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.
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.
Seashore is an open source image editor for Mac OS. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMPs technology and uses the same native file format.
Luminance HDR is a graphical user interface (based on the Qt5 toolkit) that provides a complete workflow for HDR imaging.
CremaStudio is a fast, native image editor for macOS - open PSD and RAW files, edit with full layers, masks, and non-destructive adjustments, then export to open formats.
We believe artists deserve the best possible tools and we are determined to give it to them. The goal with Leonardo is to make the best painting application ever.
A fast, lightweight raster image editor for Windows. Features layers, blend modes, GPU-accelerated filters, gradients, mesh warp, brushes, selection tools, adjustments, animated GIF/APNG support, and a built-in Rhai scripting engine. Single portable executable, no install required.
GoDaddy Studio (formerly Over) is the easy-to-use social media content creator, photo editor, story maker, and graphic design app. Create stand-out social posts, Instagram stories, graphics, logo designs, Link in Bio sites and so much more — no design skills necessary!
Edit and manage photos on Windows with cropping, resizing, rotating, filters, stickers, drawing, collage layouts, organization tools, and support for JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP. Features frames, blur, automatic enhancement, and a simple interface for easy editing.
An intuitive online design tool offering advanced features like animation, video editing, and over 150,000 templates. Access a library of 70 million+ assets including vectors, photos, and sounds. Ideal for social media, marketing, and design projects of all kinds.
Paintstorm Studio is created for professional digital painting. And a major role in this program play the brushes. We did our best so that you can easily and quickly adjust the brushes suitable for your painting style.
Stop paying €120/year for Remove.bg. Orenvo Pro does everything locally on your Windows PC—no internet, no subscription, unlimited use.
VanceAI provides AI enhancing, upscaling, sharpening, denoising, background removing, and more, with only one click to free your hands from complicated photo processing. All AI tools are available across Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.
Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, formerly Xara Xtreme, is a fast graphics software with versatile illustration tools and advanced photo management. It streamlines creative tasks, allowing users to retouch images, create social media posts, and design website graphics in one...
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Great alternative for digital painting. Very Similar UI, better brush settings and lightweight. More importantly it's very inexpensive!