Adobe Photoshop is one of the most popular, used and revolutionary photo editing software ever invented. Adobe Photoshop is used by beginners, mid-levels and advanced level professionals to create and edit amazing set of images. Filmora is considered as best video editing software by professionals and just like that Adobe Photoshop is best image editing software available.
Not just photographers but many other individual professionals do use Photoshop in day to day life. Professionals or Individuals like YouTubers use Photoshop to create videos based on still images or to create Thumbnail images, Social media or digital marketing executives also use Photoshop for social media or Advertisement banners. Any professional who is into website design often uses Photoshop on daily bases as well.
As per Adobe facts report over 90% creative professionals use Photoshop around the world. Adobe Photoshop is very popular photo editing tool due to it’s amazing features like selection panel, wide area of canvas, Easy structure of layers, Flexible tools from selection panel, Easy user interface, Lots of pre-installed shapes and designs, Drag & Drop feature (Integration with file manager) and many advanced features.
Adobe Photoshop has an amazing syncing feature as well which means you can start editing any photo on your iPad and finish editing on desktop. Adobe Photoshop will automatically save your work to the cloud so, you can start working on it from anywhere.
Adobe Photoshop do provides 7 Days free trial to creative professionals and it’s subscription will cost you $20.99 / month. In this subscription users will get complete Photoshop setup for Desktop and iPad, Adobe Fresco, Step-by-Step Tutorials and the most important thing – 100 GB cloud storage space. Adobe Photoshop do have different subscription for teachers and students as well which will cost $19.99 / Month. In this subscription user will get 20+ desktop and mobile apps, 100 GB cloud storage space, portfolio website and premium fonts as well.
As mentioned Adobe Photoshop subscription is quite costly and not all can manage this amount. Adobe Photoshop is still the number #1 choice for all the creative professionals but due to it’s cost they often look for closest free Photoshop alternatives.
We have used and reviewed best possible Photoshop alternatives and filtered some of the finest image editing tools which can be used to edit images easily. If any creative professional, students or any individual don’t afford to buy the subscription of Adobe Photoshop then try free Photoshop alternative which we listed below.
Best Free Photoshop Alternatives to Use in 2020
GIMP
Available for Linux, Windows and Mac
GIMP is best free Adobe Photoshop alternative any professional can use on their desktop. GIMP photo editing software is compatible with Linux, Mac and Windows (Version 7+) OS. Full form of GIMP is GNU Image Manipulation Program so, the naming of this software is quite easy to remember for it’s users.
GIMP Image editing software is open source and free software which anyone can use. Professionals from different field including graphic designer, photographer, illustrator or marketing executive can also use this software.
There are many customizations also available in GIMP as well which enhance your productivity too. GIMP software also has the multiple programming language support including C, C++, Perl, Python, Scheme and more.
GIMP Image editing software has everything which allows you to edit high quality photo from retouching to restoring to creative composites. GIMP also supports many file formats including JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, TIFF and many more.
GIMP software also has the many tutorials and docs which helps you to understand the tool better so you can create some awesome graphics and images. Biggest advantage of using GIMP software is that it supports rulers and guides and also supports image slicing too.
Many users stops using GIMP at the start because it will take some time to get used of it and finding some important tools is also quite challenging for users.
Supported Platforms
- GNU/Linux
- Microsoft Windows (XP SP3, Vista, 7, 8)
- Mac OS X (10.6 and newer)
- Sun OpenSolaris
- FreeBSD
Krita
Available for Linux, Mac and Windows
Price – Free
File Support: PNG, BMP, GIMP, TIF, TGA, JPEG, WEBP, PSD and more
Krita photo editing software can be considered as the best free alternative of Photoshop because the layout and user interface of this software is just like Adobe Photoshop. Features of Krita image editing software are quite rich and very much like Adobe Photoshop so, users will get familiar with this tool quite fast.
Before coming to this article you might have visited several online articles or Q & A forums where you will notice that Krita is the highly recommended Image editing software and photoshop alternative by the creative professionals and individuals.
Krita has very clean and flexible user interface which means you won’t find any disturbance in main canvas area. In Krita user interface the dockers and panels are easily movable so, you can adjust them according to your comfort.
One of the most important benefit and advantage of Krita software is that users can also create their own shortcuts for some commonly used tools. Krita image editing tool has both dark and light color themes according to user’s taste.
Krita software has over 100 professionally made brushes which give users a good range of effects in their images. Krita also has brush stabilizer which means if your hands are shaky then just add a stabilizer to your brush for smooth movement.
Krita also has the PSD support which means you can open PSD files to Krita software as well. Krita has all the training docs and educational material available which means if you want to learn more about Krita tools then you can take help of online docs as well.
Photo Pos Pro
Available for Windows
Price – Free
Photo Pos Pro is free premium photo editing software / tool which downloaded over 1 Million times worldwide. Photo Pos Pro is advanced photo editing software with some amazing features to push your artworks and creativity.
Photo Pos Pro has some of the amazing tools and features like Filters, Layers, Masks, Curves, Scripts, Effects, Brushes and etc. Photo Pos Pro image editing tool allows users to remove, erase and replace backgrounds, remove unwanted objects from photos, fix poor photos, set frame and create collages, provides advanced photo effects, amazing text effects and many more.
Photo Pos Pro has easy to use and simple user interface so if it’s perfect for beginners to start editing photos. Photo Pos Pro tool also provides amazing plug-ins and extension packs which give your creativity a new angle. Photo Pos Pro extension packs contains great new frames, styles, brushes, collages, plug-ins, scripts and etc
Photo Pos Pros extension includes love collages & frames, wedding collages, Christmas and new year collages, baby collages and many more. Photo Pos Pro is not just about the Photoshop alternative but it’s one of the best free image editor available online.
Photo Pos Pros software also has some online tutorial and detailed guide for basic image editing like change photo depth (Zoom In and Zoom Out), Make look skinnier, make someone look taller, fix poor photos, remove red eye and many more.
Pixlr
File Support: JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, and PXD (layered pixlr image)
Platforms: Web (Available for all OS)
If you don’t have high configuration system and still want to edit high quality photos then don’t worry Pixlr is perfect Photoshop alternative for you. The only difference is that Pixlr is an online photo editor tool and is very reliable.
One of the biggest benefits of Pixlr image editing tool is that it is compatible for every OS and platforms as it’s an online tool. If you want to edit photos on the go and very quickly then you should definitely try Pixlr online tool as it allows you to do basic adjustments quickly like vignettes, color correction, saturation, contrast, and frames.
If your desktop or laptop doesn’t have any much space to install any extra software and program then Pixlr is perfect image editing tool for you. Pixlr online photo editing tool has some of the photoshop elements too like it supports layers as well which is quite hard to find in an online tool.
The only disadvantage of Pixlr tool is that you need constant internet connection as it’s an online tool. Pixlr has 2 main online editors right now – Pixlr X (Express) and Pixlr E (Editor). Both online editor has it’s own advantages and list of features for it’s users.
Pixlr do have some elements and features like Photoshop but it do lack some of the important features like Pen tool. It doesn’t have rulers and guides either.
Paint.net
Price – Free
Paint.net was originally developed or created as alternative to MS Paint but somehow it converted into simple photo editor tool. Paint.net is compatible for Windows OS only and it depends on Microsoft .Net Framework 4.7.2 so, if your system doesn’t have this framework installed then don’t worry Paint.net will install it automatically.
Paint.net Image editing tool has very simple and innovative user interface which will surely help beginners to edit photos fluently. Paint.net uses tabbed document interface which allows users to navigate simple and fast. As per Paint.net their tool is the fastest image editor compare to other available image editing software or tools.
Users can also download some extensions in Paint.net tool to give more versatility. Paint.net image editing tool has large user base thus you will find plenty of online tutorials and docs as well. Each and every update on Paint.net is absolutely free and it will also contain amazing new features, bug fixes, performance improvements and many other things.
In Paint.net many other special effects are also included to enhance and smoothen the images including blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion and noise are also included. Paint.net is very powerful tool includes all advanced features to edit and enhance the image.
Most of the creative professional makes some mistakes while editing the photos. Paint.net has the best feature which allows users to see the history of each task or edit on the image. This means users can easily identify their mistake on right time and redo it.
Paint.net is absolutely free image editing software and users don’t need to spend a single penny behind this software.
Photoscape X
Photoscape X is again one of the best free Photoshop alternative users can try to edit images. Photoscape X is available on both Windows and Mac operating system. PhotoScape X has also paid version with some advanced features.
PhotoScape is complete photo editing software with some amazing and cool features including Photo Viewer, Editor, Cut Out, Batch, Collage, Combine, Create GIF, Color Picker, Screen Capture, RAW images and More.
PhotoScape X has some cool variety of filters, effects and adjustments which makes your photo standout. PhotoScape X editor has over 1000 filters and effects, different frames, objects, advanced brushes and tools and some more features like Flip, resize, crop, circular crop, masking the photo and many more.
PhotoScape X tool has some of the identical and very useful tools from Photoshop as well. PhotoScape do have Magic Eraser, Lasso and Brush tool which means users can easily remove the background from an image.
If any user wanted to create cool collage then they can definitely try PhotoScape to merge multiple photos to create amazing collage photo.
PhotoScape image editing tool keep releasing updates with new features and tools every time. PhotoScape has quite unusual user interface which takes time for users to understand the complete layout and used to it.
Photopea
Photopea is one of the most advanced online photo editor with important features similar to Adobe Photoshop. If you are looking for identical layout and user interface design of Photoshop then you should use Photopea only.
Creative professionals can do both easy and advanced image editing tasks on this online image editor. If you are beginner and want to do some basic tasks like resizing images or minor editing then you can easily do it. Photopea allows doing advanced tasks as well such as webpage design, creating illustrations, processing photos and many more.
As we already mentioned that Photopea is online image editing tool which means it will be compatible on all platforms including Linux, Windows and Mac OS. Photopea online image editor supports various file formats including PSD which is quite useful for the creators.
One of the biggest advantages of Photopea is that it allows layer editing on PSD files. Photopea supports both raster and vector graphics. The only problem with this tool is that users will see the ads as it’s an online platform and to remove those ads you need to buy the subscription which will cost you $9/month.
