The variety of opportunities offered by modern graphics editors is impressive, however, the majority of the professional programmes are rather expensive and not everyone can afford using them especially if the one is just a beginning designer or a student. In order to be able to work, you certainly need a tool and fortunately, there are several great products which are offered for free. Actually, you can choose one of them for your professional work since many of them are powerful enough to be used instead of their costly alternatives.
GIMP
One of the best free programmes which can be used instead of Adobe Photoshop is GIMP. GIMP is a pretty advanced programme offering a great choice of tools for colour correction, drawing, painting, cloning and improving. The code of this programme is open so everyone can customise it according to one’s needs.
GIMP is compatible with the majority of file formats used in graphic design. In addition to it, the programme has its own file manager resembling the Bridge file manager used in Photoshop.
If you have already tried working with Photoshop, you might find the interface of GIMP somewhat different, however, it is still user-friendly and you will not need a lot of time to understand the way it is working.
GIMP: can be used on computers running on Linux, Windows or macOS.
Krita
Krita was designed in 1999 with its open code and it has been supporting artists and designers since then being constantly improved by its developers. Today, the programme is filled with amazing features and tools and also has special plugins extending its work with a rich collection of filters and advanced functions such as for example, extra tools for working with perspective.
Some of the tools available to the designers working with Krita are especially noteworthy. Some of them are brush stabilisers, special modes for creating smooth patterns and textures as well as a quick palette with colours.
Krita is compatible with all the major operating systems so you can use it on Windows, Linux and macOS.
Photo Pos Pro
Photo Pos Pro is a free tool working on Windows which can be used by designers who actually do not need such a large variety of functions as the one offered by GIMP or Krita. The major tasks you can solve with the help of this programme are contrast and light manipulation of an image, however, Photo Pos Pro can also be used for more advanced tasks.
Photo Pos Pro is particularly great for beginners as it has a user-friendly interface and also great educational materials which will help novices to understand its functionality.
Paint.NET
You might have already come across the programme called Paint.NET which is available as an alternative to the Paint built into Windows. This can be confusing, however, you should understand it is a different programme which is a way more advanced and useful than the basic Window’s tool.
Despite its name Paint.NET is more specialising in photo editing, however, it also has necessary functionality for creating images. For that purpose, it is offering a variety of useful features such as pixel manipulation, cloning and managing of perspective. In addition to it, the programme supports work with layers as well as a great number of tools, the programme can be used instead of Photoshop.