Adobe Photoshop serves as a professional raster graphics editor for Windows and macOS, handling advanced image editing, retouching, and digital art. Users praise its extensive feature set for graphics and design, though many complain about high pricing compared to other editors.
GIMP tops the rankings as the leading Photoshop alternative, offering broad image-editing and retouching tools completely free and open-source. Many users switch to GIMP specifically to escape Photoshop's cloud licensing and subscription model. Affinity Photo ranks second with its polished interface and one-time purchase model, repeatedly highlighted as a cost advantage over subscription pricing. Luminar Neo brings AI tools like GenErase and GenExpand plus focus stacking and HDR merging for photographer-centric workflows.
Krita ranks third, focusing on digital painting with advanced brush control and animation support for artists. The alternatives landscape splits between pro photo editors and art-first painting apps, with Photopea standing out as a free, install-free option with PSD support and a familiar interface.
For open source transparency, GIMP and Krita lead with community-driven development and no proprietary licensing restrictions. Linux users have native options in GIMP, Krita, and MyPaint without relying on Windows or macOS-only tools. Windows-only picks include Paint.NET and Corel PaintShop Pro for desktop editing with layers, effects, and selection tools.
Web-based editors like Photopea, Pixlr, and Sumo Paint work in browsers when you can't install software on school or locked-down computers. Users avoiding subscriptions can choose Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer for predictable one-time licensing. For PSD workflows, Photopea, Affinity Photo, and Pixelmator open Photoshop-format documents to maintain collaboration compatibility. iPad workflows benefit from Affinity Photo, Pixelmator, and Pixlr for editing on tablets rather than desktop-only setups.
Emulates realistic watercolor, acrylic, and dry media with physical paint diffusion, drying control, textured canvas, custom brushes, tilt and pressure support, color blending, masking tools, paint granulation, backruns, stencils, rulers, and high-res export.
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Offers photo filters, magic effects, drawing tools, stickers, and customizable text. Includes collage layouts, color adjustments, and cropping. Features a built-in camera, live effects, drawing layers, and direct sharing to a global community and external networks. Multi-language support.
United States
Mobile editor offers 30+ color adjustments, AI upscaling, smart selection, noise removal, object eraser, RAW and Apple ProRAW support, film-style presets, batch edits, real-time histograms, deep Photos and iCloud integration, plus LUT export and pro-level features.
United States
PicMonkey is a feature-rich online photo editor that works right in your browser; no downloads necessary. Touch-up tools like Teeth Whiten, Blemish Fix, Weight Loss. Effects like Orton, Cross Process, Color Boost, with drag and drop ease.
United States
Conversion software for Mac and PC that automatically corrects optical flaws, extends dynamic range, and seamlessly removes digital noise from images.
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Pocket Paint is a paint editor that, among others, allows setting parts of pictures to transparent and zooming up to pixel level.
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A simple but lovely natural media painting and sketching program. Art oriented, but capable of loading/saving photoshop files.
United Kingdom
Photoline is a professional image editor which offers creatives a mostly non-destructive workflow for 8/16/32bpc image processing and compositing in RGB, CMYK, and Lab modes.
Full vector editing, DTP features, and a HSV/HIS workflow are supported.
Raster graphics editor featuring non-destructive layer-based editing with 24 blend modes, 18 advanced tools, masks, Unicode text, CMYK color support, pro filters, unlimited undo, PSD and AVIF compatibility, visual history, print workflows, and high-res image support.
Canada
A fast, lightweight raster image editor for Windows. Features layers, blend modes, GPU-accelerated filters, gradients, mesh warp, brushes, selection tools, adjustments, animated GIF/APNG support, and a built-in Rhai scripting engine. Single portable executable, no install required.
Australia
AliveColors is comprehensive graphics and photo editing software for Windows and Mac. It comes in Free, Home, and Pro versions, with differing levels of functionality.
Russia
GPS (aka Gimp Paint Studio) is a collection of brushes, patterns, color gradients, accompanying tool presets and dynamics. Tool presets are a simply saved tool options, highly useful feature of the GIMP.
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