Adobe’s Photoshop has been synonymous with high-end image editing for years – but it doesn’t come cheap. The good news is, there's a ton of free alternatives that are just as effective: here’s our pick of the best!
Whether you’re touching up your holiday snaps, cropping pictures for the web or even creating a work of sophisticated digital art, a good piece of image editing software is essential – and they don’t get much better than Photoshop.
But Adobe’s professional-standard software also comes with a professional-standard price tag. And while it’s definitely worth it for some, for most home users you don’t need to shell out to get a great result. That’s why we’ve put together this handy list – happy editing!
Gimp
GIMP Development Team
Windows, Mac and Linux
When it comes to free Photoshop replacements, they don’t come much bigger than GIMP. The ‘GNU Image Manipulation Program’, to give it its full title, has been in continuous development since 1995 – and it’s about as polished as they come.
Indeed, while it currently lacks some of Photoshop’s most advanced features, like CYMK support for commercial printing and non-destructive editing layers, it’s far and away the best option for ‘power users’.
GIMP is free software – meaning not only is it free to download, but it’s also freely modifiable by anyone who’s technical enough to have a rummage through the source code. For that reason, it’s updated on a regular basis – and there are many more advanced features on the development roadmap.
But for all its power, it’s still fairly simple to get to grips with the basics. The GIMP website features a range of handy tutorials, which cover everything from basic image and layer manipulation techniques for beginners right through to coding scripts to automate workflow!
All told, it’s a fantastic piece of software – and one I’ve personally used for years.
Pixlr Editor
Pixlr
Web-based
This powerful image editing suite might be a web-based app – but it’s no toy. It’s a serious piece of software capable of some highly professional results.
To that end, you’ll find basic tools like blur, sharpen and pencil alongside a sophisticated array of filters, colour tools and layering options. In fact, it’s so fully featured that it’s easy to forget you’re using a web-based application!
But really, that’s perhaps its most compelling feature. As barriers to entry go, Pixlr is about as accessible as they come. There are no downloads or installation required: taking Pixlr Editor for a spin is as simple as visiting the website and getting stuck in. You don’t even need to sign up for an account – but doing so will allow you to save images to an online ‘Pixlr Library’, making it even easier to continue editing an image from a different computer.
The interface’s buttons are a little small and fiddly, and a bit more labelling would be good to see – but hovering the mouse over most functions explains what they do, and most of the commonly used ones are pretty self-explanatory.
If you’re looking for a simple but powerful image editor you can start using this instant – and especially if you plan on working across multiple computers – then Pixlr is an excellent choice.
Picasa
Google
Windows and Mac
At the opposite end of the complexity scale to GIMP and Pixlr, Google’s venerable Picasa – while officially discontinued – is still available. It's a simple desktop tool for easily storing, organising and touching up your photos.
If you’re looking to do some heavyweight editing with layers, lassos and advanced filters, Picasa won’t be much help – but if you’re just looking for a way to make your photos look their best, it’s a fantastic choice.
As well as being able to automatically find the scattered images on your computer and bring them all together into tagged and sortable folders and lists, Picasa has a range of Instagram-style filters to bring them to life. From subtle colour enhancements and red-eye fixes to dramatic comic-book effects, there are tons to choose from – and because all of the editing is ‘non-destructive’, you can mess around to your heart’s content without changing the way the original picture looks until you’re ready to save.
The app also integrates directly with Google’s impressive Photos app, which offers some of the most powerful image-recognition features we’ve ever seen. With Photos, there’s no need to tag your images – it can automatically tell if there’s a picture of a tree, sky, building or just about anything else, and and deliver search results accordingly!
While Picasa (and Photos) may not have the advanced features or image-creation tools to make it a true Photoshop replacement, for many users with large photo collections, it’ll provide just the right balance of features and accessibility – so depending on your needs, it could definitely be worth checking out
Fotor
EverImaging Ltd
Web-based
Like Pixlr, Fotor is a fully-featured web-based image editor – but it has a number of unique features that set it apart and could make it particularly useful to certain users.
The basic editing tool allows you to crop, rotate and change the colour balance of your images, which are all fairly standard features – but there’s also an automated ‘1-tap enhance’ feature which does a pretty good job of automating the basics. The interface is clear, modern and easy to use – and notably easier to read than Pixlr’s small text and somewhat unintuitive icons.
More interesting, however, are the ‘Beauty’ features, specifically designed for retouching portraits. These include a really useful wrinkle-removal brush, a blemish remover and even a teeth-whitening feature. The results here are pretty decent, and while they can’t compete with a really professional Photoshop job, they’re really impressive for a quick and semi-automated editor like this.
The only downside is that some of the more advanced features, like the smoothing and reshaping tools, require a paid subscription to use – but at just $3.33 per month with an annual subscription, it’s still considerably cheaper than Adobe’s offering.
On the whole, then, Pixlr is probably a better choice for advanced users – but if you’re determined to concoct the perfect ‘spontaneous’ selfie for your social media audience, Fotor’s retouching tools could have you looking ten years younger in no time.
Paint.net
dotPDN LLC
Windows
Microsoft’s Paint has been a staple of Windows installations since 1985 – making it perhaps the oldest image-editing software still in development. But while it’s much loved by generations of pixel artists, it’s a rather basic package – and that’s where Paint.NET comes in.
It takes its design cues straight from Microsoft’s classic, meaning it’s instantly accessible for anybody who’s dabbled in Paint before – but it also adds a ton of useful features more commonly seen in much more advanced software.
In particular, you’ll find layering functionality which greatly simplifies the creation and editing of complicated images, a number of special tools which can create advanced perspective and tilting effects, and some highly useful tools for drawing shapes, curves and colour gradients.
In addition, Paint.NET features ‘unlimited history’ – meaning every single action you perform on an image is recorded and can be undone (or re-done) at will. This kind of non-destructive editing gives you great freedom to experiment with the tools on offer.
On the whole, Paint.NET is a fantastic choice for anyone who uses Microsoft's Paint and fancies something that’s familiar, but a little more advanced. There are also hundreds of plugins available, which can expand its functionality in some very interesting ways – from adding 3D graphics capability to adding support for Photoshop’s own native file types!
That concludes our round-up of the very best free alternatives to Photoshop – but if you’re a budding photographer or digital artist, why not let us know what you prefer in the comments below? And for more great articles by our Agents direct to your inbox each month, get your name down below for the Geek Squad newsletter!