Top Photoshop Alternatives Revealed

Sony camera with lens
Credit: Conor Luddy on Unsplash | Free use under the Unsplash License

Sony camera with lens
Credit: Conor Luddy on Unsplash | Free use under the Unsplash License

Are you looking for a Photoshop alternative? We've got you covered.

Several powerful and affordable alternatives can cater to your graphic design needs. From great features to user-friendly interfaces, these offer a range of options for designers of all levels.

Corel PaintShop Pro

Corel PaintShop Pro
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Credit: PaintShop Pro | Free use for promotional purposes

Corel's Paintshop Pro is the best Photoshop alternative. It is cheaper and can perform almost all the things available in Photoshop. It supports PSD file format and allows working with raw camera files, vector graphics, and layers like Photoshop.

It also supports plug-ins and drawings directly on Windows Tablet screens. It also supports several AI tools like AI upsampling, AI artifact remover, AI style transfer, and more.

Pros:

  • Photoshop-like features at a lower price
  • Great effects and editing tools
  • Good assortment of vector drawing tools
  • Automatic noise removal

Cons:

  • No macOS support
  • Slow operations

Affinity Photo 2

Affinity Photo 2
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Credit: Affinity Photo | Free use for promotional purposes

Affinity Photo is another award-winning image editing software with everything you need to edit and retouch photos. It allows the creation of multi-layer compositions, beautiful rest of paintings, and much more. It's also equipped with several time-saving tools and a completely redesigned UI to make your image editing experience more seamless.

Its real-time adjustment layers, massive image support, super steady pain, and zoom at maximum refresh rate make it a powerful tool for creators. Apart from that, its retouching tools and the ability to develop RAW help make finer corrections to take the perfect shot.

Pros:

  • Built for a pro workflow
  • Flawless photo retouching
  • Full RAW development
  • Choose from an enormous library of brushes, including your custom-made ones
  • Fully featured across all platforms, including iPad

Cons:

  • No image-organizing tools
  • Some say it has a steep learning curve
  • Requires high device performance

Skylum Luminar Neo

Skylum Luminar Neo
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Credit: Skylum Luminar Neo | Free use for promotional purposes

Skylum Luminar Neo also allows using layers, raw camera files, and filters. It also has AI Relight, which helps change the lighting according to the depth and is a press powerline removal tool. Features like AI masking, object erasing, and other powerful portrait retouching tools are also available.

However, Luminar Neo offers features only for editing and enhancing photos and no drawing or text overlay features.

Pros:

  • Intuitive and user-friendly interface
  • Replace skies to enhance landscapes and portraits, all with Al-powered tools
  • A wide range of instruments, including layers, masking, and local adjustments
  • Available on Windows, macOS, or as a plugin for Photoshop & Lightroom

Cons:

  • Some operations are slow
  • No face recognition or keyword tagging

Pixlr

https://pixlr.com/
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Credit: Pixlr | Free use for promotional purposes

Pixlr is another AI-powered SaaS creative tool that offers image editing tools and utilities, including AI image generation and enhancement. It targets users who want a simple, advanced photo editing tool with graphic design capabilities. It can be used directly in your web browser, smartphone, and desktop for free.

It also offers a text-to-image AI image generator that revolutionizes artwork creation. Apart from all these, it comes with several generative AI tools like AI Remove Object, AI Remove Background, AI Face Swap, AI Super Scale, and more.

Pros:

  • It offers a broad range of editing options
  • The ability to "save" work history within the browser but also to a file
  • Has an extensive database of copyright-free images

Cons:

  • Some filters are useless; they are very dark and damage image quality
  • Lack of online cloud storage space and limited file format support

GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)

GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)
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Credit: GNU Image Manipulation Program | Free use for promotional purposes

GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is a free and open-source graphics editor. It can be used for image manipulation, editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks such as creating digital art, retouching photographs, or designing web graphics. Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, or scientist, this Photoshop alternative offers sophisticated tools to do the job.

GIMP can further enhance productivity with its customization options and third-party plug-in. It offers top-notch color management features to ensure high-fidelity color reproduction across digital and print media.

Pros:

  • Highly customizable and flexible, especially with coding expertise
  • It can help users build skills that can be applied to professional tools
  • Available for many operating systems and as a third-party plugin

Cons:

  • Outdated and cluttered interface
  • You can't open raw camera files without a third-party app
  • GIMP's method of adding and editing text is complex

Whether you seek affordability, specialized features, or a user-friendly interface, these top Photoshop alternatives offer compelling solutions.

From Corel PaintShop Pro's comprehensive toolset to Affinity Photo's professional workflow and Skylum Luminar Neo's AI-powered enhancements, there's an option to suit every designer's needs. Explore these alternatives and discover the perfect fit for your creative journey.

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What do you use to edit photos? Let us know in the comments.