photoshop alternatives

As one of the most powerful photo editing programs, Photoshop has always been regarded as the most professional tool to meet different types of editing needs in various fields. Without doubts, Photoshop offers users the widest range of photo editing capabilities. However, in some cases, people may prefer to use some simpler methods to edit photos to meet their day-to-day tasks. So, if you're confused by the complex interface and overly rich features that Photoshop offers, then the following best free Photoshop alternatives will be your ideal fit.

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Part 1: Why Do You Need A Photoshop Alternative?

Photoshop is a bitmap editing software developed by Adobe. Its main functions include adjusting the color of images and synthesizing images, which is mainly used for graphic design, web design art and photo studio post-processing. If you are a professional photographer, graphic designer or photo editor, then you might possibly choose Photoshop. However, there are some disadvantages of Photoshop, and the following are some reasons why you might choose or avoid using Photoshop.

Pros Cons of Photoshop

Advantages

  • Pixel-level editing: Pixel-level editing: Pixels are the most basic elements that make up an image. Photoshop enables powerful pixel-level editing. Additionally, users can use Photoshop to create images, such as adding fonts, vector patterns, and more.
  • Layer: This feature allows the image to be edited in layers, or combined modification with layers. Within the same layer, user can use the Layer Mask function to select and edit parts, which can render better photos.
  • Action: For Photoshop, any tiny actions applied to a picture can be recorded. At the same time, they can be applied to any different picture without any duplicate editing.
  • Massive editing tools: The most attractive point is that Photoshop has a large number of professional editing tools, including various selection tools, repair tools, brushes, filters, and more.
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  • Comprehensive editing effects: The magic of Photoshop mainly lies in that it can easily turn common pictures into professional artworks through its comprehensive features and functions.
  • Customization: If you would like your photos stand out from others, Photoshop can apply custom actions to photos to better fit your social media.

× Disadvantages

  • Inconvenient batch processing: Although Photoshop has powerful editing and processing functions for single photo, it is inconvenient to apply effects to all photos.
  • Complicated interface: With various features and functions in Photoshop, it is hard for beginners to get started and get beyond the initial learning curve.
  • photoshop interface
  • Inconvenient text editing: Because Photoshop is a bitmap software composed of pixels, there are a lot of little squares which are not suitable to arrange the text layout.
  • Consume a lot of RAM: Due to its large number of professional features and functions, processing images in Photoshop often takes up a lot of memory, which can slow down the overall performance of your computer.
  • Expensive: Photoshop is a subscription that starts at around $20 per month or $239.88 per year.

Part 2: 10 Best Free Photoshop Alternatives 2024

Photoshop may own the biggest fame in photo editing field, but it is not the only option you can use to edit and optimize your photos. If you can't stand the above shortcomings of Photoshop, then you should definitely go for Photoshop alternatives. Actually, there are many free alternatives to Photoshop. Some are AI photo editors, while some provide similar functionality to Photoshop. Read the below ranking to learn 10 best free Photoshop alternatives.

1. PhotoIns

Leawo PhotoIns, driven by AI technology and smart algorithm, is designed as a full-featured photo editor. Currently, it includes two modules – Photo Enhancer and Photo BG Remover. Photo Enhancer is an AI-powered photo enhancement module to help you improve the photo quality in batch. Once source photos are imported, it will automatically perfect them with AI technology, including face enhancement, color boosting, white balance and contrast adjusting, lens correction, etc. Photo BG Remover is a one-stop photo background remover that is able to automatically remove background from image in batch. After photo background removal, you can also manually change and edit photo background in simple clicks. Combined with all these powerful and intelligent functions, it can be the best free Photoshop alternatives with AI.

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Pros Cons
  • Automatically enhance photo quality in batch with AI technology
  • Intelligently remove photo background in batch with smart algorithm
  • Change and edit photo background in simple clicks
  • User-friendly interface and intuitive operation
  • Support various formats, including RAW and JPG
  • Free to experience and use
    • Need to pay to unlock more advanced features

    2. GIMP

    GIMP, short for The GNU Image Manipulation Program, is an image editing and processing program written in GTK. GIMP was popular among many drawing enthusiasts when the Linux system was launched. But now, it is also widely used under Windows and Mac. Its interface is quite lightweight, but its functions are not inferior to professional drawing software. Since 1996, it has continued to be updated by volunteers. Therefore, it is powerful with a variety of functions. The most importantly, it is open source and totally free-to-use. In addition, it provides a variety of image processing tools, filters, and many more component modules. Although saving only about $10 per month compared to an Adobe subscription, GIMP gives you the opportunity to experiment with editing without the commitment. With many similar photo editing tools, GIMP can be regarded as the best alternative to Photoshop with professional tools.

    GIMP
    Pros Cons
  • Open source and totall free-to-use
  • Working with layers
  • More user-friendly interface than Photoshop
  • Take up less storage and RAM than Photoshop
    • No drawing capability
    • Not support RAW photos
    • Still hard to get started

    3. Pixlr X

    Pixlr is an online Flash-based image editing application that packed with many advanced features. Because it is a web-based photo editor, you can quickly edit and complete a graphic design through the browser. To use Pixlr X, just select an image from your desktop or enter a URL and you're ready to go. The interface is based on the icon toolbar on the left. Most of these are self-explanatory. Most online photo editors offer tools to crop and resize images, but Pixlr X also includes a range of cutting tools, including shape, lasso, drag, and magic, which allow you to move or delete selected parts of a picture, or move it to a different layer. Therefore, you can create complex compositions from multiple images. Although with many advanced features, it is still clean and intuitive. You can totally treat it as the best free online Photoshop alternatives.

    Pixlr X
    Pros Cons
  • Free of charge
  • Web-based photo editor that no need for installtion
  • Easy-to-use for beginners
  • Pre-install with massive filters and templates
    • Available for online only
    • Not support BMP and TIFF formats
    • Some tools are still in beta

    4. Affinity Photo

    Affinity Photo is an ideal Photoshop alternative software. It supports Mac, Windows and iPad platforms which can make full use of your hardware performance. Affinity Photo supports to save the editing history. When you make a display, you may need to adjust the spatial position of the picture. At this time, you can use the perspective tool. Affinity is fully functional and has made very detailed for different system platforms. It ensures that your computer can play its due performance.

    Affinity Photo
    Pros Cons
  • High processing speed
  • History record
  • Simple UI
    • Lack of functions
    • Higher requirements on the system
    • Not available when offline

    5. PicMonkey

    PicMonkey is an online special effects editing tool for pictures. PicMonkey has the flexibility, collaboration, and rapid iteration functions. Hundreds of templates would be provided and the size is suitable for social media posts, flyers, business cards, etc. Users can also easily add text and graphics to photos, or use the one-click background remover function for advanced processing. In addition, you can also add special effects, coatings and borders, which can be saved immediately after completion.

    PicMonkey
    Pros Cons
  • Many advanced functions and templates
  • Easy-to-use interface
  • Totally free for online
    • Outdated interface
    • Limited output formats
    • Slow processing power
    • Not available when offline

    6. Canva

    Canva is another onine photo editing app that allows you to make beautiful designs anytime and anywhere. With Canva, you don’t need to have design experience, and you don’t need to install complicated design software. Therefore, it is one of the best free online alternatives to Photoshop. You can also obtain the beautiful designs you want in just a few minutes. Canva is very easy to operate. It can be used by everyone and is suitable for all aspects of life design.

    Canva
    Pros Cons
  • Simple interface
  • Free layouts and elements
  • Available for daily use
    • Not professional
    • Lack of comprehensive functions

    7. Photos Pos Pro

    Photo Pos Pro has become one of the most popular photo editors in the world. It can provide users with multiple possibilities in the field of image enhancement and image editing, as well as computer graphics design. Using this Photoshop alternative, you can perform various tasks from simple basic tasks to complex tasks as well as editing existing images, creating new works based on existing images, etc.

    Photos Pos Pro
    Pros Cons
  • Suitable for both beginners and professionals
  • Many helpful tutorials
  • One-click manual editing tools
    • Run slow and often get crashed
    • Limited on exported size

    8. Krita

    Krita is a free and open source free drawing program that supports Windows, Linux and macOS, and initially supports Android tablet devices. It is fully functional, capable of all painting processes from drafting, marking and coloring to final adjustment. Krita has a highly customizable brush system and perfect layer functions, which can be non-destructive through transparency and deformation masks Sexual editing. It can draw bitmap images, vector graphics and make animations, and has complete color management functions. Recently, it is also increasingly accepted as one of the best Photoshop alternatives.

    Krita
    Pros Cons
  • Similar to Photoshop
  • Customized interface
  • Advanced layer system
    • No RAW filter
    • Hard to operate
    • Outdated interface

    9. Upscale Pics

    Upscale Pics, as a lossless magnification tool, it can magnify your image 2x to 8x for free, using AI algorithm to solve the pixelation problem, thereby increasing the resolution and making the blurred picture clearer. No matter what the clarity of your original picture is, this software can zoom in on it, allowing you to see more details of the picture. By the way, with Upscale Pics, you can also reduce noise in photos.

    Upscale Pics
    Pros Cons
  • Magnify any photos
  • Free program
    • Not a real photo editing tool
    • No enough editing functions and features

    10. Zyro

    Another free image upscaler you can choose is Zyro which would allow users to upscale the photos in the proper way with the help of the deep convolutional neural network. This is free to use and you would not be limited from the image numbers. If you don’t have higher requirements on the output quality, then Zyro could be your best choice since its output quality is not as great as promised.

    Zyro
    Pros Cons
  • Easy-to-use interface
  • No registration required
    • Low output quality
    • Only 2x upscale
    • Low processing speed

    Part 3: How to Use the Best Photoshop Alternative to Edit Photo?

    Referring to the above recommendations on the best Photoshop alternatives, now you may have a decision that which your own preferred software is to edit your photos. Each editing tool has its own pros and cons. But the most important factor to choose the proper one may lie in your specific needs. Here we will pick Leawo PhotoIns as the best Photoshop alternatives, because of its advanced AI technology and user-friendly interface. Now, you can read the following detailed steps to learn how to use the best Photoshop alternative to edit photos.

    Step 1: Download the best Photoshop alternative for Free

    Click the download button below according to your computer system to install this best Photoshop alternative on your computer for free. After installation, launch the software.

    • photoins
    • Leawo PhotoIns

      - Enhance photos easily with advanced AI technology
      - Fix photo exposure and white balance issues intelligently
      - Optimize photo colors and perfect photo tints
      - Support RAW and JPG photo processing
      - Automatically remove background from image
      - Easily change photo background and add background to photo

    Step 2: Enhance photo quality in Photo Enhancer module

    Click Photo Enhancer button to enter the module. You can directly drag and drop source photos to the main interface of this module. After photos are imported, it will automatically and intelligently enhance the photo quality. You can double-click on a specific photo to apply more effects or click the Output button to output all photos at once.

    how-to-edit-photo-with-the-best-photoshop-alternative-1

    Step 3: Remove photo background in Photo BG Remover module

    Click Photo BG Remover button to enter the module. You can directly drag and drop source photos to the main interface of this module. After photos are imported, it will automatically and intelligently remove background from images. You can double-click on a spefiic photo to remove photo background more precisely, or change and edit photo background manually. Alternatively, you can click the Output button in the bottom-right corner to output all photos with background removed. If you want to learn more on how to remove photo background, see: How to Remove Background from Image? And if you want to learn more on how to change photo background, see: How to Change Photo Background?

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