free alternative for photoshop

7 Free Alternative for Photoshop You Can Use

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Photoshop is the undisputed king in the field of raster-based software. The software supports 26 different languages. It also features some of the most powerful editing tools in the market. Adobe Photoshop is a paid software. For hobbyists and small-time businesses, it is not ideal to invest in something that you can achieve free of cost. There are many other amazing graphics editors available in the market that are open source as well as free to use. If you are on a very tight budget or are a beginner then you can definitely start with these software. Don’t put a strain on your finances as these free software can be as powerful as Adobe Photoshop. Let’s take a look at the 7 free alternative for photoshop that you can use for your projects:-

ImageMagick

ImageMagick is free open-source software that supports cross-platform. This software can read and support over 200 different types of file formats for editing. It currently runs on all major platforms like Microsoft Windows, Linux, MacOS X, iOS, Android, and others. The release date of ImageMagick is the 1st of August 1990. With regular updates and new feature releases, the developers are still supporting this software to date.

This software does not have a great graphical user interface like Adobe Photoshop. But it can use OpenCL to use the GPU for processing to increase the efficiency of the program. Being an open-source program its code can be accessible to anyone and can be modified according to their needs. This makes this software highly versatile for image editing tasks.

KolourPaint

KolorPaint is a simple program to create raster images quickly. In terms of interface, it looks very much like Microsoft Paint and features many identical tools to that of MS Paint. It is available to use on all Unix-like operating systems. For children, it is a very good and much easy alternative to Photoshop and Microsoft Paint as well. KolorPaint focuses on more casual works such as image manipulation, painting, and editing of icons.

KolorPaint is not exclusive to Unix-like operating systems and can be given access on Microsoft Windows and macOS through different ports. The KDE project provides a port to access KolorPaint on Microsoft Windows. With the support of over 89 languages with including support for Indic languages, KolourPaint is a great way to start designing for beginners.

LazPaint

LazPaint is one of the best lightweight raster image editing software available for free. The current version of this software is only 6.78 MB in size! An average song with a bitrate of 320kbps is larger than this software. Although this software is lightweight, it doesn’t reduce its usefulness. You can import Photoshop files (.psd), 3D objects (.obj) as well as Paint.NET files (with their original layer structure) without any problem. This increases the versatility of this software in many aspects.

The release date of LazPaint is February 2011 this software is the newest in the market compared to other software on this list. Since the launch of version 7 of this software vectoral information can also work in form of different shapes. For beginners, this software is a very good choice as it will help in understanding many source materials for designing and editing.

Gravit Designer

Gravit Designer is one of the most powerful free raster-based software. It also has a paid version called Gravit Designer PRO But we are here for the base software that is available for free. Gravit Designer offers you free 500MB of cloud storage for your files. It is currently available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, and ChromeOS. Gravit Designer is free to use but it is not an open-source software that means you cannot access its source code for yourself. In terms of usability, this software came closest to Adobe Photoshop.

Gravit Designer can also work entirely on a web browser. You can create high-quality graphics without needing high specifications for your PC. For beginners, the interface of Gravit Designer is less confusing than Photoshop. For social media designers, there are many amazing templates available to choose from for a quick workflow.

Krita

One of the most feature-packed free open-source raster editors is Krita. This software is loved by many professionals for its usability. Krita also features a layer-based system to work on your project just like Photoshop. The user interface of Krita is one of the best with an amazing user experience. Krita is also one of the primary choices alongside GIMP for indie developers to create assets. Krita is a powerful raster-based software and on top of that, it features animation tools for the designers.

It is currently available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, Chrome OS, and Android and its work efficiency is common across all platforms. That means you can acquire desired results even on your Android tablet or mobile device. For all beginners, Krita is a must for its accessibility across different platforms.

GIMP

GIMP is a free open-source raster-based software. It is the most feature-packed raster-based editing software that comes closest to photoshop in terms of usability. It is flexible and highly customizable. There are many other raster-based software that are using the source code of GIMP for their workflow. On GIMP you can work on layers that are identical to Photoshop. There are also tons of tutorials available online to make learning on GIMP easier. The community of GIMP is also very good and supportive.

Those who are very serious about their work can start with GIMP. The whole interface of GIMP is highly customizable. One of the most powerful features of GIMP is that you can import Photoshop documents (.psd) with layer information intact. One drawback of GIMP is that it does not support CMYK color mode. No support for CMYK means that the creatives who are looking for print-based media can’t get desired colors on their final design.

You can also check a detailed comparison between Adobe Photoshop and GIMP here.

Photopea

Photopea is highly similar to Adobe Photoshop. The user interface of Photopea is highly identical to that of Photoshop considering it is a web-based graphics editor tool. Even though it is web-based it is a very powerful tool for image editing tasks. Photopea supports many file formats like:-

  • .psd (Adobe Photoshop)
  • .ai (Adobe Illustrator)
  • .xd (Adobe XD)
  • .sketch (Sketch)
  • .xcf (GIMP)

These are just some of the many types of file formats that you can use to create a project on Photopea. Photopea also supports RAW images so that you can gel flawless results without sacrificing the quality of images. It also supports a layering system for designing just like Photoshop. With features like selection, layer masks, smart objects, paths, vector shapes, etc this web-based program is in a league of its own.

Free Alternative for Photoshop Conclusion

There are many amazing free alternative for Photoshop available to use for designers and creatives. With each software having its unique sets of tools every software stands on its own. We hope that this list has given you some insight into which software to use for your next project. For beginners, these are some of the best software to begin your creative career.

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