Photoshop is pricey and comes with a steep learning curve. This article will shed light on Adobe Photoshop alternatives that are either cheaper or completely free to use.
Placeit
Placeit is a tool that is a part of the Envato Digital Environment. It is simple, quick and easy-to-use, and is 25% cheaper than Photoshop. Placeit comes with blank, pre-designed, or partially customizable templates that can be used for both photographs and videos. It is great to use as a canvas for placing a design on top of a pre-styled template, especially designs used for video thumbnails. While this is not a sponsored post, you can get Envato Placeit for 15% off by using our community discount here.
Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo is an advanced photo editing tool used by professionals, with many of the same capabilities as Photoshop. It offers a more cost-effective option, with a one-time purchase of $49.99 giving users licensed access to all applications features. Affinity supports importing and exporting Photoshop documents. It comes with a powerful layer system, raw camera file support, and also works with raster images, vector images, and Panorama HDR. It provides several tools for focus stacking and merging, as well as layer editing. One of its stronger features is the wide range of options for brush selection and customization. Affinity does not include some basic photo editing options like exposure and temperature adjustments, and also lacks some import photo management tools. Some users find that the interface is not as intuitive as Photoshop.
Photopea
Photopea is a web-based photo-editing application that works directly with Photoshop, allowing the direct importation and exportation of Photoshop documents. Photopea requires no downloads – just an internet browser and connection. It is a great option to start learning design and photo-editing for free. A downside to the web-based feature is that slower working speeds can occur if working with a larger file. Photopea is funded by the ads shown while users work on projects, so if a project workload is larger than the revenue generated from the ads, it will not run as fast.
Inkscape
Inkscape is another free photo-editing tool. While it can be used as a substitute for Photoshop, it is more similar to Adobe Illustrator. Inkscape is open-sourced and frequently updated, with an interface that supports up to 29 languages. It offers full-featured vector management tools, supports creative gradients, and contains professional filters and effects. It is often used for computer graphic tasks, as it allows users to store xml statements within a file. While Inkscape has many powerful capabilities similar to Photoshop, many functions might come across as foreign to users used to using Adobe Suite. The software can sometimes be buggy. This being said, Inkscape offers a powerful tool for being a completely donation-based software.
Krita
Krita is a lot like Photoshop, but some find it simpler and easier to use. Many professionals prefer it for tasks like painting on images. It has a multi-brush tool with three different modes – symmetry, mirror and translate – which allows users to create mirrored or symmetrical images. However, there are limited tools when it comes to editing raw photos, such as exposure, highlight and color correction settings.
Some other common paid Photoshop alternatives include PhotoWorks, Luminar, Photolemur, Rebelle, CoralDRAW, and for the iPad, Procreate and Procreate Pocket.
The BEST Adobe Photoshop Alternatives !!
This video will cover the above mentioned Photoshop Alternatives in slightly more detail. Check this video out for more detail!
