Adobe Photoshop Alternatives
Note that in general, most, if not all, of these applications will have the very basic photoshop features already built-in (e.g. painting, cropping, polygon manipulation, etc.) so the pros and cons enumerated below are simply a list of extra features.
Name | Platform | Price | Pros/Cons |
Rebelle | Windows/Mac | $71.99 | + Stroke style replicates very closely real-life watercolor painting + Able to simulate a drop of color being blown in one direction or the other (DropEngine) + Has a variety of different canvases – Limited number of brush presets, however one can make their own using the built-in Brush Creator tool – As far as I can tell, this software works best for watercolor paintings only |
ArtRage | Windows/Mac | $63.00 | + Minimalistic interface disappears when one starts painting, reduces workspace clutter + Intuitive interface + Has a variety of different canvases – That’s about all they’re good at |
Affinity Photo | Windows/Mac | $49.99 (one-off) | + Fully compatible with Photoshop and other formats (also looks familiar to Photoshop) + Higher speeds, fewer crashes, unlimited undos + Purportedly better than Photoshop, the community says + Dedicated RAW workspace |
Sketch | Windows/Mac | $99.00/year | + Infinite zooming, vectors available for multiple resolutions + Sketch plugins available for download + Sketch for Teams allows multiple people to be able to work on things at once + Cloud-based |
GIMP | Windows/Mac | Free | + Incredibly long history of support + It’s free + Similar to Photoshop – May be less feature-rich than other alternatives |