Top 10 Free Photoshop Alternatives

1. GIMP

The first one I tried was a good hit right away. It’s a name I remembered from quite some time ago and I figured it would still be around. It still is and they’ve now developed it up to version 2.6. Developing it ever since 2005, it is now available for most used platforms like Windows, Mac and some versions of Unix.

In short: the light-weight GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) offers a free way to enhance/alter your digital photos, manipulate existing graphics and create your own graphics. Using the regular tools such as a paintbrush, the pencil and cloning, this application can actually be compared to it’s bigger (expensive) brothers like Adobe Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.

Instead of the regular full-sized window, you get several widget-kinda windows with the seperate functions and tools attached. It’s something to get used to, but it offers an easy way to work on your graphics and in the meantime keep an eye on the rest of your desktop. Quite dynamic!

2. Paint.net

Another freeware application is Paint.net for Windows (and Windows only!).

Instead of the widget windowed layout of GIMP, Paint.net uses the traditional full-size window with the same kind of windows inside. A comprehensive and very adjustable layout gives you the means to optimize it to your liking.

At first when I tried to install Paint.net, it failed for no apparent reason, giving some kind of blank error and then shutting down. After a quick glance on the software’s website, I figured out I needed an updated version of the .NET Framework by Microsoft (v3.5 SP1). From there it worked like a charm! It’s easy to use, it’s light-weight which means it’s dodgy laptop-friendy and best of all: it’s free!

3. Artweaver

Artweaver is another one of those creative applications with a fair amount of choices to edit or create your works of art. Loads of options like different brush styles, standard effects such as sharpen, blur and embos and it offers good pen tablet support. Ofcourse the ability to work with Layers is also present

Just like Paint.net, Artweaver only supports Windows usage.

4. Photoshop Express

Kind of a different category, but it’s quite fun and useful. Especially for those who don’t want to install previously mentioned, more advanced applications. This online version of Adobe’s Photoshop offers you the ability to upload your photos and edit them to your liking. Enhancing it with better lighting and shadows or spicing it up with cool special effects, Photoshop Express hands the tools in a neat, comprehensive package.

Don’t want to give Adobe all your information right away? Understandable! These days you cannot trust a soul! Adobe understands this as well and lets you take a ‘test drive’ of the whole system without the need of registering or logging in. 

One major lack to this application is the fact you can’t use layers to edit your images a bit more professionaly, but I guess that’s okay, because they make up for it by offering you free 2gb hosting of your (edited) images.

So give it a spin at the test track without having to register, or register right away and start editing!

5. Aviary

Definitly a very worthy mention. Coming from a suite of tools, I’ll just put these in together:

Phoenix, layer-ready image editor

Phoenix is mostly like what Photoshop is all about. Offering usage of layers, a rich toolset of brushes, paint buckets, cloning and such and cool blending modes for some great special effects!

Everything is based on Adobe Flash so it’s all very smooth and pretty. It runs quite fast, even on my previously mentioned crappy notebook and ofcourse that’s a huge plus for me!

Because it doesn’t require any installation of files on your PC, it’s all very easy to use and this makes for a very fun experience, just fooling around with the vast amount of effects and drawing tools

What’s cooler than vector art? That’s right: NOTHING!

Well, maybe that’s a bit over the edge, but you have to agree that vector art really does look cool and is also very useful for creating logo’s for prints and such.

Vector basically means that your creations aren’t based on pixels, but on variable equations. Because of this you can create something small and then later size it down or up without losing any of the details. If you would do this with your regular JPG image, it will get all blurry or edgy, especially when it comes to small text.

So here’s Raven! A tool much like Adobe Illustrator by the awesome clan of Aviary. According to the creators, Raven is the only free online Vector creation tool on the entire internet! A bold statement to say the least, but try looking for anything like it and I think you might find out they’re right.

So if you would like to have a look at what else they have created and maybe even look at the upcoming software releases, have a look at the Aviary website or go directly to their Tools page.  There’s a whole community out there showing off their creations through the use of Aviary tools and also a fair share of tutorials on how to work with it.

6. Picnik

Picnik is another flash-based online photo-editing service. Looking very slick, this site offers a good basic photo-editing station for resizing, removing red eyes, editing colour saturation and a couple more of those. I just tried one, just to see how it works and I must say it’s very easy and pretty cool to do! The program doesn’t require any registration, although if you do, you get some more features like a Library of your photos, easy submission to social networks such as Facebook and Flickr and the ability to upgrade to a Premium account at any time.

Premium you say? Yes, Premium. In addition to the normal, free features on Picnik, with Premium you can edit your photos in full screen, keep an infinite number of photos in your editing history, more easy-appliable effects and a whole lot more.

I´d say it´s worth a peek

7. SUMO PAINT

Here’s a good one! SUMO Paint is actually another flash-based web image editor, but instead of putting emphasis on enhancing photos, SUMO hands you the tools to create awesome graphics! Have a look at the gallery of wicked Top rated submissions right here to see what I’m talking about.

Since the latest v1.1 release, SUMO’s based on the latest version of Flash (10) and having tried this awesome online application, I must say it’s one of the fastest, most advanced and yet easiest free image editor I’ve come across yet! SUMO definitly offers a lot of those most used tools and ‘filters’ you see in Photoshop and the likes and all this without a second of registration or installation acking. Ofcourse, just like Picknik, you do have the ability to register and take advantage of a lot of image storing and posting options.
This way, you can get your stuff noticed and participate in a whole community of online artists. Pretty neat!

8. Pixlr

Pixlr is a great ‘on-demand’ Photoshop alternative with some basic drawing tools and a fair amount of good filters. All the basics are present, but that’s actually it! Apart from the Andy Warhol feature where you can Warholize anything to an artsy piece, there’s not much that sets this one apart from any other in this list.

But that’s okay! Because it’s fast, it’s light, it’s easy: there’s no need for registration at all!

This sums it up:

"Pixlr is built for non-professionals, the users that have basic editing needs. It’s not for large RAW images or for printing. It is merely a tool for editing web images to be posted on blogs, news-sites, social networks like Facebook, Myspace Bebo, image sites like Flickr, Fotolog, Photobucket etc." -Pixlr.com

9. Inkscape

An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development.

10. Splashup

Splashup, formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. With the features professionals use and novices want, it’s easy to use, works in real-time and allows you to edit many images at once. Splashup runs in all browsers, integrates seamlessly with top photo-sharing sites, and even has its own file format so you can save your work in progress.

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