The best free alternative graphics editor to Photoshop?

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Mark Bowker

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When I was doing odds and ends graphic design years ago, I had a lot of professional tools available to me including Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator among others.

Now that I am retired I have tried to find alternative resources at much lower expense. This is one that I've been using for over a decade and it's still a free graphics tool based on the .Net framework. -- Paint.Net. It's available for a free download but you can also purchase it on the Microsoft store. The free download is in the link below, but be careful what you click because the site has a lot of adverts (to make money of course). The download link is here: Paint.Net DO NOT click the Start Now button. That's an ad. Click the link in the upper right that says "Free download now
(current version)"

This is the correct download link to click on

There are available plugins for this but I haven't tried any of the latest yet. The basic end result is that you'll have a free graphics editor that will remind you of Photoshop. Example of what it will look like:

Example of the program.

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    Are you sure this is open source? I do see they have a Github account, but seems mostly like a front just to serve the compiled version, I am not seeing the source anywhere. — Brian Wozeniak
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    After you asked the question I looked again they used to supply the code but it appears they don't any longer. It's still a solid graphics editor. I used it to make this post. — Mark Bowker
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natas

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Have you checked out GIMP? It's free, open-source, and awesome.

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    Thanks for the reminder! I used to use it as well, but after 3 or 4 computer upgrades, I've totally forgotten about it. Will have to install that today on my newest one. — Mark Bowker
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    I found today that when creating / editing an image in Gimp, colors look good in the editor, but when I export to png or jpg colors get a little altered. Any thoughts on that? For example OZZU's header banner is blue, which appears that way in the editor, but after exporting it appears purple — Mark Bowker
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    FYI I've been using GIMP now for a couple weeks and love it! Thanks for the recommend! — Mark Bowker
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Mark Bowker

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natas - I installed GIMP on Windows 11 after your reminder of its existence. Took a couple minutes to orient myself. It has changed so much since I used it last. Also took me a few minutes to realize I had to export to an image format vs. "Save as". But I like what I'm seeing so far and will definitely do some experimenting. The screen shot I'm attaching was created in GIMP.

A raw look at the GIMP interface.

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    Have you tried to use inkscape? It's a free vector graphics tool that I downloaded and hadn't used yet. — Bogey
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    Bogey, I haven't but I will look into it! Thanks for the suggestion. — Mark Bowker
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