Photoshop is such a powerful brand that, like Google, it's become a verb: nobody really talks about editing an image, it's all about Photoshopping these days. It all adds up to great PR for Adobe, but it might make you believe that no other software could possibly do as good a job as the big PS.

In fact, Adobe doesn't necessarily have the market cornered and its move to the Creative Cloud in 2013 actually helped to spur on a wide range of alternatives to Photoshop. These options can be just as powerful, and produce results that are just as professional.

So whether you're looking elsewhere because you can't afford the subscription, you want to support smaller development houses, or you just don't need all the millions of features that come with Photoshop CC, there's a selection of photo editing software open to you. Here are the best Photoshop alternatives.

01. Affinity Photo

Platform: Mac, Windows, iPad
Price: £48.99/$49.99 (one-off payment)

Fully compatible with Photoshop and other file formats, Affinity Photo is aimed squarely at professional photographers and designers, and although it is hugely cheaper than Photoshop (with no subscription), its creators argue it's actually better. We think it's perhaps the most serious Photoshop alternative we've seen to date.

It comes with a promise of higher speeds, fewer crashes and unlimited undos but in truth, the amount of improved performance you'll get will probably depend what equipment you're using (it's been specifically designed to take advantage of the latest quad core technology).

Gimp

Available for both Mac and Windows, if you're looking for an alternative to Photoshop, Affinity Photo is definitely worth investigating.

02. Photopea

Here is the collection of top paid and free Photoshop alternatives for Windows, MAC, and Linux. This list also includes online alternatives for Photoshop. Gimp is a cross-platform compatible software available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh. It is one of the best free Photoshop alternatives available today in the market. It is a free.

Platform: Web
Price: Free, Premium from $9 per 30 days

GIMP is the best free alternative to Photoshop. With layers, masks, advanced filters, colour adjustments and transformations, which are fully customizable, the program has excellent functions.
Available for: Mac (Apple Photos)| Windows, Mac, Linux (Google Photos) More information: Apple Photos (Free)| Google Photos (Free) Take Your Pick of Lightroom Alternatives. Lightroom got to the top for a reason. Whatever quirks it may have, it is the best at what it does. But the competition is catching up.

Free Photoshop Program For Mac

Thanks to continual advances in web technology you don't always need a discrete app to do much of what you'd use Photoshop for, and Photopea is the latest browser-based image editor that can handle a decent chunk of your workflow.

Designed to be an advanced editor with pro tools, Photopea bears a distinct resemblance to Photoshop and features most of the tools you'll need for everyday image work. It'll open most standard file formats such as JPG, PNG and RAW, and it'll accept Sketch, GIMP and even Photoshop PSD files.

Photopea supports layers and layer masks, lets you use blend modes and features a stack of selection tools, from standard marquees through to a magnetic lasso and a quick selection tool. While it doesn't offer the sort of advanced features you'd expect in Photoshop CC such as content-aware fill, it still has a more than enough going on to keep most designers and artists happy, and it's completely free to use.

However if you don't like ads, there's also the option to subscribe to a premium version which gets rid of them and also gives you extra levels of undo - 60 rather than 30.

03. Sketch

Platform: Mac
Price: $99/year or try Sketch for free

Sketch is a professional vector graphics app for creatives that has created enormous buzz within the design community, and web designers in particular.

The development team behind Sketch has made it as flexible as possible, with it supporting infinite zooming and vector shapes that are perfect for multiple resolutions. You can build a new graphic from primitive shapes or start a new one with the Vector or Pencil tool.

It has a pleasingly simple UI and has many features similar to that of Photoshop and Illustrator, including layers, gradients, colour picker and style presets. Its popularity means there are also plenty of community-created Sketch plugins you can use to extend its functionality.

04. GIMP

Platform: Linux, Windows, Mac
Price: Free

A free, open-source alternative to Photoshop that's been around for donkey's years, GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Today it's available in versions for Linux, Windows and Mac.

GIMP offers a wide toolset, similar to Photoshop in many ways, and is a great option if you're looking for a no-cost image editor. The interface differs somewhat from Photoshop, but a version of GIMP is available that mimics Adobe's look and feel, making it easier to migrate over if you're ditching Photoshop.

The full suite of tools is available here – everything you're accustomed to is within easy reach, including painting tools, colour correction, cloning, selection, and enhancement. The team that oversees development has worked hard to ensure compatibility too, so you'll be able to work with all the popular file formats without any trouble at all. You'll also find a very capable file manager built in, along similar lines to Adobe's Bridge.

Overall, this is a great option whether you've either got a limited budget, or want to move away from Photoshop for other reasons.

05. Pixelmator Pro

Platform: Mac
Price: $39.99

Pixelmator has been around for a while now, but more recently the team released the Pixelmator Pro. While the previous tool used floating windows, the Pro version has a more usable single-window UI, and offers non-destructive image editing. The team have pared back the interface, which should make it easy to pick up – and there's a 'hidden interface' option you can activate if you just want to see your image, with no distractions.

This Photoshop alternative is geared up especially for use on a Mac, and it supports features like tabs, fullscreen and split view.

06. Pixlr

Platform: iOS, Android, web app
Price: Free

Pixlr is a free Photoshop alternative that boasts more than 600 effects, overlays and borders. It also lets you do all the main things you'd expect from a basic photo editor, from cropping and re-sizing to removing red-eye and whitening teeth.

And if you're used to using Photoshop, then you'll find Pixlr's user interface easy to pick up quickly, as it's very similar. This free app is available in both iOS and Android varieties, or use can use it as a web app.

07. Corel PHOTO-PAINT

Platform: Windows
Price: $599.99 / £599.99 (entire CorelDRAW Graphics Suite)

PHOTO-PAINT is a dedicated photo editor in the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. The suite has been updated for 2018 to offer a Corel AfterShot 3 HDR support, as well as interactive tools for straightening photos and adjusting perspective. There's also improved stylus control, with the PHOTO-PAINT responding to different pressures, bearing tilt and rotation.

The suite is geared up to work perfectly with Windows 10, offering multi-monitor viewing and support for 4K displays.

08. Paint.net

Platform: Windows
Price: Free

Paint.net is a Windows-based alternative to the Paint editor that Microsoft shipped with versions of Windows. Don't let that put you off, though: it's a surprisingly capable and useful tool, available completely free of charge. The software started out life as a Microsoft-sponsored undergraduate project, and has become an open source project maintained by some of the alumni.

The focus is on ease of use, and there's a definite tendency towards photo editing rather than artistic creation. That said, there are a range of special ef

Best Free Photoshop Replacement For Mac