Free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop

Below is each common Photoshop job and a free way to do it, with notes on where free options fall short. Outside apps link to their developers' own pages, and Adobe facts come from Adobe's pages, checked November 10, 2026.

What people pay Photoshop for, job by job

Making photos smaller for email, a website or a form

Use Compress images. Drop in one photo or a batch, set a maximum width, choose JPG, PNG or WebP, and set a quality for JPG and WebP, and download. In our test, a 3000 × 2000 JPG resized to 800 px went from 359 KB to 22 KB. The photos are processed in your browser and aren't uploaded, which you can check yourself. For a hard size limit, see how to make a photo under 2 MB.

Removing location and camera details before sharing

Use Remove photo location data. For JPG photos, it lists what the file reveals, such as location, date taken and camera or phone model. For JPG, PNG and WebP, it gives you a clean copy. In our test it found and removed planted GPS coordinates and a camera name, and the picture's pixels stayed identical. JPG and PNG files keep every pixel. WebP files are redrawn and re-saved, and the tool marks them.

Cropping and fixing light and color

The app you already have is often enough. Microsoft's guide to editing in the Windows Photos app covers crop, rotate, light and color sliders, an erase tool for blemishes, and blurring or replacing a background. Apple's guide to editing in Photos on Mac covers exposure, white balance, curves, levels, straightening, and removing distractions on Macs that support Apple Intelligence.

Layers, retouching and combining images

• GIMP is free software for GNU/Linux, macOS and Windows. Its about page describes it as a program for "photo retouching, image composition and image authoring."
• Paint.NET is a free download for Windows PCs, with layers, unlimited undo and effects. Its developer also sells it in the Microsoft Store, as a way to support the project.

Drawing and digital painting

Krita is a free and open source painting program. Its download page offers Windows, macOS, Linux and Android versions, and says iPads and iPhones aren't supported. The same page lists paid copies in some app stores. The download from Krita's own site is free.

Raw photos

darktable is open source, released under the GPL 3.0, and its site describes "advanced raw photo processing." It works differently from Adobe Camera Raw, so expect a learning curve if you're switching.

The same job on a whole folder

Deskshed, our Windows desktop app, has a Batch screen that runs one job across a folder: watermark photos, remove location data, rename copies, or put images into a PDF. Your originals aren't changed. In our tests, every input file's checksum was unchanged after all jobs. We haven't yet tested it on folders of real size. Deskshed is $5 one-time for the first 1,000 buyers, then $9, for Windows (see Deskshed).

Favicons and site icons

Use Favicon generator. It turns one image into a favicon.ico holding 16, 32 and 48 px versions, plus PNG icons up to 512 px. Start from a PNG. In our test, Chrome couldn't read SVG files for this tool.

Where there's no good free swap

If clients, agencies or print shops send you layered PSD files and expect them back intact, we can't point you to a free app that we know handles that reliably. Test a real file from them before you switch.

What Photoshop costs now

On Adobe's Photoshop plans page, checked November 10, 2026, the Photoshop plan was US$22.99 a month, listed as "Annual, billed monthly." The same page's FAQ gave US$263.88 a year for annual billing and offered a 7-day free trial.

The same page listed a Photography plan at US$19.99 a month, also annual and billed monthly, which includes Photoshop, Lightroom and Lightroom Classic. If you edit raw photos, compare it before choosing Photoshop alone.

The annual commitment matters. Adobe's subscription terms, effective August 1, 2026, say you get a full refund if you cancel within 14 days of your first order. After that, canceling an annual plan billed monthly costs a lump sum of 50% of what's left on the contract. California customers pay 30% of the annual commitment instead.

When paying for Photoshop is worth it

Pay for it when Photoshop is part of your work, not an occasional fix:

• Heavy retouching. Product shots, portraits and composites every week, where speed in a tool you know saves real hours.
• Camera Raw workflows. A large raw library you already edit in Adobe's tools, where switching means relearning and redoing.
• Industry file exchange. Agencies, printers or employers who send and expect PSD files, or courses that teach Photoshop.

Adobe's plans page didn't offer a month-to-month Photoshop plan when we checked, so if you open it a few times a year to crop or resize, you'd still be signing up for a year.

How to cancel Photoshop

Adobe's help page on canceling (last updated July 24, 2026, checked November 10, 2026) says to sign in to your Adobe account, choose Manage plan for the plan, then Cancel your plan, and confirm. Each plan has to be canceled separately, and access lasts until the end of the billing period. If you bought it through Apple, Google or Microsoft, cancel there instead, as our guide to canceling on iPhone and Android explains. Read the fee terms above first.

Common questions

Paying for something not listed here? Ask for a quote to replace it.