FREE ALTERNATIVES TO PHOTOSHOP

Let’s face it, all Adobe products are expensive, particularly if you are a startup or small business with a limited budget. This means we often get asked how people can edit their images without having to fork out for Adobe Photoshop.

Luckily, there are alternatives you can download or use online that are completely free, here’s some of our favourites that would be perfect for a small budget, with a few images to edit per month.

GIMP

Yep, we know it has an odd name, but GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. You can’t blame them for shortening the name! This is usually the default for people who want to edit photos and it is available for all operating systems. It has quite a vast selection of tools and features, but it can seem a little overwhelming at first, so we’d recommend spending some time having a look around.

Microsoft PowerPoint

If all you need to do is resize images, Microsoft PowerPoint enables you to do this. You can change the dimensions, file size and crop using its applications and it’s perfect for quick, minor changes. You can also layer up the graphics, and we often create templates for our clients so that the look and feel doesn’t suffer too much for website image updates. Microsoft PowerPoint will be familiar to most people, so it will be easy to introduce as an image editing tool. One note though guys – please don’t use clip art images, just DONT! ;)

Adobe Photoshop Express

Use the basics of Photoshop, for free! You can use Adobe Photoshop Expressin your browser to crop, rotate and resize images. As well as this, you can adjust brightness and contrast, remove red-eye and a use a touch up tool. It’s simple to use and perfect for people who won’t be using it to intricately edit on a regular basis.

Obviously, you’re not going to be able to get the same pixel control as you do in Photoshop, but it will definitely do for the odd edit until you’re ready to commit to buying the full software.

Pixlr

Pixlr offers three tools to use depending on your editing requirements. These include, Pixlr Editor, Pixlr Express and Pixlr-omatic. Wherever you are, you can edit your images in your browser and it feels a lot like Photoshop. You can load your image from your computer, or enter the URL of your image.

Features like text overlays and layers are supported, and colour picker is available when adjusting your image, along with many other options. Get your hands on a range of filters to transform your image, from vintage to fun with retro effects and borders.

PicMonkey

Again, an online application, PicMonkey, is so easy to get started with. Simply click, ‘edit’ and you can start transforming your image! It comes with a range of tools to use, including, shapes, textures and text. As it’s a free tool, it’s not appropriate for more challenging tasks; however, it’s suitable for quick, minor changes.

If you enjoy the free tool, you’re able to upgrade to access extra features for as little as £2.00 a month. This is perfect for small companies that are new to editing images or for light editing.

So whether you’re slightly overwhelmed with Photoshop or you’re a small business, try a few of these free alternatives. You may opt to keep to one of these applications, but if not they’ll certainly get you prepped for when you decide to use Photoshop!

BY ROSIE