Verdict: PaintNet is an open source bitmap editor for Windows. It is one of the best Photoshop freeware alternatives as it offers custom sliders, adjustable colors, masks, layers, and filters. In general, it is a universal option for amateur photographers and beginning designers. 5 Great Open Source or Free Alternatives to Photoshop The Adobe Photoshop program is without a doubt one of the best image editing and manipulation software programs out there. It comes with a wide selection of features and a user-friendly interface suitable for the needs of an amateur and a hardened professional.
Here are the best Adobe Photoshop alternatives which you can use for basic and professional editing. Not Everyone can afford Adobe Photoshop, so here i have compiled the best list of open-source alternatives.
1. Gimp
Gimp is probably the most feature rich and well known open source Photoshop alternative that will not make you feel broke. Photoshop may be a bit ahead in terms of bleeding edge features, but most of what Photoshop is capable of can be done somehow in Gimp. GIMP is cross platform and supported by a large community.
2. GIMPshop
GIMPshop is a modification of the free/open source GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP. It shares all GIMP's advantages, including the long feature list and customisability, while addressing some common criticisms regarding the program's interface: GIMPshop modifies the menu structure to closely match Photoshop's, adjusts the program's terminology to match Adobe's. GIMPshop does not support Photoshop plugins, all GIMP's own plugins, filters, brushes, etc. However it is a great open source Photoshop alternative.
3. Paint.net
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
4. Splashup
Splashup is designed to give you a feeling of working in Photoshop. It is integrated with Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, and more and even support layers. Being a free tool this application offers many features, filters and is really worth trying out. I don't consider it as strong as Pixlr listed above.
Open Source Photo Editing Software
5. ChocoFlop
ChocoFlop is a pure Mac application and it has been optimized to run efficient on Mac. It allows you to edit your photos or design stuff using Apple's CoreImage technology. It takes advantage of the power of your graphics card (GPU).
6. Pixia
Pixia was originally a Japanese editor, but English versions are available for Windows now. It is a pretty OK and feature rich editor and it may be worth trying it out.
7. Krita
Krita is a creative sketching and painting application based on KOffice technology for Linux. Can you just buy photoshop. Whether you want to create art paintings, cartoons, concept art or textures, Krita supports most graphics tablets out of the box. Krita comes with some unique and useful features but it is not as powerful as GIMP.
8. Phoenix
Phoenix is the Aviary image/photo editor and it offers layers and compositing. It is integrated with Flickr, Facebook and Picasa allowing you to import images from these popular services. This is another very interesting free tool to check out before investing in commercial packages like Photoshop.
9. Aviary
Aviary can be considered as a Browser based Photoshop clone. The editor is powerful and fully featured with lot of functionalities. Apart from advance image editor they also provide tools like Vector Editor, Effects Editor, image Markup, Music Creator and Audio Editor.
Open Source Alternative To Photoshop
10. FotoFlexer
Open Source Alternative To Microsoft Visio
FotoFlexer claims it as the most advanced online photo editor. It has lot of tools for the beginners and armatures, but lacks in advance editing.
11. Adobe Photoshop Express
This is the official browser based image editor from Adobe. Photoshop Express lacks functionalities in compared to other browser based image editors. This tool is good for beginners who do not wants to go into details of photo manipulation and advance image editing.
12. Pixlr Editor
Pixlr also follows the path of other browser based image editors and gave their interface the same look and feel of Adobe Photoshop. Pixlr is feature rich with lot of advance functionalities.
13. IrfanView
IrfanView is a free light weight image viewing and editing tools. It's features are limited but for small editing this is very handy.
The program is named for its creator, Irfan Å kiljan from Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, living in Vienna. IrfanView works under Windows 95 through Windows 7, and can also be run in Linux under Wine and in Mac OS X using Winebottler.
The Adobe Photoshop program is without a doubt one of the best image editing and manipulation software programs out there. It comes with a wide selection of features and a user-friendly interface suitable for the needs of an amateur and a hardened professional. The biggest problem surrounding the Adobe Photoshop line is the steep prices, which can range from $100 for basic to $1000 for the more advanced versions. For those that rather not spend an arm and a leg for photo editing software, there are plenty of open source and completely free programs available. Here are five of the best image editing software programs that can do as much, and in some cases, even more than Photoshop.
5 Great Open Source or Free Alternatives to Photoshop
Cinepaint
The Cinepaint program is an open source paint program primarily used for retouching bitmap frames of films. This program has been used for its video editing features by a variety of major film studios for movies such as The Last Samurai (2003) and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001). In addition to the video aspect, Cinepaint also has a fantastic image editor able to perform high fidelity 32 bit color. The biggest downside to Cinepaint is that it is based for UNIX or 'Unix-like' operating systems like Mac OS X, so for the majority of editors that use Windows, you'll be out of luck.
ChocoFlop
This program was designed entirely for Mac computers, and optimized for its operating system architecture. You can manipulate multiple layers without administering the transformation on the pixels, meaning no loss of quality. You can layer masks, even for dynamic filters and you have unlimited layers and sub-folders available. The built-in HDR support is a huge plus, and the dozens of file formats available to save in makes it an all around great editor for the Mac. The downside is that the makers no longer offer support for the program, although it is still available to download. Either way, it's worth a try.
Paint.NET
Alright fellow Windows users, this one is for you! The Paint.NET program was originally an undergrad design project mentored by Microsoft, and was meant to be a simple alternative to the Microsoft Paint software program that comes included with the Windows operating system. From that it developed into a great open source image and photo editor specifically designed for Windows computers. It features a large, active online support community that offers advice, tutorials, and nifty plugins. While it's simple in nature it gets the job done and runs great.
Krita
Swedish for 'crayon', Krita is a very powerful painting application used by digital artists for graphic novels, posters and other professional endeavors because of its many features and wide array of brush engine support that ranges from the experimental to the professional. It comes with a great selection of brush presets already and allows you to group your layers and add dynamic filters to your layer stack. There is also great support for a wide range of bit depths and colorspaces. Krita is considered to be slightly less powerful than Photoshop, but its brush support and wide popularity among users is unquestionable.
GIMP
When people think Open source alternative to Photoshop, GIMP automatically comes to mind. GIMP is short for 'GNU Image Manipulation Program'. This is one of the oldest, and in most cases, the best known alternative to Photoshop available. You'll find most, if not all, of the features that Photoshop offers as well some unique ones of its own. It has the largest online support community for any image editing software and works great with UNIX, Linux and Windows based operating systems. The main downside people find is the ease of use. Anyone accustomed to Photoshop might have some difficulty maneuvering through and using GIMP's various features at first. Once you get a hang of it though, it's just as good. For those of you that want an interface as close to Adobe Photoshop as possible you can try GIMPShop. It has all the same features of GIMP, with the exception that the layout is built to resemble Photoshop. Overall, if you use GIMP you'd be able to get most, if not all, of your image editing done without any problems and save a bundle of money in the process.
Author Blurb
V.H. Clarke holds a Bachelors degree in English from the University of Hawaii. He works as a writer with www.usbmemorydirect.com and enjoys surfing and mountain climbing in his spare time.
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