There are at least a dozen more desktop alternatives for Windows, Mac, or Linux.Most Popular Features. Affinity Photo is a new program that was launched today by the England-based software company Serif.It’s designed to be a powerful alternative to Adobe Photoshop for professional Most of you have heard about GIMP (or maybe even use it) as a Photoshop alternative. But while Photoshop unquestionably offers a lot, it’s by no means the only software capable of getting the job done.4 Free Best Adobe PhotoShop Alternatives For Windows / Mac / Linux I have compiled a list of 5 best and free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS.PixlrPixlr is a genuine GIMP, and arguably, even Photoshop competitor. For many tasks, our browser can effectively become our new desktop.In this article, I’ll review a handful of the best browser-based graphics alternatives for doing just that. Inevitably, some are older and less powerful units.Installing a fully-fledged, resource-intensive graphics apps on each machine may be neither smart, nor even possible — either from a financial or performance perspective.Thirdly, if we’re already storing and sharing our files across the cloud (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc), it makes a lot of sense to share functionality the same way. I do need to state that these programs are not complete replacements for all Photoshop functionality.So, if they aren’t a complete replacement, why bother?Firstly, if you examine your workflows, you’ll likely find that you use the same 5% of functions 95% of the time.Cut, paste, crop, layers, text tool, opacity, color adjustments, masks and lasso selections probably covers off a large percentage of what you do.Secondly, if you’re like many of us, you probably operate two, three or even possibly more computers, both at home and at work. Here are some favorites.But today, I want to talk about growing band of increasingly impressive web-based, OS-independent Photoshop alternatives.It is good enough to create a banner or a Web image but definitely not an option for print.Pixlr interface looks familiar because it is similar to the interface of a desktop graphics program – with menus at the top, a toolbox on the right, and floating windows on the left.In the toolbox you will find tools that are present in any desktop graphics program. I repeat, Pixlr is not meant as a Photoshop replacement. Pixlr supports JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, and PXD (their own layered format).The size, resolution, and format limitations are not that much of an issue, if you work with Web graphics. You can use it to edit your existing images or create image from scratch.When you create a new image, you can choose from preset image sizes (some of which are the standard banner sizes) but you can’t set the resolution.As for formats, the free version supports only the native SUMO format, as well as PNG and JPG.But for web graphics, this is just fine for most cases.The Sumopaint interface is very similar to Photoshop — the key difference being that the free version has ads.In order for the comparison between the 5 Web-based programs to be fair, I’ll only compare the free version of Sumopaint. Its functionality is comparable to the basic functionality (without the plugins) you will find in Photoshop or GIMP.Similarly to Pixlr, with Sumopaint you can start a new image or open an existing one. Again, these are not necessarily an exact match of what you will find in Photoshop or GIMP.Two other points that need mentioning are that the interface of Pixlr comes in multiple languages, and it even has a mobile version as well.Sumopaint is another real competitor to famous desktop apps.
![]() The Best Photoshop Alternative Professional Most OfFirstly, you can work with JPEG only. As you might expect, it’s a very trimmed down version of Photoshop, but its combination of Adobe familiarity with ‘free’ no doubt proves very tempting for many users.In comparison to Pixlr and Sumopaint, Photoshop Express is a poor relative. Photoshop ExpressPhotoshop Express is a free graphics program from Adobe. For the majority of common design tasks it will likely be a feasible replacement for GIMP or Photoshop. Instead, here are some screenshots of its Toolbox and some of the menus.There you can find some great tools, including a Symmetry tool that doesn’t even have an obvious equivalent in Photoshop or GIMP.All in all, Sumopaint is a great program for web graphics. Setting up mac mail for gmailWhile most other graphic editors don’t tend to treat these options as ‘tools in a toolbox’, I must admit it’s convenient to have them there.You have the same commands you know from GIMP/Photoshop, but they live in strange places, like Crop, Resize, or Scale in the Edit menu.Of course, this isn’t the end of the world, but if you are used to the way menu items are arranged in GIMP/Photoshop, this will be a little confusing at first.One more difference between the menus of Lunapic and the menus in GIMP/Photoshop is that Lunapic offers (probably) more functionality than the base versions of GIMP and Photoshop.Of course, you might never need these functionality, but it’s nice to know they are there.Just have a look at just some of the options you have available!To be honest, I couldn’t sample all the options in the menus – this will require a day or two – but from my testing, it was all very impressive.You can even edit videos with Lunapic, not to mention the numerous animation options. These are handy for Web graphics and are nice to have even though you might not use them very often.The Lunapic toolbox is a little… peculiar, containing options such as Cut, Copy, Paste, or Print. Its interface is a blend of web app and GIMP/Photoshop, but this isn’t very confusing.In terms of features, it has plenty of them – both features that are standard for a desktop graphics program, and features many other, if any, editors have.For instance, with Lunapic you can encrypt/decrypt images or save them to your computer, Imgur, email, Tumblr, Picasa, Facebook, Web, etc. LunapicLunapic is one more free, ad-supported graphic editor with lots of options. Edit contains options such as Crop, Resize, Red-Eye, Touchup, basic adjustments, such as White Balance, Sharpen, etc., and effects such as Crystalize, Pixelate, etc.The Decorate tab contains options for Text, Bubbles, Frames, etc.This is all you get from Photoshop Express, and it seems to be pitched more firmly at home and small office photo-retouchers, than anyone manipulating imagery for a living.Certainly not a comprehensive Photoshop or GIMP stand-in, but still useful for basic tasks, if you are comfortable with a JPEG only output. Here you have two tabs – Edit and Decorate. ![]() Sure, they don’t replicate every features of Photoshop and GIMP, but they offer more than enough for advanced design tasks.They are viable alternatives and depending on what your design tasks are, could well be a replacement of the basic versions of GIMP and Photoshop.One aspect that I personally can’t go without is the GIMP/Photoshop plugin infrastructure, but if basic functionalities are to be compared, for web graphics, Pixlr, Sumopaint, and Lunapic could all make me ditch my dependency on the desktop.Photoshop Express and FotoFlexer certainly have fewer features and more limitations, but can perform a range of relatively complex graphics tasks.However, their limited functionality would rule them out of anything beyond the most basic design tasks.I’ve been amazed at what can be accomplished in a modern browser today.Even if it’s just when you visit your parents or friends, give these apps a test drive. ConclusionPixlr, Sumopaint, and Lunapic are all unusually rich in features and can comfortably compete with Photoshop and GIMP for many day-to-day graphics projects.
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