5 Best Free Open Source Photoshop Alternative For Windows

Here is a list of best free open source Photoshop alternative for Windows. As you know Adobe Photoshop is an extremely popular graphics designing and image editing software. However, it is a paid and closed source software. In this article, I have created a list of open source software that can be used as an alternative of Photoshop. You can freely download these software along with their source codes. Plus, you are also allowed to edit their source code without any restrictions.

These Photoshop alternatives offer all essential tools to create and edit graphic designs. In most of these alternatives, you can also import and edit Photoshop (PSD) images. These alternatives also offer support for standard image formats like PNG, JPEG, BMP, TIFF, RAW, CRW, PCX, etc. To create and edit graphic designs, these software provide multiple tool sections like Paint Tools, Transformation Tools, Layers, Color Tools, and more. Through paint tools, you can create custom designs over images. Through transformation tools, you can resize, flip, move, and scale images. “Layers” is another important tool section that allows designers to work on individual layers that they can later combine to make a design. Using Color tools, you can adjust the color, saturation, contrast, hue, and other image parameters. Apart from these primary tools, you can find many other designing tools in these software.

These Photoshop alternatives also provide additional tools to perform tasks like measure distance, swap colors, animation creation, etc. Go through the list to know more about these software.

My Favorite Open Source Photoshop Alternative For Windows:

GIMP is my favorite software because it offers all essential graphic designing tools just like Photoshop. It lets you create layered graphics in various formats. Plus, it also lets you work on Photoshop (PSD) projects.

You can also check out lists of best free PSD Viewer, Adobe InDesign Alternative, and GarageBand Alternative for Windows.

GIMP

GIMP is a free open source Photoshop alternative for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is a full-fledged photo editing software just like Photoshop. In it, you can open and edit images of almost all formats like JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TGA, DNG, RAW, CRW, and more. It even supports Photoshop (PSD) images. It comes with a good set of image editing tools that enables you to edit and enhance images. On its interface, you can find a large editing area surrounded by editing sections like Paint, Layers, Filters, Colors, and more. After editing, you can export the final image in PSD and other standard image formats. Now, check out the main features of this software.

Main Features:

• Colors: It is the main photo color adjustment section of this software from where you can adjust Color Balance, Color Temperaturation, Hue, Saturation, Exposure, and other image parameters.
• Layers: It is of the most important feature that helps designers to create complex designs by combining multiple design layers.
• Filters: To quickly change the color profile, texture, and looks on an image, you can use this Filters section that provides multiple image filters. Some of the image filters that it offers are Blur, Enhance, Distort, Artistic, and Light & Shadows.
• Paint Tools: These tools allow you to manually draw over images, add text over images, and to create custom designs.
• Transform Tools: Using transformation tools, you can move, rotate, align, resize, scale, and shear images.

Additional Features:

• Swap Colors: Through this feature, you can quickly swap the existing color of an image with a new color.
• Measure: Use it to accurately measure the distance between two points over an image.

Final Thoughts:

It is one of the best free open source Photoshop alternatives in which you can directly edit Photoshop projects and images of other common formats.

Krita

Krita is another free open source Photoshop alternative for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is primarily a painting software through which you can draw characters, cartoons, and designs. However, it also offers a lot of photo editing tools that make it a good Photoshop alternative. In it, you can also load and edit Photoshop (PSD) images. Apart from PSD, you can also use it to edit images of other formats like GIF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, TGA, WebP, XPM, and more. Similar to input image formats, it also supports many output image formats including the PSD format. Now, check out the main features of this Photoshop alternative.

Main Features:

• Layer: It is an important feature that helps designers to work on multiple layers that they can later combine to make an impressive graphic. Multiple layer tools are also provided by it such as cut layer, copy layer, paint layer, import layer, etc.
• Paint Tools: Using the paint tools of this software, you can manually create new designs, color images, and color design elements to make a graphic.
• Filter: It contains multiple photo filters that you can apply over images to adjust color balance, desaturate images, invert image colors, blur images, etc.
• Image: In it, you can find multiple editing tools through which you can trim images, trim layer, rotate image, shear image, mirror image, split image, and resize image.

Additional Feature:

• View Modes: This software offers multiple viewing modes (full screen, canvas only, and wrap-around mode) that helps you adjust the viewing environment.

Final Thoughts:

It is another decent open source Photoshop alternative in which you can create and edit graphic designs.

Gimphoto

Gimphoto is yet another free open source Photoshop alternative for Windows, macOS, and Linux. In it, you can edit images and create graphic designs. It also enables its users to work on multiple projects at a time as it comes with the multi-tab interface. From the left part of its interface, you can access the paint tools and from the top toolbar, you can access the graphic designing and image editing tools. Along with various tools, it also offers support for Photoshop (PSD), PNG, JPG, BMP, TIFF, PNM, RAW, etc., image formats. After making a new graphic or editing an existing one, you can save it in one of the supported image formats. Let’s take a look at some of the main features of this open source Photoshop alternative.

Main Features:

• Paint Tools: In this software, you get a dedicated Paint toolbar that provides tools like brush, pencil, fill, color palette, text, and more. Using these tools, you can manually create custom designs.
• Filters: By applying predefined filters over an image, you can quickly modify the tools and texture of an image. In this section, you can find image filters like artistic, blur, distort, noise, render, enhance, gradient flare, sparkle, and more.
• Photo: In it, you get a good set of image imperfection removal tools like redeye removal, refocus, sharpen, noise reduction, etc. In addition to that, you can also use it to adjust shadows, highlights, look & feel, etc.
• Image: Using image tools, you can resize image, scale image, rotate image, crop image, and create a duplicate copy of an image.

Additional Features:

• This software also offers many viewing tools that help you adjust the look and behavior of this software. Through view tools, you can add the grid to the editing area, zoom in on the editing area, and open editing area in full-screen mode.
• In this software, you also get a Histogram tool that shows the distribution of different colors in an image.

Final Thoughts:

It is another feature-rich open source Photoshop alternative that provides all essential image editing and graphics designing tools and features.

Chasys Draw IES Artist

Chasys Draw IES Artist is another free open source Photoshop alternative for Windows. Similar to Adobe Photoshop, you can also use it to edit images of various formats and to create beautiful graphic designs. It also focuses on the drawing part of the graphic designing and offers a dedicated paint tools section to create custom drawings and designs. Other import editing and graphic designing sections (Layer, Effects, Transforms, Image, etc.) are also present in it. Another good thing about this software is its ability to support images of various formats such as PNG, JPG, GIF, ICO, BMP, PSD, and more.

Main Features:

• Layer: Use it to create multi-layered designs by merging multiple frames. To perform layer operations, you can use it new, resize, merge, blend, import, etc., layer tools.
• Transforms: It offers multiple image transformation tools through which you can rotate, resize, crop, and flip images.
• Effects: A good set of photo effects are offered by this software that allows you to add noise, sharpness, blur, color, and other effects over images.
• Adjustments: It is another handy tool that lets you adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, alpha, curves, gamma, and other parameters of an image.

Additional Features:

• In this software, you can also create basic animation by using multiple images as the frames of the animation. To make an animation, you can use the Animation tab.
• This software also comes with many viewing tools to adjust the working environment by making minor changes like UI transparency level, zoom ratio, viewing modes (fullscreen or windowed), etc.
• This software also offers an icon generator to convert standard images to icons of 16 * 16, 32 * 32, 48 * 48, 64 * 64, and 128 * 128 resolutions.

Final Thoughts:

It is a feature-rich open source Photoshop alternative that offers necessary graphic designing tools along with some handy additional tools.

MyPaint

MyPaint is the next free open source Photoshop alternative for Windows, macOS, and Linux. According to its name, it is mainly a drawing software to create custom paintings and drawings. Besides creating custom designs, you can also load images in it and edit it to create custom graphics. However, unlike other similar software, it only supports images of JPEG and PNG formats. To edit images and create graphics, it provides multiple tool sections like Layer, Color, Scratchpad, Brush, etc. In each tool section, you can find a number of tools to perform different editing tasks. Now, check out the main features of this software.

Main Features:

• Scratchpad: In this software, you can perform all the editing and graphics designing tasks over the scratchpad. Unlike the canvas present in other software, you can move the scratchpad and directly draw over it. You can also place an image over it and perform editing operations.
• Layer: It is another important feature through which you can work on multiple layers, add new layers, merge layers, import new layers, create duplicate layers, and perform other tasks to create impressive graphics.
• Color: Use it to manually adjust the color parameters of an image like change color, use different color palettes (HSV Wheel, HCY Wheel, Concentric Ring, etc.), adjust lighten painting color, change hue, increase saturation, and more.
• Display Filter: In this software, you also get some filters that you can apply over the entire scratchpad like grayscale, color inverted, display colors with simulated insensitivity to red, etc.

Additional Features:

• In this software, you can get a double docking panel (color palettes on two sides) that enables you to mix and customize the color profile of the scratchpad.
• A handy color history panel showing all the previously used colors, that you can again choose and apply over the design.

Final Thoughts:

It is another decent open source Photoshop alternative in which you can create a custom design and perform some basic image editing. Unlike Photoshop, it lacks important image editing tools.