22 Best Free Photoshop Alternatives in 2023

What attracts users to Photoshop more is its versatility. Not only does it help create perfect editing results, but it also offers multiple ways to fix various issues. So a beginner editor or designer can choose the more friendly and convenient method to get the work done like a pro.

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Unfortunately, the biggest drawback of Photoshop is its cost. That’s right! It does not come for free. Even if the application offers a free trial option, that trial expires, and one must pay a monthly or yearly subscription charge to keep using the application. But can everyone afford to pay for that?

Of course not! That is why we often look for alternatives to help get the same amount of work done without paying a penny. The good thing is, that there are many software and applications out there, both for computer and mobile, that can help you edit photographs or create your design for FREE!

And in today’s article, I will talk about the 22 Best Free Photoshop Alternatives that can help you with various projects. So I hope you stick around until the end to learn all about them.

22 Best Free Photoshop Alternatives In 2023

Photoshop is preferred highly by professionals for many reasons. However since this application comes with a higher cost and learning complexity, users often switch to other alternatives, more specifically, free alternatives.

So if you think Photoshop is not for you, you can certainly look into a free alternative to Photoshop. But before you go running around like a maniac surfing the internet to find the best free software like Photoshop, I urge you to check the following list.

1. GIMP Image Manipulation

Compatible With: Windows/MAC/Android/iPad/Linux
User Rating: 4.8
Cost: Free
Official Link:- GIMP DOWNLOAD

Whenever someone mentions free Photoshop alternatives, the first thing that comes to mind is GIMP. It is an open-sourced photo editing software that offers a huge number of tools and features for free.

Read More: GIMP vs Photoshop

You can use this software as long as you want, as much as you want, and gain access to all its features without any cost. Whether you are editing texts or images, you can work with layers. However, since it doesn’t have an adjustment system, unlike Photoshop, GIMP cannot edit images in a non-destructive way.

GIMP has a user-friendly interface and offers many advanced editing features, such as cropping and resizing, filter effects, typography, color adjustment, contrast, brush tools, etc. And just as it supports a wider range of image formats and allows you to save and download your finished work in JPG, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, BMP, etc., formats.

2. GetPaint.Net Digital Photo Editing

Compatible With: Windows
User Rating: 4.6
Cost: Free
Official Link:- GetPaint.Net

GetPaint.Net Photoshop Alternative might not have all the tools, features, and functions of Photoshop. But it can certainly do almost all the essential things you need to do for editing images. On top of that, it is entirely free. There is a donation option for users to contribute to the website, but you can still use the software without having it as a barrier.

You can customize the Paint.Net user interface, making it more efficient for you. Besides, it offers a layer adjustment system, which offers multiple-level image editing. It also has a sliding scale that helps you resize larger files with more ease and undo your work for an unlimited time.

Read More:- Amazing Photoshop Shortcuts

However, GetPaint.Net has some limitations, as it is not as advanced as Photoshop. On top of that, it is only designed and built for downloading on Windows. So if you have been using a different operating system, it will not work on your device.

3. Canva: Free Design Tool

Compatible With: Any Device
User Rating: 4.6
Cost: Free & Pro $6.49/month
Official Link:- Canva Download

Who doesn’t know and love Canva? Partly why Canva Alternative Photoshop is globally popular is because it is compatible with any device. From Windows and macOS to Android and iPad, you can download and install Canva on any device for free.

You can gain access to thousands of pre-made designs and templates here. Thus, Canva has turned into the best place to design birthday & greeting cards, invitation cards, business cards, social media cover photos, flyers, logos, and even book covers, and more. If you don’t want to edit or use the available images or templates, you can upload your own files.

And though Canva has a premium version that comes with a 7-day trial, you can use the application for free as well. The premium version costs $6.49/per month and $54.99/per year. However, the drawback of the free version is that using the free version will not give you access to some of its most remarkable features and templates.

4. Pixlr – Advance Photo Editor

Compatible With: Any Device
User Rating: 4.6
Cost: Free & Premium $4.90/month
Official Link:- Pixlr Website

Pixlr is the Pro Photoshop Alternative go-to photo editing tool for many users who prefer something simple, easy, and FREE! And just like Canva, Pixlr editor also offers many design templates for you to work on. However, the number of templates is very limited.

But Pixlr is very easy to work on if you are editing a single image or want to make a collage using multiple images. You will get various image adjustment tools, brush, dodge, healing tools, many overlays, filters, and more. The best part is that editing images on this application will not do much damage to the image quality.

When saving the final result, you can save it in your preferred or customized size. However, the problem with Pixlr is that you cannot make adjustments once you are done editing something. If you want to fix something, you must undo the entire progress and redo the part you want to restore.

5. Snapseed – Photo Editing App

Compatible With: Any Device
User Rating: 4.7
Cost: Free
Official Link:- Snapseed App

For the last couple of years, Snapseed has been one of the most hyped photo editing apps for many reasons. First of all, it’s completely free and does not have any premium or paid version. So you get the tool as it is without worrying about any cost. On top of that, Snapseed allows you to share photos directly on your social media platforms.

Snapseed Best Photoshop Alternative helps you edit images without limiting everything to color adjustments only. It has a user-friendly interface and many useful tools, such as color or brightness adjustment, dodge, brush, healing, double exposure, text effects, and more. It also has some instant filters to help you change the overall appearance of any image with one click.

Read More:- Image Masking Using Photoshop

Like Photoshop, Snapseed also has layer adjustment and masking tools. It means you can go back to a previously edited layer and fix it with the Photoshop masking effect if necessary. But the drawback of this app is that it is only best for light work and editing and may not turn out as great as Photoshop.

6. Adobe Lightroom

Compatible With: Any Device
User Rating: 4.5
Cost: Free and Premium $9.99/month
Official Link:- Lightroom

Here is another hyped-up application from Adobe. And like Photoshop, Lightroom is a non-destructive photo editing application for any device. In fact, it is one of the widely used tools by many professional designers and editors because of its efficiency.

Though the app offers only a limited number of features on the free version, they are still great for getting the best editing outcomes. Lightroom is one of the best applications for making images more vibrant and changing color perfectly.

7. Fotor – Online Image Editor

Compatible With: Desktop and mobile
User Rating: 4
Cost: Free and Pro $8.99/month and $39.99/year
Official Link:- Foter

Fotor is a suitable Photoshop Alternative editing software for small to large businesses and freelancers. Though the application is developed for desktops, one can download the same version for use on phones as well.

Fotor offers many useful image editing tools, such as adjustment, filters, shadows service, frames, stickers, etc. However, it is neither helpful with creating a wider variety of text effects nor with designing.

So if you are looking for something that will allow you to do basic image editing for free, Fotor will do a good job. However, it cannot be a go-to editing software for intermediates or professionals.

8. Inkscape: Draw Freely

Compatible With: Windows and MAC
User Rating: 4
Cost: Free
Official Link:- Inkscape

Of all the free open-source and free Photoshop alternatives, Inkscape is one of the well-known ones. To many users, it is like using a different version of Photoshop, which pretty much says a lot about the app.

Inkscape is a vector-graphic tool for creating numerous designs and logos. It has a user-friendly interface, and you can learn how it works pretty easily.

Yet, InkScape has some drawbacks as well. Though the app is pretty good, it could have been much better. And the text formatting option is not up to the mark.

9. PicMonkey Graphic Design Tools

Compatible With: Windows, MAC, and Linux
User Rating: 3.5
Cost: Free and Premium $7.99/month
Official Link:- PicMonkey

If you have used Lightroom and know how its adjustment bars make changes in photos, you will understand PicMonkey quickly. Online Photoshop alternatives Though it’s not as advanced as Adobe Lightroom, it is still pretty great at editing and designing.

It has a simple user interface, and you can correct, resize, and adjust images in different ways. It is also cool when it comes to creating social media platforms over photos, banners, posters, cards, etc.

However, PicMonkey only allows you to save and download images if you are registered with it. And you must purchase cloud storage if you want access to the storage.

10. Aviary Photo Editor

Compatible With: Windows, MAC, Phone
User Rating: 3
Cost: Free
Unofficial Link:- Aviary

If you are not looking for something complex or for high-end editing, you can give Aviary Photo Editor a go. This application is compatible with both mobile and desktop and has a very user-friendly interface.

Moreover, you can use all its features and tools without much hassle. You can use this app for cropping, resizing, filtering, text effects, color correction, using the focus or blur effect, etc.

Aviary is a free Photoshop alternative app for editing images, so you can gain full access without paying anything extra. But I must also add that there are better free apps than this one.

11. Krita – Digital Painting. Creative Freedom

Compatible With: Windows, MAC, and Linux
User Rating: 4.4
Cost: Free
Official Link:- Krita

If you are into digital painting and designing and looking for the best free Photoshop alternatives, then Krita can be your best solution. It is an open-source editing and designing software where artists can widen their imaginations free of cost.

Krita has a similar interface to Photoshop. However, what makes it preferable is that the app automatically creates shortcuts to the tools one frequently uses, making it easier to use them next.

As if that’s not enough, this application supports a wider variety of files and also helps you save files in different formats. But it often gets slow when loading a larger file.

12. Photopea – Online Photo Editor

Compatible With: Desktop and Mobile
User Rating: 4.4
Cost: Free
Official Link:- PhotoPea

Photopea is a web-based photo editor suitable for working on a desktop. But you can also use it on your phone with ease.

This application allows users to convert photo formats, edit photos, and create designs, logos, and illustrations. You can upload images for editing either from your device storage or from your Drives and Dropbox storage.

And the most jaw-dropping thing about this application is that its interface is similar to Photoshop. You can edit images using layer adjustments and make changes even after finishing the project.

13. BeFunky – Uniquely Photo Editor

Compatible With: Windows, MAC, Linux, Android, iOS
User Rating: 4.5
Cost: Free
Official Link:- BeFunky

BeFunky is the best and most useful online editing platform for those who are always in a rush and prefer to get things done quickly. That is why this app is often regarded as the one-click solution for everything.

BeFunky is not just for photo editing. You can change or remove photo backgrounds, retouch portraits, batch edit photos, and even convert images to art. Moreover, there are vector images, ready templates, stock images, etc.

The Free Alternative Photoshop application offers various learning tips for newbies to help them learn how it works. This web application is free whether you install it on your desktop or mobile.

14. Picsart – Editing and Design Tools

Compatible With: Windows, MAC, Android, iPhone, iPad
User Rating: 4.5
Cost: Free and Premium $11.99/month
Official Link:- PicsArt

What do you want to make your design for? For Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channel, Twitter, or LinkedIn? Picsart is one of the best Photoshop alternatives free for all users.

The free version comes with a wider variety of templates, images, backgrounds, text effects, and whatnot. While beginners might find the tool slightly complex to use, you can catch up with its functions pretty quickly.

Another reason to like this application is its language efficiency. Picsart supports over 30 languages, making it more accessible for non-English nationalities.

15. Sumopaint – Online Image Editor

Compatible With: Desktop
User Rating: 4
Cost: Free and Pro $2/month and $9/month
Official Link:- SumoPaint App

SumoPaint is a web-based free editing and design-making software. But you can download various versions and categories of it as an app for your device.

If you explore the website version, you will see that Sumo offers everything from photo editing and painting to music or audio editing. SumoPaint photo editing app has an interface and features that are quite a replica of Adobe Photoshop.

Whether you are a photographer, designer, or painter, this Free Online Photoshop Alternative app can help you experiment with your creative side without a leash on it. And though it has a paid version, you can still use the free version without a time limit.

16. Seashore Powerful Image Editor

Compatible With: macOS X
User Rating: 4.5
Cost: Free
Official Link:- Seashore Software

Seashore is an open-source photo editor developed for macOS X operating system devices only. This application can impressively read and write different file formats, such as JPG, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, TIFF, etc.

Read More:- How To Resize An Image In Photoshop

It has individual layer effect editing features, layer, and layer merging effects, etc. Seashore offers a non-destructive way to edit photos. And it is entirely free.

17. Affinity Photo – award-winning photo editing software

Compatible With: Desktop, iPad
User Rating: 4.2
Cost: 30 days free trial, and then $49.99/month
Official Link:- Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is yet another editing software that is very similar to Photoshop and also works incredibly well for creating designs as well. You can get 2 different versions of this app, one for your desktop and another for your iPad.

Though using the software can be very complex for beginners, you can understand its functions as you go on. It is suitable for pretty much most of the things you do in Photoshop. However, Affinity Photo does lack design templates or photo catalogs that could help newbies.

This software is not entirely free. But you can avail of its 30 days of free trial and get many projects done.

18. Pos Free Photo Editor

Compatible With: Windows, macOS
User Rating: 3
Cost: Free and Premium
Official Link:- Photo Pos Pro

If you are already experienced with Photoshop but would rather go for something free, you should give Photo Pos Pro a try. I would not say it is one of the best online Photoshop alternatives, but it can certainly give you a familiar vibe and help you work with more ease.

Whereas Photoshop offers a Duplicate Layer option, you will find a Clone Layer option here that does the same job. The user interface is customizable, meaning you can set it up as you need.

This editing software can also be preferable if you work with RAW files. Other than that, it also allows you to save images in various formats.

19. Inshot – Video Editor & Maker

Enhance, touch up, crop, resize, and do many more things with your photos with the Inshot editing app. While many people think Inshot is for video editing or works best for videos, it certainly does an excellent job as a photo editor and photo collage maker.

Compatible With: Windows, MAC, Android, iPhone, iPad
User Rating: 4.4
Cost: Free
Official Link:- Inshot

It will not do any pro-level editing like Photoshop. But if you are looking for basic photo alterations, such as cropping, resizing, color corrections, or adding filter effects or texts, Inshot has you all covered.

What I liked most about this app is that it can remove the background or change it with a single click. There are many ready templates, but you must watch ads to unlock them. And though the removal is not always perfect, it, however, does a very decent job in most cases.

20. Darktable – Photography Workflow

Compatible With: Windows, macOS
User Rating: 3.5
Cost: Free
Official Link:- Darktable

Darktable is considered to be one of the best alternatives to Lightroom, which is an alternative to Photoshop. That makes Darktable worth trying if you are looking for free online Photoshop alternatives.

It is an open-source photo editing software for Windows and macOS and has many advanced tools and features. That also makes it an application more suitable for intermediate or professional photo editors.

But the problem with this software is that sometimes it lags. Besides, there is no mobile version available.

21. FotoFlexer – Free Online Photo Editor

Compatible With: Desktop
User Rating: 3
Cost: Free
Official Link: FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer is an online photo editing platform. Like many other free Photoshop alternatives I have mentioned so far, this one also does the basic editing jobs, such as cropping, adding background, text effects, filters, etc.

Read More:- Photoshop Background Removal Service

If you want to make certain corrections, you can go to the History option and recheck the editing progress to fix them. However, undoing the edit erases all the editing you have done on that particular layer, making the work more complex. Moreover, the software can be pretty slow sometimes.

22. ColorCinch – Photo Editor & Cartoonizer

Compatible With: Desktop
User Rating: 4
Cost: Free
Official Link: ColorCinch

Colorcinch is a 2-in-1 editing software. It is an image editor and also a Cartoonizer. It means you can do both photo editing and create graphic avatars from the application.

It has a user-friendly interface, necessary photo editing tools, overlay, and filter effects, cropping and text-adding options, etc. You can either pick a sample from the website or upload one from your device storage.

The free version will give you access to almost all its features, but that will also give you trouble with ads. And it also limits the number of features you can use. Moreover, you must register if you want to download the edits, and the registration is free.

Conclusion

As the era of social media took over the world, Photoshop grew more and more popular as it offered all the necessary functions, features, tools, etc. These features help edit photos to make them flawless, eye-catching, presentable, and whatnot. It also allows one to create various astounding graphic designs.

But Photoshop is not for everyone, partly because it comes with many editing complexities and also because it is often too expensive to afford. So whatever the reason is, you can always try the free Photoshop alternatives. Many of them might not give you the exact vibe of Photoshop, but some of them are very similar and easier to work on. Some even allow you to create flawless illustrations without any cost.

Now that you have the list of the best alternatives to Photoshop with the necessary details, you can choose which would work best for you. I suggest experimenting with as many alternatives as possible to find the best one for your needs.