a user-friendly UI and regular updates to add the latest features, it's impressive that it's constantly evolving. It also supports a wide range of file formats, making it a great choice for compatibility.
It has a real-time rendering engine for fast processing speeds, even when working with large images, and it's compatible with PSD files. An iPad version is also available, allowing you to make detailed edits on the touchscreen, and it works seamlessly with the desktop version. It's a highly regarded alternative to Photoshop among professional photographers and graphic designers.
It's highly recommended for creatives who want the professional look without the burden of a Photoshop subscription.
In fact, Affinity Photo was initially popular among Apple Mac users, but recently, Windows users have been using it as well.
- Price: $74.00
- OS: macOS, iPad, Windows
2. GIMP
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the leading image editing program in the open source camp. It's been in development since 1995 and has evolved steadily over the years, offering most of the core features of Photoshop.
When I first tried GIMP, I was surprised at how similar the open-source software is to Photoshop. You can edit photos as well as do graphic design work. GIMP still includes many of Photoshop's essential features, including layers and masking.
It supports layer-based editing, advanced filters, a variety of brush tools, automation scripts, and more, and the best part is that you can extend its functionality through the plugin system.
GIMP supports a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, and is very attractive because it offers professional-grade features for free. Recent versions have greatly improved the user interface with support for dark mode and added the ability to edit non-destructive images. The downside is that the initial learning curve is a bit steep, but once you get the hang of it, it's more than capable of handling professional tasks.
- Price: Free
- OS: macOS, Windows, Linux
3. Krita
Krita is an open-source, digital painting and illustration tool that's completely free to use. It specializes in creating creative works such as comics, illustrations, and concept art, and its wide range of brushes, textures, and layer system gives you editing capabilities that rival Photoshop.
It also supports animation, allowing you to create frame-by-frame animations, and features vector layers and masks. Tablet support is excellent, allowing you to fully utilize pressure-sensitive and tilt features. More recently, AI-powered image creation and editing has been added, allowing you to do even more.
Beyond the community, Krita is an incredibly powerful photo editing software with hundreds of brushes and a brush customization engine, vector and text features for comic strips, wraparound mode for seamless repeating images and patterns, and a powerful resource manager that lets you import tools from other artists.
There are also little features like the fact that you can scroll through sliders with the trackpad and there are helpful tooltips to help you find the right tool.
In fact, it's more of a drawing tool than a photo editor, so it's missing certain features, such as a small number of photo filters and no auto-repair tool. However, it does support opening and saving PSD files.
Along with an intuitive interface, it has a lot of user-customizable options, so you can tailor your work environment to suit you. Thanks to its active community support, it's easy to find plugins and tutorials, and it's constantly being updated with more features. If you're interested in digital art, it's a great alternative.
- Price: Free
- OS: macOS, Windows, Linux
4. Pixlr
Pixlr is a web-based image editing tool that lets you edit quickly online without complicated installations.
It offers two versions, Pixlr Editor and Pixlr X, to help you with everything from basic to advanced editing. The user interface is intuitive and simple, making it accessible to beginners, and the wide range of filters, effects, and layers make it a great Photoshop alternative.
The interface is simpler than Photoshop or GIMP, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - the workflow is streamlined and intuitive. You can drag and drop photos from your PC or add URLs, then use the familiar one-click filters and sliders to adjust the image.
Considering it's a web app, Pixlr has surprisingly robust layer support. This is one of the reasons it's considered one of the best Photoshop alternatives, but it's still missing some important features. For example, custom brushes don't exist yet, although they are planned for future development.
It's free to use, but there are paid options for those who want to remove ads and add extra features. It's cloud-based, so you get the convenience and speed of working anywhere, anytime. It's an easily accessible graphic editing tool on the web that will help you save time and money.
- Price: Free
- OS: Web-based, so it works on any OS
5. Paint.NET
Paint.NET is a free image and photo editing program for Windows that is simple yet powerful.
It offers an intuitive user interface and a wide range of basic tools (layers, effects, filters, etc.), making it perfect for those who find Photoshop's complexity overwhelming.
The fast speed and lightweight nature of the program makes it easy to run, and it's optimized for simple retouching tasks and everyday image editing.
The plug-in system allows you to extend its functionality, and there are many community-created plug-ins available for free. It's especially optimized for Windows, so it uses fewer system resources and performs reliably. It is especially recommended for beginners who find it difficult to learn complex features.
It's easy to use and free, making it a great alternative for beginners and intermediate users alike.
- Price: Free
- OS: Windows
6. Snapseed
Snapseed is a mobile-only photo editing app developed by Google. It offers professional-grade editing tools and over 29 filters and effects, and is particularly good at selective adjustments. It also supports editing RAW files, so you can work on professional photos.
Optimized for a touch interface, it's intuitive to use and offers a variety of tools for precise adjustments. The brush tool is particularly good at making small adjustments, and the auto-save feature keeps your work safe.
The fact that it's free and offers professional-grade features is a big plus.
It's officially only available for mobile, but you can use it on Windows OS with an emulator like App player.
- Price: Free
- OS: Android, iOS
7. Pixelmator Pro
Pixelmator Pro is a powerful, beautiful, and easy-to-use image editor built specifically for Mac.
With a wide range of professional-grade, non-destructive image editing tools, Pixelmator Pro lets you get the best out of your photos, create gorgeous compositions and designs, and draw, paint, apply stunning effects, design beautiful text, and edit images just about anything you can imagine.
Thanks to its intuitive and accessible design, Pixelmator Pro is easy to use, whether you're just getting started with image editing or a seasoned pro.
Image editing enhanced by machine learning:
- Intelligently improve your photos using ML enhancements based on machine learning algorithms trained on millions of professional photos.
- Automatically give descriptive names to added layers
- Intelligently level images with horizon detection in the crop tool
- Magically remove objects and realistically recreate image areas with the Repair tool
- Make accurate selections quickly and easily with the Quick Selection tool
We can't wait to see what they do now that they've been acquired by Apple.
- Price: $66.99 ($14.99 for iOS app)
- OS: macOS, iOS
8. Corel PaintShop Pro
Corel PaintShop Pro is a powerful image editing and retouching program that is popular with many users due to its low price compared to Photoshop and its one-time purchase license.
With a wide range of filters, layers, and effects, as well as AI-powered features, it makes photo retouching and compositing quick and easy. With an intuitive and user-friendly UI, it's easy to use, even for beginners, thanks to its tutorials and help. Regular updates and customer support keep it stable, and it's great for design work as well as photo editing.
It's cheaper than Photoshop, can do all the main things you can do in Photoshop, and even supports Adobe's market-leading PSD file format. You can work with original camera files, vector graphics, and layers just like in Photoshop, plus it supports plugins and lets you draw directly on your Windows tablet screen.
This program is highly recommended for users who want to experience a wide range of features with a single investment.
- Price: $89.00
- OS: Windows
Did you know. Vivoldi also offers an online photo editor.
It's free for anyone to use, and it's easy and convenient to use on desktop PCs and mobile devices.
These are some of the best alternatives to Photoshop, each with their own features, pros, and cons, so make sure to consider your purpose and the features you need. In particular, programs such as GIMP, Affinity Photo, and Pixelmator Pro are professional tools and offer features that make them a great alternative to Photoshop.
Thank you.
