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Free photoshop alternatives

Started by Gulftastic, June 18, 2018, 08:02:30 PM

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Gulftastic

Can anyone recommend a useful free alternative to Photoshop?

I don't need the full ability to manipulate photos, but access to shapes and being able to add text is a must.

And, along with any recommendations, the best place to download them from?


Consignia

Paint.NET is probably a good shout for the basics, with a simpler UI than GIMP.

Dr Rock

A stolen version of Photoshop remains the best free option.

Steven

Quote from: Dr Rock on June 18, 2018, 08:39:14 PM
A stolen version of Photoshop remain the best free option.

You're certainly carrying a torch for thievery..

Dr Rock


Z

Is there anything very good that focuses exclusively on pixel art? There's bound to be, right?
I'm recreating a thing and zooming in 3200% on photoshop is a bit tiresome.

Steven

Quote from: Z on June 18, 2018, 09:04:01 PM
Is there anything very good that focuses exclusively on pixel art? There's bound to be, right?
I'm recreating a thing and zooming in 3200% on photoshop is a bit tiresome.

https://lospec.com/pixel-art-software-list

Bhazor

Quote from: Gulftastic on June 18, 2018, 08:02:30 PM
Can anyone recommend a useful free alternative to Photoshop?

I don't need the full ability to manipulate photos, but access to shapes and being able to add text is a must.

And, along with any recommendations, the best place to download them from?

I'm a big gay for Krita.

https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/

It started out as a GIMP style free alternative to Photoshop so has all the basic photo editing functions you'd expect. But has since moved to be more of a creative platform including pixel art, voxels and animation with the last big update adding in Python scripting. Its interface is a lot better than GIMP and the level of options and customisations are mad. Its also entirely open source so if you have a bit of coding know how you can customise it further.

Quote from: Z on June 18, 2018, 09:04:01 PM
Is there anything very good that focuses exclusively on pixel art? There's bound to be, right?
I'm recreating a thing and zooming in 3200% on photoshop is a bit tiresome.

Krita does have a pixel grid option when you zoom in. Which is probably better for fixing pixel errors in photos than a straight up pixel art program like Steven mentioned.

Edit: Misread it as you wanting to alter pixels on a zoomed in image. For pure pixel art I quite like Slate. Nice and simple with a really clean interface.

https://github.com/mitchcurtis/slate

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Consignia on June 18, 2018, 08:16:09 PM
Paint.NET is probably a good shout for the basics, with a simpler UI than GIMP.

I'm very fond of Paint, the only thing which frustrates is that the lasso tool is so basic (unless they've updated that, the version I have is a couple of years old now). I'm also quite fond of https://pixlr.com/ - which has a much better one but otherwise is very similar.

biggytitbo

I HATE GIMP. I invaiariably have to shut it down to avoid throwing my computer out of the window in rage. One of the most frustrating bits of software I've ever used.

Glebe

I use the free version of PhotoFiltre, cos it's quite simple and straightforward. Not been any updates for it in a long while, mind.

lazarou

Quote from: Z on June 18, 2018, 09:04:01 PM
Is there anything very good that focuses exclusively on pixel art? There's bound to be, right?
I'm recreating a thing and zooming in 3200% on photoshop is a bit tiresome.

Aseprite is the gold standard for that at the moment, though the latest full version will set you back about $15. There's an older, free version to try out too. https://www.aseprite.org/download/

Pyxel Edit is also very good, especially so for designing tiled background art. $9 full version or just grab the older, free one. https://pyxeledit.com/get.php

The paid versions of both are significantly better and well worth the money if you're going to be doing a lot of pixel work. If you only get one, get Aseprite, everyone I know swears by it.

Mass_Panic

Quote from: lazarou on June 19, 2018, 09:20:16 PM
Aseprite is the gold standard for that at the moment, though the latest full version will set you back about $15. There's an older, free version to try out too. https://www.aseprite.org/download/

Pyxel Edit is also very good, especially so for designing tiled background art. $9 full version or just grab the older, free one. https://pyxeledit.com/get.php

The paid versions of both are significantly better and well worth the money if you're going to be doing a lot of pixel work. If you only get one, get Aseprite, everyone I know swears by it.

They are both great, but I would argue that Pro Motion is much better (I use all 3). If you can get over the different design paradigm (based on Amiga Deluxepaint rather than Photoshop) it can do everything that Aseprite and Pyxel Edit can combined and much more - it's ridiculously deep for a pixel art editor and has a bit of a learning curve. I prefer the interfaces of the other two, but the deeper I go into Pro Motion the less I'm using them.

mobias

I've got Photoshop on my Mac but use Gimp on my PC. Gimp is clunky, badly optimised and a faff but it does work. You can certainly do most of the basic things fairly easily. I would never use it for anything even remotely complex though and its bad optimisation means it noticeably chugs along calculating things when Photoshop does them in an instant.