In this post, we take a look at some popular free and premium alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator Alternatives 01. Affinity Photois known as one of the most precise, fastest and professional photo editing software for Mac. Professional design software like Photoshop is terrific, but it’s also expensive. What do you do if you're a designer on a tight budget? Photoshop is truly the best program for what it does, but that doesn't mean there aren't some very good alternatives that cost exactly nothing. There are quite of few free or open source alternatives, so it would be helpful to know a bit about them. Like Pixlr, Polarr is freemium rather than free, but the free tier still gives you plenty of photo editing tools and effects to play around with. If you choose to pay a monthly subscription fee.

Adobe has long established itself as the de facto leader when it comes to design tools and software. In fact, Photoshop has become synonymous with graphic editing and design, and so has Illustrator in the field of vector graphics.

That said, what if you do not wish to use, or cannot use, Adobe products? Maybe you do not wish to spend money on Creative Cloud, or maybe you find Photoshop and Illustrator too complicated for your liking? Should you not look for alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator?

Whatever the reason might be, if you do not wish to ride the Adobe bandwagon, you do not have to! There are various other equally powerful design tools out there that you can turn to, instead of Photoshop and Illustrator.

In this post, we take a look at some popular free and premium alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator Alternatives

01.Affinity Photo

Affinity Photois known as one of the most precise, fastest and professional photo editing software for Mac. It meticulously focuses on workflow enhancements, and offers a great variety of tools for enhancing, editing and retouching your images in an incredibly intuitive interface.

Affinity Photo is a professional photography tool to the very core, and not something you can use for logo design or banner editing. It can absorb an entire virtual desktop space for easy maneuvering. You can switch between Affinity Photo and other applications with just a swipe, and tools such as the zoom control can be controlled with a simple pinch.

Affinity Photo also uses the default OS X interface to import images form connected external devices.

Major Features

• Comprehensive RAW editing
• Work in any color space: RGB, CMYK, LAB, Grayscale with end-to-end workflow and color management.
• Unsurpassed file compatibility
• Always LIVE pan and zoom with live previews and tools.
• Professional adjustments like exposure, clarity, highlights, etc.
• Advanced lens corrections
• Variety of tools such as smudge, crop, burn, paint brush, and much more.

If you are looking to simply edit photographs or something to retouch images, then Affinity Photo is an excellent choice.

Cost: £39.99

02.Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is the modern graphic design app for Mac (albeit it is also gonna be available for Windows users soon). It is an incredibly accurate vector illustrator program that feels fast and at home in the hands of creative professionals. The user interface of Affinity Designer for Mac is everything you’d expect from a modern app — more beginner-friendly and very intuitive.

Affinity Designer features dedicated gradient and transparency tools. These allow you to apply multiple gradients within minutes without the need to open any dialog boxes.

Major Features

• You get multiple personas:
  • Draw persona: This is where all of your vector tools lie for creating your designs.
  • Pixel persona: This is where you get your full pixel preview and you can edit the image using tools which are not limited, which allows you to slice your design and take snapshots of it.
• Various shape presets, such as tear, heart, pie, donut, star, arrow, and many more.
• Enhanced zoom capabilities
• Live preview of effects
• Live Vector masking

Affinity Designer for Mac brings a fresh breath of air to traditional vector drawing applications.

Cost: $49.99

03.GIMP

GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)is a cross platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows and many more operating systems. It is a totally free software, no matter how many times you download it or whichever platform you choose to use it on. Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or a scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools to get your job done.

GIMP provides the tools needed for high quality image manipulation. From retouching to restoring to creative composites.

Major Features

• It gives users the power and flexibility to transform images into truly unique creations.
• It can be used for producing icons and other graphical design elements for user interface components.
• GIMP provides top-notch color management features to ensure high fidelity color reproduction across digital and printed media.
• GIMP provides extensibility through integration with many programming languages including Schema.org, Python, Perl and more.

Cost: Free!

04.Inkscape

Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux. It is used by design professionals and hobbyists worldwide, for creating a wide variety of graphics such as illustrations, icons, logos, diagrams, maps and web graphics. Just like GIMP, it is open source software and free.

Inkscape has a fresh user interface that presents the various tools and features in a very accessible way. It has sophisticated drawing tools with capabilities comparable to Adobe Illustrator. It can import and export various file formats, including SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, PS, and offers multi-lingual support and is designed to be extensible. Users can customize Inkscape’s functionality with addons and plugins.

Free Software Like Photoshop Cnet

The Inkscape project has a growing international user community and many learning materials exist to help get you started with your creations and imagination. However, since this is a free software, there might not be one-on-one priority support available.

Cost: Free!

05.Corel DRAW

Corel DRAW is not just an excellent vector graphics editor, but a full-fledged graphics suite that will satisfy industry veterans as well as users just getting into graphic design.

One of the biggest issues with graphics suites is tool overload, as offering various tools can lead to bloated UI. Corel DRAW addresses this with its pre-packaged workspaces. Apply the workspace you need, and the toolbar layout instantly morphs to better suit your needs. Corel DRAW also has powerful font tools for allowing you to set stylistic alternates.

Major Features

• Workspace selection
• Quick customization
• Font playground
• Multiple document interface
• Photo-editing tools in Photo-Paint (mentioned below)
• Built-in content exchange
• Photo zoom
• Corel Capture for screen capture and annotation
• Corel Website Creator for creating simple web pages
• Vector-illustration and page-layout application

Corel DRAW is a vector editor with a large user base. Whether you’re a first time user or an experienced designer, Corel DRAW makes it easy to get started.

Cost: $669

06.Corel Photo-Paint

Corel Photo-Paint is an advanced image editor with features like professional photo retouching and enhancement, powerful RAW image editing, advanced bitmap creation and digital painting and streamlined web exporting. This application offers professional editing tools and support for the latest PSD files, plus extensive RAW file support for over 300 types of cameras.

The features are great to have especially the Edit Fill tool dialog that makes it easy to work with various textures. The Liquid tools in Corel Photo-Paint can greatly enhance your photos and designs. Corel Photo-Paint, much like Photoshop, offers a plethora of special features such as multi monitor support, 4K and Real-Time Stylus support, new start-up tours, workspace customization options, enhanced editing dialog boxes, blur lens and many more.

Cost: $699 (included within Corel DRAW suite)

07.Paint Shop Pro

Paint Shop Pro was started by Jasc Software, but it has since been acquired by Corel. It comes with features such as enhanced layers, more precise selection tools, faster brushes and extensive productivity-boosting improvements.

Paint Shop Pro is a versatile software meant for photo enthusiasts who want software that can act as a photo manager, editor and adjuster in one easy-to-use-package that won’t break the bank.

Major Features

• Text wrapping
• Lens correction
• Gradient preview
• Selection tool options
• Faster and more responsive interface (consumed way less memory)
• Layer workflow
• Camera RAW lab

Paint Shop Pro features three applications in one: Manage, Adjust and Edit which gives you access to tools specific for that particular task, keeping the interface clean and making it easier to use and understand.

Cost: $79.99

08.Acorn

Acorn by Flying Meat is a powerful Mac photo editing software. It is user friendly, has various editing tools, provides several ways to share photos and supports a variety of file formats. This Mac photo editor has an interface similar to other photo editing apps, making it recognizable and easy to navigate. It features standard editing tools, including selection, resizing, cropping, and brushes.

Acorn supports the use of layers, which preserves your original photo file during the editing process. You can add text to your photos and even create cool text effects to make the words stand out. The editor has 210 font styles to choose from. With 108 creative filters, you can alter the color, texture and appearance of your photos. The software offers batch processing. You also can create HDR images.

Acorn supports eight common file types, including RAW, JPG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, PSD and PDF. Plus, using Acorn, you can post your pictures directly to your Flickr account or on online galleries or send them as email attachments.

Cost: $29.99

09.Sketch

Sketch is an innovative and fresh look at vector drawing for the Mac. Sketch gives you the power, flexibility and speed you always wanted in a lightweight and easy-to-use package. It is built for modern graphic designers, and it shows in every fibre of the app. From a flexible workflow with support for multiple pages and Artboards, powerful features like Symbols and Shared Styles, Sketch is what you would use when you wish to work without having to deal with any bloatware.

Sketch features an intentionally minimalist design based upon a drawing space of unlimited size and layers free of palettes, panels, menus, windows, and controls. Though simple to use, it offers powerful vector drawing and text tools like perfect Boolean operations, symbols, and powerful rulers, guides and grids.

Sketch can create complex shapes using vector Boolean operations and its extensive layer styles.

Free Software Like Photoshop For Drawing

Cost: $99

10.Krita

Krita is an open source sketching and painting program/tool designed for digital artists, illustrators, and texture artists and the VFX industry.

Krita has been in development for over 10 years and has had an explosion in growth recently. It was created with concept art, texture painting as well as comics in mind. It offers many common and innovative features to help the amateur and professional alike.

Major Features

• An intuitive user interface that stays out of your way. The panels can be moved and customized for your specific workflow.
• Brush stabilizers, that is, add a stabilizer to your brush to smooth the shakiness of your hand.
• Pop-Up Palette that you can use to quickly pick your color and brush by right-clicking on the canvas.
• Brush engines to customize the brush.
• Add textures by wrap-around mode.

Krita, in spite of being a free tool, comes with unique features such as drawing assistants, mirroring tools, layer management, layer masks and others.

Cost: Free!

11.Figma

Figma is the collaborative interface design tool where you can design, work online, do the editing and can work with others at the same time on the same design. Your designs are constantly saved. It can work on any operating system, because it is an online tool.

Yes, you read that correct. Figma works from the cloud, and does not require anything to be download. It is a relatively newer entrant in this field, and it remains to be seen whether Figma will be able to impress and gain followers or not. It is still in the prefinal stage, and you can reserve your spot as of now for the early release offers.

Over To You

Since Photoshop is such a versatile and widely supported software, it can be a challenge to find an alternative that’s truly worth your time. So try to test different apps and tools to make sure you pick the right one.

Free Software Like Photoshop Gimp

Sketch is a widely popular choice among designers and it comes with no shortage of design resources. Another app that deserves your attention is Adobe XD, which is now growing rapidly since its launch as a free app.

If you’re looking for a simple photo editor to edit a photo or design posts for social media, check out our list of best web-based photo editors.

Looking for programs like Photoshop—without the hefty price-tag? Here are our trusty go-to Photoshop alternatives, from desktop applications to web-based tools.

Everyone should be able to access great photography and design programs without having to break the bank. Given that Adobe is always raising the price of its Creative Cloud subscription plan, we wanted to round up our favorite Photoshop alternatives—including some free Photoshop alternatives—that will allow you to produce gorgeous work for your online photography portfolio or online design portfolio at a fraction of the cost. If you need programs like Photoshop, these 12 options will serve you well. Let’s dive in!

Free Alternatives to Photoshop

GIMP

Compatible with: macOS, Windows, Linux

Arguably the most popular Photoshop alternative, GIMP is a powerhouse image editing program. Despite the depth of tools, effects, and features, GIMP has and will always be a free product—sort-of like an open-source Photoshop. The program offers a sophisticated yet easy-to-use program that is constantly evolving.

Pixlr Editor

Compatible with: Everything

As a cloud-based program, Pixlr is available through any which device, so long as you’ve got access to the Internet. The best part? This is a free Photoshop alternative and easy to use! Feature-wise, it’s not as powerful as Photoshop, but for basic editing functions like refined selections, layering, or touch-ups, Pixlr gets the job done.

Fotor

Compatible with: macOS, Windows

Billed as a “revolutionary photo editor and design maker,” Fotor definitely delivers. This free Photoshop alternative offers photo editing, collage making, and basic freehand design. Packed with heaps of beautiful themes and templates, Fotor is a wonderful alternative for those looking to create, and create fast.

Sumo Paint

Compatible with: Everything

Give it up for one of the remaining Flash-based image editing programs out there, Sumo Paint. Sumo Paint focuses on illustration, offering something of a bridge between Photoshop and Illustrator. Noted by MacWorld for its “quirkiness,” Sumo Paint enables artists to loosen up a bit and embrace their zanier ideas.

Paint.NET

Compatible with: Windows

Yet another free Photoshop alternative, Paint.NET is a fun alternative for designers who work on Windows. We love the wide breadth of tools and powerful features, including support for layers, unlimited undos, and other cool effects. Interestingly, Paint.NET was originally created for a student project; now, it has evolved from its humble beginnings into a formidable graphics editor that some even prefer over Photoshop.

Krita

Compatible with: macOS, Windows, Linux

With an interface patterned on Adobe’s flagship product, Krita is widely considered the premier free Photoshop alternative. Krita’s has a fanbase of devoted users, who are passionate advocates for the fledgling Photoshop alternative. Although it’s primarily geared toward designers and illustrators looking to create new works from scratch, Krita is also equipped with a number of key photo editing and manipulation features.

Rawstudio

Compatible with: macOS, Linux

Photographers know better than anyone that working with RAW image formats can be a bit of a challenge, especially if you’re managing numerous different files. Enter Rawstudio: a free Photoshop alternative designed, expressly, for manipulating RAW image files. As the name suggests, Rawstudio enables photographers to achieve the results they want without sacrificing so much as a pixel of quality. Rawstudio triumphs in the formatting arena, providing users with a robust and effective tool for reviewing multiple RAW image files at once. The original developer’s goal was simple: to build a photo processing app that supports nearly every RAW format from all digital camera makers.

Affordable Photoshop Alternatives

Affinity Photo

Compatible with: macOS/iOS, Windows

With a history almost as rich as Adobe’s, Affinity has been developing and marketing photo editing and illustration software for over two decades. Their Photoshop alternative, Affinity Photo, is built upon one, all-important notion: speed. If you’re looking for programs like Photoshop that are super-fast, Affinity Photo is amazing. The program’s interface is also smooth and uncomplicated, providing photographers (and designers) with a strong, affordable Photoshop alternative. Retailing at just $49.99, Affinity Photo bucks the subscription model in favor of a one-time payment.

Pixelmator Pro

Compatible with: macOS/iOS

Falling into the open-source Photoshop alternative camp, Pixelmator Pro has amazing overall performance and speed (for $39.99, no less). How? Pixelmator bypasses traditional graphics editors by running through a different part of the computer, which frees up a ton of memory. (In layman’s terms, this means you won’t have to close a bunch of programs before opening it up. Everything should remain unaffected by its usage.) What’s more, Pixelmator is packed with all of Photoshop’s key features while also offering tools for drawing vector-based graphics.

Acorn

Compatible with: macOS

What do you get when you combine bitmap editing with vector drawing tools? This Photoshop alternative! Like many of its competitors, Acorn handpicked certain elements from Photoshop for its features, stripping away the extras to give users a simple, fast, and effective image editing program. It already feels like Photoshop’s slick, younger—and much cooler—cousin. And affordable: it’s only $29.99.

ArtRage

Compatible with: macOS/iOS, Windows, Android

With a seemingly infinite number of brushes and brush heads to choose from, there aren’t many programs like Photoshop that meet the specific needs of a professional painter. ArtRage is the fiercest competitor. This Photoshop alternative is available on desktop and mobile devices, but it’s at its most functional—and fun—when used on a tablet. Substitute the mouse (or sketch pad) with your own fingers and you’ll soon recall the sheer delight of creating with your hands. It clocks in at $79.

Best Photoshop Alternatives

The category of Photoshop alternatives which are considered best are the ones which are closest in comparison. Aside from GIMP which is talked about in an early section, and could also be considered one of the best, there is one honorable mention for this section.

Corel PHOTO-PAINT 2018

Compatible with: Windows

Part of the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2018, Corel PHOTO-PAINT 2018 is no stranger to the photo editing world. The Corel Photo-Paint products have been in development for over 27 years, and is a direct competitor to Adobe Photoshop, making it one of the best Photoshop alternatives. Some of the top features to highlight about this popular raster graphics editor are:

• Corel AfterShot 3 HDR for powerful RAW image editing
• Straighten photos interactively
• Adjust photo perspective dynamically
• Publish to WordPress and other streamlined web exporting
• Professional photo retouching and enhancement

Corel PHOTO-PAINT 2018 has a similar subscription model, where it will cost you $18.25 CAD a month, or $219 for the year. Alternatively, you can purchase the program in full for $599 CAD, but it does not include future updates, which need to be purchased separately, unlike in the subscription model, which will keep your product up-to-date at all times.

Don’t Forget to Upload Your Creations to Your Online Portfolio!

Once you’ve delved into these Photoshop alternatives and turned out some fabulous new work, make sure to upload your creations into your online portfolio to entice potential employers and clients alike.

Don’t have one? No sweat. Use a website builder to create one in mere minutes. Just make sure to choose an online portfolio with a diverse range of templates and flexible, customizable pages and layouts. Other cool features to look for include Instagram integration, and a built-in online store and blog.

We can’t wait to see what you can create with all these awesome Photoshop alternatives!

Want more design tools and resources?
The 11 Best Free Online Photo Editors
9 Free Google Chrome Apps Every Artist Needs
The 10 Best Online Graphic Design Software Programs