Adobe Photoshop is a very powerful image manipulation program and you could say that it is one of the best for this purpose. Not all professionals have the resources to be able to afford the use of paid software from the first moment. The initiation in the world of photography is truly expensive, since a reflex camera with good lenses without a deep knowledge and good to manipulate the images that are captured by the camera will never exploit the true potential that can be extracted from a photography passed through a photo improvement and optimization program such as Photoshop.
For all those who are looking for a free alternative to Adobe Photoshop today we are going to present the best alternatives , mainly free, although for all professionals who do not mind paying for the software we will also bring you payment alternatives for programs similar to Photoshop.
Download Photoshop free to test its photo editing features before installing one of these alternatives.
Free alternatives to Photoshop
Not because a paid software makes it better, although some of the functionalities may not be or it is possible that what is easier to do in Photoshop is not in other programs, since they are more limited.
One of the most important features of Photoshop is that it offers direct user support while in free software you depend on the community although some programs like GIMP have an excellent community behind and a lot of documentation so it will not be so difficult to do the same as in the payment program but completely free of charge.
GIMP
GNU Image Manipulation Program is the most outstanding photo editor within free software as an alternative to Adobe Photoshop, since it has an interface very similar to that used by Adobe Photoshop and covers all the basic needs required for photo retouching.
Although all the basic needs are covered, many of the functionalities that Adobe Photoshop has are not present in GIMP without additional plugins such as CMYK color support. Furthermore, functionalities that are simpler in Photoshop are made a little more complex in GIMP due to the lack of so much functionality that is integrated by the paid program.
In terms of RAM consumption, GIMP wins, although its performance in Linux is much higher than other platforms, so there is a performance advantage using Photoshop in Windows compared to GIMP. Regarding its price, we are talking about a program that is 100% free and therefore is totally free and has support for Linux, Windows and MacOS.
To conclude, we can affirm that Photoshop is better in everything, but that GIMP is very close to it, making it the best free alternative and more than enough for most professionals. Although if you plan to use Photoshop in the future, we recommend starting directly with the payment program, since changing from one to the other requires a similar but different learning process although the difficulty curve is very similar.
Autodesk Krita
Krita is a free multiplatform software that, thanks to its friendly interface, becomes an excellent alternative to Adobe Photoshop, since it has native support for the PSD formats used by Adobe.
It covers all the basic needs of editing and correcting photographs, although the main focus of this program is aimed at artists who draw. It supports working with layers, masks and has a full color palette, although its drawing assistant and its resource manager stand out.
Paint.net
Paint.net is free software only available for Windows, although it has a similar application for Linux / MacOS called Pinta. It has the advantage that it is very easy to use with a much simpler learning curve than GIMP or Photoshop.
The forums and their community are very active, so getting guides and tutorials for using this program is a simple task. It supports plugins to be able to add more functionalities but it has a problem that is not solved with additional extensions and that is that it only allows manipulating one image at a time.
SumoPhoto
SumoPhoto requires registration to download it, although it has a free online version for personal use with limited functionality. It has an educational version with a monthly price of 2 euros that allows you to download the application to use it locally and unlimited cloud storage. The professional version has a cost of 4 euros per month that grants commercial use and access to the professional community.
RawTherapee
RawTherapee is cross-platform and does not have many tutorials, but it is perfect for basic beginner photo editing that also works very well with computers with few resources. It has basic retouching profiles to improve photos quickly and easily. It is mainly focused on manipulating RAW images.
Paid alternatives to Photoshop
There are people looking for alternatives to Adobe Photoshop that give them the same or similar functionality but who are looking for a different interface. There are companies like Corel that have software that lives up to what Adobe offers. Adobe Photoshop has an annual price of 290 euros, so we will analyze cheaper alternatives.
Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo is a paid software that has a free trial and that comes with a price of € 54.99, although it currently enjoys a 50% discount because its final price would be only € 27.99 for both Windows and MacOS and It has a price of € 21.99 for the iPad but it also has a 50% discount so its final price is € 10.99.
It is much cheaper than Adobe or Corel software, it allows multilayer editing, supports RAW, macros and works with raster and vector images. It is not as professional as Photoshop and does not have tools to import and manage photos.
MAGIX Photo & Grafik Designer
The MAGIX Foto & Grafik Designer has a 30-day trial version that makes it a suitable program for initiation, since it is a professional editing tool with good quality price and its free version is very basic in functions. Mainly its use is for image editing although it also allows working with graphics and illustrations, workflows and online content catalog. Its price is € 59.99
Corel PaintShop Pro 2020
Corel PaintShop Pro 2020 is a very powerful paid alternative to Adobe Photoshop that has a free trial download and a price of € 69.99, with a current discount of 10%, its final price is € 62.99. It has an Ultimate edition with a price of € 89.99 which currently has a discount of 10%, remaining at € 79.99.
They have countless features like layers and masks, retouch and restore, draw and paint, 360-degree photo editing, RAW file lab, HDR effects, batch processing, templates and great plugin compatibility. For a complete comparison, the manufacturer has detailed documentation comparing their product with Adobe’s, which can be found here.
The difference between the Ultimate and Essential version is access to the GRFX Studio, the Parallels Toolbox, PhotoMirage Express, Painter Essentials 6, AfterShot 3 and the Corel Creative Collection that includes a lot of content for reuse.