Adobe Photoshop Express is a lightweight version of the industry-standard photo editor available free for your browser, and as a downloadable app for Windows, iOS, and Android.
- Photoshop Alternatives For Mac
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- Free Mac Photoshop Alternative
- Free Photoshop Alternative For Mac
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Let's face it: Nothing is going to completely replace Adobe's flagship Photoshop image-editing software if you need its whiz-bang, technological-marvel features. Things like content-aware fill, smart objects, and the new camera-shake correction are just not to be found in any other software. But if you just need basic, standard Photoshop features—adding text, glows, drop shadows, overlay layers, or sharpening-the actual application from Adobe is overkill. And the Adobe's recent jump to a cloud/subscription model with Adobe Photoshop CC has made many users hopping, frothing, foaming mad. Fear not: Photoshop isn't the only game in town.
Some of the lower-cost Photoshop alternatives come from Adobe itself: Serious Photographers can get most of the Photoshop features they need in the company's workflow application, Lightroom, which lists for $149. Photo enthusiasts and imaging hobbyist will get what they need from the even less-expensive Photoshop Elements, which actually simplifies creating a lot of the effects pros produce in Photoshop itself. It's available directly from Adobe for $99 standalone or $149 in a bundle with sister program Premiere Elements, an enthusiast-level video editor.
Even lower-cost Photoshop alternatives come from competitors. One of the longest-standing of these is Corel, with its similarly named Paintshop Pro ($59.99), which offers a surprising amount of Photoshop-like functionality. Another competitor is ACDSee, which offers three levels of imaging applications, the lightweight, starting with the basic ACDSee ($19.99) program, which offers brush-on edits, 20 effect filters, drawing tools, and noise reduction. At the midlevel is the $49 ACDSee Photo Editor, which gets closer to Photoshop, with object layers, tools like Red Eye and Smudge, Text, and batch editing. Along the lines of Lightroom is ACDSee Pro, which powerful app sells for a remarkable $39.99 (discounted from $99.99).
But if you really want to save money, there's a lot you can do for free, and even in some cases, in a web browser. The granddaddy of free but powerful image-editing software is 'the Gimp.' This extremely customizable and powerful open-source application is, however, very far from being a usability champ—expect a high learning curve. Even though it lives in your web browser, Autodesk's Pixlr Editor is an amazingly powerful web-based image editor that can even work with layers and sports toolbars and panels that will look familiar to any Photoshop user. A similar though less-polished offering is Paint.net, but deceptively, it's software you download rather than a web app.
So, as you can see, you may be able to do everything you thought you needed Photoshop for with something less expensive. Of course, there's nothing like the real thing. Read on to see if any of our suggested applications fit your needs. If not, getting Photoshop as a subscription may be gentler on your pocketbook, at $19.99 a month.
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ACDSee
$19.99
ACDSee 14 offers fast, simple operation, nice photo organization tools, and all the standard photo-fixing basics: cropping, rotating, exposure, color correction, sharpening, red-eye reduction, and blemish removal. The app can also do several Photoshop-like tricks, including applying lots of artistic effects such as the popular lomo and Orton, as well as pencil drawing and painting effects. In all, the app offers 45 effects, but falls short of Adobe Photoshop Elements in really advanced stuff like content-aware filling and photo merging.Read the full review ››
Photoshop Alternatives For Mac
Corel Paintshop Pro
$39.99 street
The latest version of this venerable imaging software adds some whiz-bang features like face tagging, mapping, and Instagram-like one-click photo effects. PaintShop may not be as polished and loaded with unique, mind-blowing imaging tools, but it's capable of everything a lot of users will ever need, and it's priced to sell.Read the full review ››
GIMP
Free
The name of this longstanding open source image editing project is short for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Though you can use it for free to your heart's content, the project actually does accept contributions through Bitcoin and Flattr. A lot of GIMP's capabilities are courtesy of plugins, such as its support for raw camera files and custom brushes. You get the expected layers, gradients, paths, text, curves, and levels tools. And if you're running Linux or it's your most powerful image-editing option.Read the full review ››
Paint.net
Free
Paint.net is pretty bare bones, but at least it's free, and it does give you a lot of Photoshoppy tools. It features an easy-to-use interface and an array of effects. But there's no built-in sharing tools (like every other photo editor on the planet now has), no photo-organizing tools and no Mac version.Read the full review ››
Photoshop Elements
$99.99 list
Coming from the same source as Photoshop itself, you know Elements will offer some state-of-the-art imaging software technology, and it does. Not only that, it makes a lot of effects that would take painstaking effort in Photoshop simpler, with its Guided Edits. Two other modes, Quick and Expert do as their names suggest: the first offering very basic, simple fixes and adjustments, and the latter coming closer to Photoshop itself.Read the full review ››
Pixlr
Not Rated
Free
Load the web page at http://pixlr.com and you may be amazed that you're not looking at Photoshop: You see the same toolbar running down the left, with crop, lasso, marquee, wand (alas, no 'magic'), pencil, brush, eraser, bucket, gradient, clone stamp, smudge, and lots more. You even get tooltips telling you what the tools are when you hover the cursor over them. On the right, you'll see panels for layers, history, and a navigator. The app—I mean site—offers adjustments for levels and curves, and many many effects, including water swirl, kaleidoscope, night vision, selective blurs, and mimicking HDR.
Serif PhotoPlus
$89.99
With 64-bit image processing engine, Smart Selection and Edge Refinement tools, noise reduction, and a tilt-shift effect, Serif PhotoPlus is no slouch. It's just not as slick or intuitive as the competition, with no face recognition and no adjustment brushes. For your rather steep $89.99, you do however get non-destructive cropping, raw camera file support, and tools for adjusting adjust white balance and exposure, reduce noise, crop. You can even use masks to apply adjustments to specific areas of the image.Read the full review ››
Adobe Photoshop is probably the most advanced and widely used photo editing tool with features you may not find in other photo editing software programs. Although this feature-rich software is greatly appreciated by professional graphic artists, it may be rather too complicated for someone who isn’t much conversant with the ‘complex’ user interface. I do use Photoshop now but at the beginning, it was sort of hard and I had to look for alternatives. There are lots of other photo editing software programs but to the best of my knowledge, none of the free ones can be compared with Adobe Photoshop.
With or without Photoshop, I can create logos, edit my photos and do some other little stuff, but when it comes to applying certain effects, you may still have to go back to Photoshop. The alternatives below won’t do everything Photoshop does, but they can be quite useful if you don’t want to go through the trouble of trying to get used to Photoshop or even buying it at all.
1. Paint.NET
Affinity Photo
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I started using this software a couple of years ago when I was trying to create a logo for my first blog. Paint.NET looks simple but actually loaded with lots of features found in Photoshop. It’s an open source software with many plugins that can improve it’s functionality. As a matter of fact, you can even edit a .psd file with this software, re-touch your photos and do much more. It’s a pretty good alternative to Adobe Photoshop for a casual graphic artist / logo designer.
2. GIMP
This is another open source image editing tool anyone would love. It’s a bit advanced than Paint.NET with certain features you won’t find in other free graphic editing tools. GIMP is quite heavy and the first time I ran it, it took a while to start up unlike Paint.NET that’s much lighter. I prefer GIMP though and I’ve been using it more lately to create some cool logos and other graphic designs.
3. Pixlr Editor
I started using this on my iPhone and if all you care about is a nice looking picture with some professional looking touches you can easily apply, you’re gonna love the web-based version of this app. Of course, it’s free but it’s a web-based app that should come in handy when you’re thinking of re-touching your pictures on Facebook, Google+ and other social networks
4. Adobe Photoshop Express
Free Mac Photoshop Alternative
Just like Pixlr Editor, Adobe Photoshop Express is another free web based tool that lets edit your pictures online without the need to download any software.
5. GimpShop
If you’ve used GIMP, you’ll definitely love GimpsShop as it’s built based on Gimp but with the classy look and feel of Adobe Photoshop. It’s a great alternative to Adobe Photoshop.
6. PhotoFiltre
Free Photoshop Alternative For Mac
PhotoFiltre allows you to edit your photos easily and add filters to make them look better without knowing much about graphic editing. It’s quite easy to use and the user interface is easy to understand.
7. PhotoPlus
Adobe Photoshop Alternative For Mac Free
Editing your photos is made easy with PhotoPlus (starter edition). If all you want it just to adjust contrast and brightness, whiten teeth, make your skin smooth, remove certain objects from pictures and apply certain effects to your photos, PhotoPlus is just what you need.