20 Online Photoshop Alternatives For Free

Are you looking for the Best FREE Photoshop Alternatives?

Adobe Photoshop is a name that doesn’t require any introduction being the Number 1 tool for designing, editing and blending.

The flexibility and efficiency of this software cannot be matched with any other photo editing software available in market, but it needs a high level of skill to perform various functions.

If you are totally unknown to Adobe Photoshop then it will be difficult to use the appropriate tools efficiently. That is the reason why so many people are looking for easier to use Photoshop alternatives.

Another reason to choose the Photoshop alternatives is its cost because the original software of photoshop comes with a huge price tag.

Most people cannot also afford the price that Photoshop is charging, but there are still many alternative legal ways to get free Photoshop software.

So, here we have collected the 20 Online Tools that which can be considered as Photoshop Alternatives for editing your Photos.

Not all features are always available, but the simplest will remain.

20 Online Photoshop Alternatives For Free

Google Photo Editor

It is arguably the best free web-based photo editor out there – it integrates with Flickr easily and the features are well above average.

This editor is also very good for people who want more advanced features and effect options, setting it up is easy and UI is very intuitive.

Google photo editor can support highly complex layers. It is a great Photoshop alternative.

Important Feature for Picnik :

• Fix your photos in just one click
• Use advanced controls to fine-tune your results
• Crop, resize, and rotate images in real-time
• Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
• Astoundingly fast, right in your browser
• Awesome fonts and top-quality type tool
• Basketfuls of shapes from hand-picked designers
• Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux
• No download required, nothing to install

Instasize

Instasize is the visual toolkit for social creators. They build the tools social creators need to grow their brand and stand out.

At Instasize, their mission is to enable people to realize their creative potential and expand their online influence. They provide the tools, technology and community that make content creation and brand building accessible to everyone—from first-time photo editors and amateur photographers to full-time bloggers.

• Layer photos and videos.
• Format your content for any social channel
• Apply vintage effects.

Snipshot

Snipshot is among the Photoshop alternatives that are very easy to use, and is one of the only web-based editors not to display advertisements.

Nice to look at, nice to use and although not quite as advanced as the top three, this is still one you should check out.

Important Features for Snipshot:

• Get Snipshot Pro
  • Edit RAW files online
  • Apply special effects
  • Make portraits faster with face detection
  • Click here to get a $9 monthly plan
  • Click here to get a $5 two week pass
• Use Snipshot with Open IT Online—the best way to open any kind of document
• Our free API lets you use Snipshot for your own website
• No download necessary—100% browser based, no plug-ins required
• One-click import from any web site with our bookmarklet
• Save as GIF, JPG, PDF, or PNG
• One-click enhance improves most images
• Basic editing tools like crop, rotate, resize
• Basic image adjustments like contrast, brightness, saturation, sharpness and hue
• Unlimited undo and redo (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y, or ⌘Z and ⌘Y on your Mac)
• Nondestructive editing—we always work from the original
• Edit big pictures—up to 10 MB, or 25 megapixels (5000×5000 pixels)
• Import PDF (first page only)

Splashup

Splashup is by far the nicest looking editor, but since when did that matter? Feature wise this editor is okay, and advertisements are fairly minimal.

Simplicity wise these kind of Photoshop alternatives are one of the best, and even children before 6 can use it!

Important Features for Splashup:

• Layers. Plus: blending modes, advanced layer effects, and opacity changes.
• The ability to open multiple images at the same time.
• A windowed environment, made possible by Flash.
• The creation of images from scratch.
• Take pictures directly from a web cam.

Phoenix

Phoenix is part of the Internet design suite named Aviary. Phoenix provides popular Photoshop features such as alpha channels and masking abilities.

Edit photographs with this online photo and graphics editing tool, which does much more than adjust brightness or remove red-eye.

Important Features for Phoenix:

• Creating patterns
• Color swatches and palettes creation
• Vector art editor
• Create 3D Models and skins
• Audio editor
• Music generator
• Font editor
• Terrain generator
• Painting simulator
• Desktop publishing layout editor
• Image resizer

GIMP

GIMP stands for “GNU image manipulation program”, and it is one of the oldest and most well known Photoshop alternatives currently existing.

Although it doesn’t quite have all of them, you’ll find most of the features included in Photoshop somewhere in GIMP. GIMP is cross platform and supported by a large community.

Important Features for GIMP:

• Customizable Interface
• Photo Enhancement.
• Digital Retouching.
• Hardware Support.
• File format-JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, TIFF.

Krita

Krita is an application for image creation and image manipulation.

We focus on painting, illustration, concept art and other creative work.

This is a short an incomplete list of the most important features Krita provides.

Krita provides an OpenGL based canvas in addition to an unaccelerated canvas.

Krita’s filters, histogram computation and image recomposion are multi-threaded and make use of multiple cores if available.

The effect of filters is previewed on-canvas.

Important Features for Krita:

• Color models.
• Vector tools.
• Raster Tools.
• Canvas Tools.
• Guidance Tools.
• Brush engines.
• Filters.
• Layer types.

Flauntr

FlauntR , An online images editor with comprehensive images effects features which apply 1000 of digital photo effects to your images with just one click. flauntR online images editor is based on Flash develop where it can load extremely fast and compatibles in any web browser. Beside that, the images editing services of this kind of Photoshop alternatives doesn’t looks no much different from any desktop based images editing software.

Important Features for FlauntR :

• Defined tabs with unique tools and features for photo and image editing, photo and image styling, text and embellishments and others
• One-step batch uploads and gallery creation
• Instant export to cell phones and PDA devices with visual make/model search engine
• Built-in store where prints, posters, wall decals and greeting cards can be ordered directly; no need to be directed to another website

Pixlr

Pixlr, a very cool new browser based image editor. It has some amazing features to rival as Photoshop alternatives, and best of all it’s free and can be accessed wherever you have access to the net. The application loads fast and looks great. You can upload and edit images from your computer, or grab images from the net by pasting in a URL.

Important Features for Pixlr :

• Layers, including layer masks and basic layer styles
• A wide range of filters
• Custom Brushes
• Full colour adjustment tools
• Selection tools – lasso, magic wand etc
• Clone stamp, burn and dodge tools
• Red eye reduction
• Text
• Gradients
• Crop tool

Photoshop.com

Adobe actually has a free web based photo editor of their own. It has all the basic functionality you’d expect as well as a few advanced features (sadly though, no layers), and interfaces well with a number of photo sharing websites. Again, completely cross platform.

Important Features for Photoshop :

• Personal URL to access your account
• Online private and public sharing
• Tutorials
• Online photo management, editing, and interactive photo galleries
• Browser-based upload and download
• 2 GB of online storage space
• The Plus version adds special artwork, album templates, and effects, and 20 GB or 100 GB of online storage.

New Photoshop CS8 Features :

• Amazing Content aware fill feature.
• Better edge detection & masking results.
• Puppet tool .
• Wet paint .
• Brush Stroke effect .
• Patchmatch .

PicMagick

Its an online photo editor that allows you to make ordinary or simple photos look wonderful within a few clicks. This kind of Photoshop alternatives will surprise you how fabulous your photos can be and how easily this can be done.

Important Features for Picmagic :

• Designed to be simple and intuitive
• Enhance colors and details of your photos
• Expose hidden details in shadows and highlights
• Professional yet simple skin retouch
• Remove red-eyes or unwanted color casts
• All common tasks: crop, rotate, sharpen, etc.
• Absolutely free, no registration, no download.

Pixer.us

Pixer.us is a great online photo editing tool which is free and easy to use. There´s absolutely nothing to download–not even one plug-in, and Pixer isn´t lacking in features. You can crop, resize, change the color scheme, play with photo fx, and much, much more.

Important Features for Pixer.us:

• Simple lightweight photo editor.
• Perform most common image editing functions like resize, crop, rotate, flip, saturation, blur, sharpen etc.
• Instantly apply and preview the effects using the slide bar.
• Revert changes to previous or to the original image version.
• Upload, edit and save images without registration.
• Save edited images in multiple image formats (JPEG, GIF, PNG or BMP).

Sumo Paint

Sumo Paint is an online image editing application similar to many other Adobe Photoshop alternatives. You can create Polar Coordinates, Tunnelize and many other great effects directly in the Cylinder Designer filter.

Important Features for Sumo Paint:

• Cylinder
• Cone
• Hourglass
• Ring
• Bowl
• Bottle
• Tunnelize
• Polar Coordinates
• Bursting Sphere

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.

Important Features for Paint.NET:

• Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface.
• Active Online Community.
• Automatically Updated.
• Special Effects.
• Powerful Tools.

Pixel Mator

Pixel mator 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). Because of this it can show real-time previews of filters and keep modifications live for as long as you want.

Important Features for pixel mator:

• Non-destructive image editing.
• Unlimited layers and sub-folders.
• Non-destructive image editing.
• Filters and tools designed to take advantage of your graphics card’s power.
• Load and save to dozens of formats.
• Import RAW images, including rare formats thanks to dcraw.
• Export to Jpeg, PNG, or GIF and obtain the smallest possible sizes

WebPicTool

Webpictool is the most powerful online photo editor. It can crop photo, photo resizing ,edit picture contrast and brightness , add text to photo and more photofiltre ! Store and share your photos online. No regedit no login ,100% free. The Photoshop alternatives list contains this software because you can get easy and powerful access through various functions of editing.

Cinepaint

Cinepaint is designed primarily for video often used to make animated feature films by major studios, but it is also a great image editor capable of high fidelity 32 bit color. Currently there is no stable version for Windows.

Important Feature for Cinepaint :

• Support for 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit color channels of deep paint.
• Color Management System. CinePaint uses LittleCMS.
• Flipbook. Movie playback of short sequences of images in RAM.
• Open Source. With various OSS licenses.
• Friendly professional developers. Polite discussion forums.
• Being a CinePaint developer can be a good career move. CinePaint developers have gotten jobs at companies such as DreamWorks Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Apple.

Pixia

Pixia is the English version of a popular Japanese painting and retouching software for full color graphics. It supports mask, layer and many other editing functions. You can use your own customized brush tips and even use an image file as a brush tip to create unique effects. Its user-friendly interface is suitable for beginners as well as experts so you can consider it among the best Photoshop alternatives. Pixia supports the most common editing techniques and presents a user friendly interface.

Pizap

piZap is a web-hosted service that will enable you to upload a picture and modify at will. You can add stickers and text as well as implementing different effects and adding any text you like.Once you have finished work on your masterpiece, you can save it and share with other via social networks and the like. Moreover, you can create products using your finished designs and order them through the site. All it takes for you to use it is a computer with an Internet connection, and you’re ready for some photographic action.

Fotoflexer

Fotoflexer is quickly giving Picnik a run for the money in features. From the basics like rotate, resize, or crop images; flip, draw, erase, and fill; to the convenient re-color hair or skin with only three clicks; and the advanced animations. Once you upload a photo to this kind of Photoshop alternatives, you’ll see a simple interface complete yet it has power like automatic exposure correction, red eye removal, resizing and cropping.
Important Feature for Cinepaint :

• Curves and high resolution editing (adjust coloring, contrast, and exposure)
• Smart scissors for cutting an object out of its background(like the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop)
• Preference saver (like Photoshop’s workspace preferences)
• Color effects (like filters in Photoshop) – they offer quite the selection of different effects including blueprint, neon, grayscale, invert, painting, cartoon, and more

PicMarkr

PicMarkr lets you to add custom watermark (image or text) to your images online and free.
It is useful when you need to protect your copyrights or if you want to add comments
to your photos.

Important Feature for PicMarkr :

• Upload files from computer or grab them from your Flickr, Facebook or Picasa account.
• Batch image processing.
• Add text watermark, image watermark or tiled watermark.
• Easy to use: minimum settings, no need to download or install anything.
• And yes, its free (You can buy a Pro version, if you need more features).