Photoshop Alternatives

Adobe Photoshop serves as a professional raster graphics editor for Windows and macOS, handling advanced image editing, retouching, and digital art. Users praise its extensive feature set for graphics and design, though many complain about high pricing compared to other editors.

GIMP tops the rankings as the leading Photoshop alternative, offering broad image-editing and retouching tools completely free and open-source. Many users switch to GIMP specifically to escape Photoshop's cloud licensing and subscription model. Affinity Photo ranks second with its polished interface and one-time purchase model, repeatedly highlighted as a cost advantage over subscription pricing. Luminar Neo brings AI tools like GenErase and GenExpand plus focus stacking and HDR merging for photographer-centric workflows.

Krita ranks third, focusing on digital painting with advanced brush control and animation support for artists. The alternatives landscape splits between pro photo editors and art-first painting apps, with Photopea standing out as a free, install-free option with PSD support and a familiar interface.

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For open source transparency, GIMP and Krita lead with community-driven development and no proprietary licensing restrictions. Linux users have native options in GIMP, Krita, and MyPaint without relying on Windows or macOS-only tools. Windows-only picks include Paint.NET and Corel PaintShop Pro for desktop editing with layers, effects, and selection tools.

Web-based editors like Photopea, Pixlr, and Sumo Paint work in browsers when you can't install software on school or locked-down computers. Users avoiding subscriptions can choose Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer for predictable one-time licensing. For PSD workflows, Photopea, Affinity Photo, and Pixelmator open Photoshop-format documents to maintain collaboration compatibility. iPad workflows benefit from Affinity Photo, Pixelmator, and Pixlr for editing on tablets rather than desktop-only setups.

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Alternatives list

  1. Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard

    CameraBag Photo has the advanced tools you need to make your images look just how you want, but in an interface that makes it incredibly easy to re-use the styles you develop as custom filters. Or to start with existing presets to emulate classic film stock, or to batch apply...

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • iPhone
     
  2. Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard

    Ultimate Paint is a full-featured 32-bit Windows graphics program for image creation, viewing and manipulation.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application types

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
  3. Art Text icon
     10 likes
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    Art Text is graphic design software for Mac tuned for creating text effect and text style-based graphics. The app contains a multitude of text design presets and effects to help you create photo captions, logos, flyer headings, presentations.

    Cost / License

    • Pay once
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  4. Phoduit icon
     1 like
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    Phoduit is a non-destructive photo editor with a node-based user interface. Rapidly refine and retouch your photos, batch process, develop RAW images and more.

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  5. PixaFlux icon
     11 likes
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    PixaFlux is a node based image processing application. PixaFlux creates and edits images in a non destructive way, using a node graph to organize the workflow without restrictions of size, position or color mode.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
  6. Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard

    CodedColor PhotoStudio by 1STEIN is a Windows photo viewer and editor to organize, edit, resize, reformat, correct, compare, sort, watermark, annotate and print digital images, and to edit EXIF and IPTC data in digital photos.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
  7. Fix Picture icon
     6 likes
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    web 2.0 image tool for converting images online and apply effects like crop, resize, filters ... have a try it's free !

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  8. LiveQuartz icon
     2 likes
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    LiveQuartz is aimed at all people that need a photo retouching tool to easy manipulate layers, transparency and non destructive filters.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  9. LingoScreen icon
     1 like
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    LingoScreen is an AI-powered image localization tool that automatically translates text within images while perfectly preserving the original design and background.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium (Pay once or Subscription)
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Software as a Service (SaaS)
     
  10. FenoPhoto icon
     1 like
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    With just one-click you can enhance and remove most common defects of any digital photo.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Android
     
  11. Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard

    Oloneo® PhotoEngine™ is the only HDR and Raw processing software offering digital photographers full control over light and exposure in real-time, as if they were still behind the lens.

    Cost / License

    • Pay once
    • Proprietary

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
     
  12. SmartDeblur icon
     4 likes
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    Restoration of distorted images is one of the most interesting and important problems of image processing - from the theoretical, as well as from the practical point of view. There are especial cases: blurring due to incorrect focus and blurring due to movement - and these very...

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • PortableApps.com
     
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