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Adobe Photoshop is the market leader when it comes to photo retouching, image editing, or even creating new images from scratch. However, for most people's uses, it may just be too many features to wade through, too much money to spend, or too complicated to use. Thankfully, there are plenty of powerful alternatives that also have tons of features. Here's a look at five of the best.
ArtRage is a digital artist’s studio with a full range of familiar tools that look and work like the real things. It’s a canvas for thick, expressive oils and delicate watercolors, a sketchpad with a full set of pencils, and a sheet of paper with a stack of wax crayons all in one. Open-source free graphic design software that debuted on Unix-based platforms, GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Today it's available in versions for Linux, Windows and Mac. GIMP's interface differs somewhat from Photoshop, but a version of GIMP is available that mimics Adobe's look and feel, making it easier to migrate over if you're ditching Photoshop. Blender is one of the best 3D graphics program available for 3D art creation. It is an open source software which is available for free download on various platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc.
Earlier this week we asked you which Photoshop alternatives you thought were the best, or which ones you preferred when you needed to do image editing or photo editing. You responded with a ton of great suggestions, but here are your top five, in no particular order.
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What's The Best Photoshop Alternative?
If you need to edit images, touch up photos, remove objects, or just make an image look the way you …
Read more ReadThe polls are closed and the votes are counted! To see which of these five great Photoshop alternatives took the top spot, head over to our hive five followup post to read more and discuss the winner!
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Most Popular Photoshop Alternative: GIMP
Adobe Photoshop is a powerful tool. It's at the top of the market for a reason. It's also …
Read more ReadGIMP (Win/OS X/Linux)
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The GNU Image Manipulation Program, aka GIMP, is well known and well loved for more than a few reasons. It's incredibly powerful, packing as many features as Photoshop itself, the fact that it's cross platform and supports Windows, OS X, and Linux machines with ease (and with feature parity across all devices), and of course, because it's completely free. It has a completely modular and customizable interface, so you can keep your most oft-used tools front and center. It also features image correction utilities that make photo manipulation and retouching easy.
Those of you who nominated GIMP praised it for coming in at the low low price of $0, but many of you also reported issues with its interface and usability. It's true, the interface certainly leaves more than a few things to be desired, and it can be difficult to get used to if you're more accustomed to other image editing tools. Some people love it, some people hate it, but everyone acknowledges that it's difficult to find a comparable feature-packed utility for free.
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Pixelmator (OS X)
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Pixelmator is a richly featured image editor for OS X. It'll set you back $30, but it often appears in bundles and app packs along with other useful utilities, so it can be had at a bargain. Pixelmator is remarkably powerful; packing a flexible, customizable interface that's designed for OS X, multiple layer styles and filtering/editing tools, and an adaptive engine that switches to the right tools or features when you need them. It's packed with photo and image editing and retouching features, so if you're looking to clean up photos before posting them to the internet, or getting them printed and framed, this app comes at a fraction of Photoshop's price and offers a ton of useful features.
There's a reason that we said that Pixelmator is a seriously good replacement for Photoshop, and while some people will always have a use case that requires Photoshop specifically, (eg, you need non-destructive editing, channel support, or adjustment layers) for the rest of us, Pixelmator is worth a look. Those of you who nominated it praised its RAW file support, and its depth of features, not to mention its price tag. Of course, it's Mac only, so those folks doing image editing on Windows or Linux machines don't have it as an option.
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Pixelmator 3.0 Is a Seriously Good Replacement for Photoshop
OS X: Most Mac users know that Pixelmator is pretty much the best Photoshop alternative you can…
Read more ReadPaint.NET (Windows)
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Paint.NET is one of our favorite image editing tools. Part of it is because the app is feature packed, offering layer editing, a customizable interface with plenty of room to work but also plenty of tools at your disposal, unlimited undo, tons of effects and filters, and a community of passionate users. Part of it is because Paint.NET is completely free, and for the vast majority of people looking to touch up a photo before they post it to the web, resize or crop an image, or do basic image editing, it's more than enough, and it's completely free. It doesn't have the same features as more advanced tools like Photoshop or even GIMP, but not every Photoshop alternative needs to have the same breadth of features—just the ones that matter.
Those of you who nominated Paint.NET noted this explcitly. Advanced users may run up against its limitations after a while, but advanced users probably already know the tools that have the features they need. The rest of us though, who just need to open a tool to do some basic work here and there and want a fast, flexible, and free utility to do it, Paint.NET Is the way to go.
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Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (Windows/OS X)
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Adobe Lightroom stands out from a number of the alternatives here partially because it's designed specifically for photographers, and has the broad variety of tools and features they need to get their photos edited, retouched, updated, and corrected before they're printed, framed, posted online, or even professionally judged. Color correct your images, remove objects or people, straighten images, and more. Lightroom is part of Adobe's Creative Cloud suite, so you have the option of buying access to it alone, or making it part of a larger subscription to Adobe's other utilities as well. The full version is $149, but it's frequently available with discounts.
We were initially surprised that another Adobe product, much less Lightroom, got the nominations for the top five. However, it makes sense if you're a photographer looking for a great image editing tool that's not quite Photoshop, and it looks like a number of you are doing just that—editing photos specifically, not just images, and not necessarily creating images from scratch.
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Pixlr Editor (Web)
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Pixlr Editor is actually part of a suite of Pixlr apps, including the previously mentioned mobile appPixelr Express, and photo filter and tweaking app, Pixlr-O-Matic. Pixlr Editor on the other hand is a richly featured webapp that offers a healthy dose of features for editing photos and images. It packs adjustments, layers, filters and effects, basic features like rotation, resizing, cropping and editing, area selection, and so on. It's not as feature-packed or as streamlined as a lot of other tools, but the fact that it's free and runs in your browser alone makes it worth your attention, and your use if you're away from a computer with a tool you already know installed.
Pixlr Express Makes Editing and Correcting Your Photos on the Go Easy
Android/iOS: Made by the same team behind Pixlr-o-Matic, one of your favorite photo filter apps,…
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Those of you who nominated Pixlr highlighted that fact as well; it does just about everything the average user needs, and while professionals will likely find it lacking, amateurs and everyday users have a lot to like here. Plus, the fact that it's a webapp means it runs in any browser, on any OS, with the same features. Sign up for an account and you can save images for future work.
There you have it, your top five. Now it's time to put them to an all-out vote.
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Not much in the way of honorable mentions this week, with the exception possibly of Google Picasa, which some of you noted you use to touch up your images, do some light image editing before sharing them or posting them to the web, and also to organize and manage your photo library. Similarly, we should give a nod to SumoPaint, another free, cross-platform tool that's web-based and offers a ton of useful tools and features.
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Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn't included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don't just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.
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The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at [email protected]!
Photos by Robert Freiberger and Blake Patterson.
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The best drawing apps for iPad can transform your creative life. With most iPads now featuring support for the Apple Pencil, the popular tablet has become a powerful tool for painting and drawing.
Once you're armed with the iPad and Apple Pencil of your choice, learning to draw is as simple as checking out the App Store (and Creative Bloq, of course). But which app should you choose? There are a lot out there, which cover everything from sketching, painting and prototyping to annotating photos.
To make things easier, we've rounded up some of the best painting and drawing apps to create fantastic art on your iPad – whether you're just learning how to draw or are a seasoned pro. And if you want more model-specific software, then don't miss our round-up of the best iPad Pro apps to use with the Apple Pencil.
Promoted: Inspire Pro
Inspire Pro has one of the fastest and most realistic rendering engines on the App Store, delivering a fluid and natural painting, drawing and sketching experience to your iPad.
It sports 150 brushes including oil paint, airbrushes, spray paint, pencils, crayons, markers, chalk, charcoal, pastels and paint splatters. Inspire Pro also has a wide variety of high-quality and customisable tools for you to choose from.
With Apple Pencil and iPad Pro, the size and opacity of brush strokes react instantly to applied pressure, tilt angle and orientation for unprecedented creative control on a mobile device. Give one of the brushes from the Graphite Pencils set a try with Apple Pencil and iPad Pro, for example, and you'll quickly forget that you're not using an actual pencil and paper.
Watch Inspire Pro in action in this video.
- Download Inspire Pro US: $9.99
- Download Inspire Pro UK: £9.99
01. Procreate
The act of painting in the latest Procreate is even more delightful than in previous versions of the software, making it one of the best drawing apps for iPad users. The app incorporates an unobtrusive UI with easy access sliders, which enable you to quickly adjust the size of your brush/opacity as you work. It saves time and enables you to concentrate on what you're painting, rather than getting distracted by pop-up menus.
Like many of the other iPad art apps here, there's an easy-to-use colour picker (with customisable swatches), layer options, a fast and responsive zoom, good smudging/blending options and a great undo functionality. And if you want to add text to your creations, you'll be pleased to know that the latest version also includes the much-anticipated Text tool.
Procreate has over 130 brushes available by default (see our pick of the best Procreate brushes), and over 50 customisable settings for every brush. The app is powerful, fast and intuitive, and enables you to create large, complex works of art on your iPad.
- Download Procreate US: $9.99
- Download Procreate UK: £9.99
02. Adobe Illustrator Draw
Adobe Illustrator Draw is a digital sketchbook that enables you to express yourself in vector format wherever you go. A sister app to Illustrator CC, this drawing app for your iPad has a simple UI, designed for quickly sketching out ideas and concepts.
It offers a range of features, including simple vector-based drawing tools with separate drawing and photo layers as well as the ability to sync to Adobe's Creative Cloud. With this feature, you can also download Adobe Illustrator-compatible files and work with them.
The app enables you to draw perfectly straight lines and geometric shapes, rename layers, and use shapes from Adobe Capture CC. An enhanced perspective grid also means you can map shapes to a perspective plane.
- Download Adobe Illustrator Draw US: Free
- Download Adobe Illustrator Draw UK: Free
03. Affinity Designer for iPad
Built from the same back end as its award-winning desktop version, Affinity Designer for iPad is fully optimised for iOS, including Touch controls and Apple Pencil support. It can also support huge multi-artboard canvases with as many layers as you could possibly want, and you can zoom to over one million per cent.
Affinity Designer supports both CMYK and RGB, and has a full Pantone library in the colour swatch panel, meaning it's ideal for creating both digital and printed art. You can export to a range of formats, including JPG, PNG, PDF and SVG, and there are over 100 brushes available, in styles including paints, pencils, inks, pastels and gouaches.
Read our full review of Affinity Desinger for iPad. And if you like Serif's easy-to-use UI but are after a photo editing app, check out Affinity Photo.
- Download Affinity Designer US: $19.99
- Download Affinity Designer UK: £19.99
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04. ArtRage
Like the PC and Mac versions, the ArtRage drawing app for iPad is overflowing with options (we gave ArtRage five stars in our review). There's a variety of canvas presets and paper options, plus a wide array of brushes, pencils, crayons, rollers, and pastels.
In its quest for realistic art on the iPad, you can paint directly onto the screen or apply a glob of paint with one tool and smear it around with another. ArtRage also features a dedicated watercolour brush option, which can produce some striking effects.
Once you've familiarised yourself with the interface, it's easy to change brush sizes, bring up the colour picker, work with layers and blend/smudge different elements together. Unfortunately, there's some noticeable lag when moving and scaling your artwork. This takes the shine off what is an incredibly flexible painting program for creating iPad art.
- Download ArtRage US: $4.99
- Download ArtRage UK: £4.99
05. iPastels
No digital application and tablet screen will give you the real feel of working with pastels and charcoal, but apps are not looking to replace feel – they are designed to mimic the effect, and that is what iPastels does so well. Plus, you don't get messy fingers.
Free Paint Program For Mac
It is impressive how well the app replicates some aspects of pastel painting, including soft pastels, oil pastels, pastel pencils, and realistic colour blending using your finger on the screen just like you would on paper. One downside is that you have to stop drawing when you want to adjust the size and pressure of your tool, but there are plus sides – including the ability to correct mistakes quickly and simply.
For that reason and more, iPastel is a great app to use if you want to try out compositions before beginning a real painting – or just for a bit of fun. It has Apple Pencil support, and the upgrade to Pro features costs $4.99/£4.99.
- Download iPastels US: Free (in-app purchases)
- Download iPastels UK: Free (in-app purchases)
06. MediBang Paint for iPad
If you're new to digital art and so after a brilliant-but-basic drawing app for your iPad, look no further than MediBang Paint for iPad. An easy-to-use program, MediBang has similar features to Photoshop, including layers, with the ability to add styles and a handy brush editor. In fact, MediBang is full of brilliant painting and drawing tools – so much so that it's hard to believe it's free.
Compatible with iOS 11 and above, if you want to create professional-looking artwork but are on a budget, this is the iPad drawing app for you.
- Download MediBang US: Free (In-app purchases)
- Download MediBang UK: Free (In-app purchases)
07. Zen Brush 2
The sequel to the popular Zen Brush takes what its predecessor does best – emulating the feel of painting with traditional Japanese calligraphy brushes – and builds upon it. Zen Brush 2 has a new drawing engine that's smoother and more fluent than before, making it even easier to lose yourself in the process of creating beautiful Zen art.
As well as the new drawing engine, Zen Brush 2 has a gallery feature that enables you to save your work in progress, as well as an ink dispersion effect to give your drawings an added feeling of depth.
There's support for pressure-sensitive styluses (not to mention Apple Pencil) and best of all you're no longer restricted to black ink – now you can use red ink too.
- Download Zen Brush 2 US: $2.99
- Download Zen Brush 2 UK: £2.99
08. Concepts
Created specifically for professionals, Concepts is an advanced sketching and design app. It features infinite canvas and organic brushes, a fluid and responsive vector drawing engine, and intuitive precision tools, all tailored for a natural-feeling drawing experience. Whether you’re an architect, product designer, illustrator or visual thinker, you can explore, iterate and share your designs anywhere you go.
Concepts is compatible with iOS 11 and later, and supports the iPad Pro (2018) and second-generation Apple Pencil. Double-tap tool switching is supported, plus you can customise how the double-tap manifests itself.
- Download Concepts US: Free (in-app purchases)
- Download Concepts UK: Free (in-app purchases)
09. Artstudio Pro
Artstudio Pro for iPad is the successor to ArtStudio – a legacy version of which is still available for $4.99/£4.99. The new version has been optimised for Apple Pencil, and claims to be 5-10 times faster than ArtStudio.
There are new and improved tools, which include 27 blending modes, over 100 built-in brushes and the ability to import all types of formats, including ABL brushes. There are also various different canvas sizes and options that include layers, layer masks, filters and effects. With an active community and plenty of features to play around with, we think this is a great choice for artists.
- Download Artstudio Pro US: $11.99
- Download Artstudio Pro UK: £11.99
10. Pixelmator for iOS
If you need a full-fat iPad alternative to Photoshop, Pixelmator for iOS is about as good as it gets. Whether you simply want to enhance or touch up some photography, or go the whole hog and paint detailed, layered images from scratch, it has you covered with a heavyweight set of tools, brushes and effects.
It will even open layered Photoshop images, so you can start work on your desktop and then carry on with your art while you're on the move. And if you have an iPad Pro you'll find full Apple Pencil compatibility, featuring palm rejection, pressure, tilt and acceleration sensitivity.
- Download Pixelmator US: $4.99
- Download Pixelmator UK: £4.99
11. Comic Draw
While some painting and drawing apps cover a broad range of abilities and creative disciplines, Comic Draw is single-minded in its purpose. Comic artists are its target, and in those terms it is a highly effective tool. The app features a tool that enables you to lay out the panels on your page, guides to help you keep a perfect perspective and layers to enable you to build your drawings.
You'll also find a digital sketchpad for experimenting with your concepts, and an inking and colouring interface to help you finish your design with various brushes. Comic Draw provides a lettering suite made up of different typefaces, balloons and design tools to add the all-important words, and you can add as many pages as you want to make everything from a comic strip to a full-length book.
- Download Comic Draw US: $9.99 (in-app purchases)
- Download Comic Draw UK: £9.99 (in-app purchases)
12. Assembly
Assembly is a great way to create detailed vector graphics, icons, logos, scenes and characters without all that fiddly mucking about with vectors and Bézier curves. Rather than painstakingly drawing everything out yourself, you can choose from an enormous selection of ready-made shapes and stick them together to create your vector masterpiece.
You can layer, stack and position shapes however you want, and even create your own building blocks by cutting out, combining and intersecting existing shapes. If you need to prototype in a hurry, it's an ideal tool for getting professional results fast.
- Download Assembly US: Free (in-app purchases)
- Download Assembly UK: Free (in-app purchases)
13. Photoshop Sketch
While the new version of Photoshop for iPad is in the works, (be the first to try it here) why not try a different Adobe platform for sketching and painting? Photoshop Sketch features tools including a graphite pencil, ink pen and watercolour brushes, with adjustable size, colour, opacity and blending settings.
You can layer and rearrange your images, use perspective and graph grids to help align your creations, and there's support for pretty much any stylus you care to think of. Plus, you can export your work to Illustrator CC or Photoshop CC if you have a Creative Cloud account (subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud here). However, if you're planning on using Photoshop Sketch as a stand-alone app then you'll only need the basic free version.
- Download Photoshop Sketch US: Free (in-app purchases)
- Download Photoshop Sketch UK: Free (in-app purchases)
14. Clip Studio Paint EX
Another full-featured desktop paint app that is now on the iPad is Clip Studio Paint. Clip Studio Paint is great for drawing comics and manga, and it can also be used to create any kind of digital art. It's also one of the few drawing apps for iPad that brings the feel of traditional drawing to the digital space, making this the perfect app for creating your illustrations and sketches while on the go.
This app comes packed with drawing tools such as pencils, markers, calligraphy pens and air brushes. And because the drawing engine works so well with the Apple Pencil, you'll have a full range of pressure-sensitive dynamics to get your linework perfect. Another bonus is when you sign up for Clip Studio Paint EX subscription, you get six months free.
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- Download Clip Studio Paint EX US: $8.99/month
- Download Clip Studio Paint EX UK: £6.99/month
15. Graphic
Promising a desktop-class standard of editing, Graphic has been touted as the iOS answer to Adobe Illustrator. As well as containing all of the drawing tools you need to create amazing art and detailed technical drawings, Graphic now comes with variable-width brush strokes and pressure-sensitive drawing support for the Apple Pencil.
Developed by Indeedo, this easy-to-use drawing app for iPad is compatible with both the Mac and iPhone versions via iCloud and Dropbox, enabling you to save your masterpieces on the go for straightforward editing across devices later down the line.
- Download Graphic US: $8.99
- Download Graphic UK: £8.99
16. Autodesk Sketchbook
SketchBook by Autodesk is one of the most popular iPad paint apps with digital artists. As you'd expect from Autodesk, SketchBook has all the swagger of a pro-grade painting program, but with an experience designed for those looking to create art on the iPad.
There's a wide range of digital pencils, pens, markers, and airbrushes to choose from, all accessed via a simple but intuitive UI that enables you to pin your favourite toolbars to the screen. It's flexible and fast, too, enabling you to work with layers, transparency options, annotations and advanced blend modes. With Dropbox integration plus the ability to import and export Photoshop-friendly files, it's an ideal iPad art app for working on the move.
- Download SketchBook US: Free
- Download SketchBook UK: Free
17. Art Set 4
Free office program for mac. Art Set reached the number one iPad app spot in over 30 countries, and for good reason. Art Set 4 brings similar beauty and an easy to use interface in the same vein as its predecessor. It also adds many new features and has lowered the price of admission to nothing.
Hyper-real tools feature in this iPad app, so you can actually see your watercolour paint flow and run as you use it. Oil paint, watercolors, oil pastel, pencil, biro pen, marker, wax crayon and a few others are included for free, while an in-app purchase unlocks more than 150 brushes and further features.
- Download Art Set 4 US: Free
- Download Art Set 4 UK: Free
18. Brushes Redux
Legendary artist David Hockney has been spotted using the Brushes app when creating art on the iPad. It's an oldie but a goodie, designed specifically for Apple's tablet and now with the 'Redux' suffix – and it's free and open-source.
Using a basic toolbar at the bottom of the screen, you can bring up a colour wheel/picker, work with layers and switch between various brushes. Best of all, perhaps, Brushes is fast and responsive to the touch so it's easy to work quickly. A useful feature of Brushes is the ability to record each brush stroke, enabling you to play back exactly how you created each piece of iPad art via the Brushes viewer.
Best Painting Program For Computer
- Download Brushes Redux US: Free
- Download Brushes Redux UK: Free
19. SketchClub
Sketch Club has a great set of tools for creating beautiful digital art. The app has a unique set of flexible digital brushes (and more can be made), pens, vector tools, old school pixel art, and fun procedural tools.
Sketch Club has an uncluttered user interface, with lots of settings to customise the app to your own unique preferences. A particularly great feature of this app is the integrated online community. Here you can upload your sketches to let others rate and comment on your work, as well as enter daily challenges and fun weekly competitions.
- Download Sketch Club US: $2.99
- Download Sketch Club UK: £2.99
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