The Top 5 Affordable Alternatives to Photoshop

Creating good design is an incredibly valuable asset that will complement nearly ever aspect of your business, regardless of your industry. It can also be a cumbersome task, expensive and costly in time and resources. If you don’t feel like spooling out the dough for Adobe Creative Suite, we have come up with a list of some of the top graphic editing apps that are either free, or will fit your budget.

Top Free Image Editing Software. For those just dabbling in the art of design, and wanting to try some alternatives to photoshop instead of forking out the dough can try some of these suitable, free, alternatives:

GIMP Gnu Image Manipulation Program is a free, open-source graphics editing software. Considered by some a possible replacement to Photoshop, it doesn’t attempt to copy their layout or design but presents an excellent alternative to their capabilities.

Pixlr. A cloud-based set of images tools and utilities intended for non-professionals. It can be used on PC’s, smartphones, and tablets.

Paint.NET. A free graphics editor created as an open source project by Washington State University students. It was designed to replace Microsoft Paint but has been adapted into a highly involved graphics editing software.

PicMonkey. When Google shut down Picnik, two engineers from Picknik left Google in an attempt to build their own free graphics editing software. What they came up with was PicMonkey. Although some of its services are free, it offers additional features for a small fee. It’s designed to be run on your web-browser meaning you don’t have to download a thing.

Apple Photos. Created by Apple, Apple Photos is a free application that allows for photo editing and manipulation but is entirely geared towards photos. Compared to many of these other editors it’s somewhat limited. If you use a Mac, then you already have it.

Affordable Alternatives to Photoshop. Although these apps aren’t free, they provide very capable alternative to Photoshop for a small one-time fee.

Affinity ($49.99). A one-time purchase gives you access to an entire line up of photo editing software and is one of the most comprehensive photo software available. Noted for its blazing fast speed, Affinity was produced to be an acceptable alternative to Photoshop, and for the money it has done just that.

Pixelmator ($29.99). This App allows you to edit photos on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. It’s also easier to use than Photoshop if you are just getting into photo editing, and it’s inexpensive price means that it’s accessible for anyone.

Acorn ($29.99). Acorn is a photo editing software designed to be used on OSX (Mac). It has won recognition by the MacWorld Editors’ Choice, Mac App Store Best of 2013, and a MacWorld Eddy Award winner. It provides a basic free application with an improved version for relatively inexpensive one time fee.

This guide might be a little biased towards Mac but if you are willing to spend a little time, and maybe a few bucks, you can find a serviceable solution to Photoshop that will work on any computer.

For some design tips, you can do complete on your own, check out our guide on designing and utilizing interesting and beautiful info graphics via PowerPoint.