Two Free Alternatives to Photoshop

1,PAINT NET

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, as 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.


Ease of use

The focus is on ease of use, and there’s a definite tendancy towards photo editing rather than artistic creation.

That said, there are a range of special effects available, allowing you to easily create fake perspective, blend and push pixels around the canvas, tile and repeat selections, and so on.

A good range of selection tools, support for layers, and adjustments such as curves and brightness/contrast mean that Paint.net is a great alternative to Photoshop for photo editing, especially if you can do without some of the more recent additions to Photoshop’s toolset.

2,SUMO PAINT

Sumopaint is a highly capable browser-based image editor. All the standard features you’d expect from a desktop tool are present and correct (and by buying the Pro version for $19 you can install a desktop version of the app if you prefer).

You need the Adobe Flash Player to use this tool, so you’re not going be using Sumopaint on your iPad. That said, it’s lightweight and quick to load, and the free version is very usable.

The standard range of tools and adjustments you’d expect are all included. Brushes, pencils, shapes, text, cloning, gradients, etc are all quickly accessed from the Photoshop-esque floating toolbar. It can also open saved documents from your hard drive, making Sumopaint a perfectly viable option for editing and reediting.
RGB only

Some tools work in different ways to Photoshop, offering possibilities that would be difficult to match in Adobe’s offering. There are, however, limitations that will put off some users.

The most important of these is that the editor appears to be RGB only, limiting its use to screen-destined artwork only. No CMYK, Lab or other colour models to be found here.