Adobe Photoshop is the photo-editing software for professionals, and it costs $21/mo to use. Adobe Photoshop Elements is a simpler version, for casual and hobbyist use, and costs $100((sometimes $50-80 when on sale, check Amazon or Costco!)) to buy outright. If neither price is to your liking, check out some free alternatives:

Best Freebies

GIMP is very similar to Photoshop, and can be installed on Windows, MacOSX and Linux computers.

Paint.net is for Windows computers only. It was started as a replacement for MS Paint, but evolved into something much more capable.

Pixlr and Photopea should work on any computer, regardless of the operating system, because they load inside your web browser. That means there’s nothing to install, and all you need is a solid internet connection and a working browser.

And SumoPaint offers photo editing, along with a lot of other free creation tools!

Free… Photoshop?

Due to all of this competition, Adobe has released a free, ultra-basic, chopped down and rather hampered version of its Photoshop. It’s called Photoshop Express, and it installs as an app. You may download it on Android devices as well as Apple devices. And the Microsoft Store offers it as a free download for Windows computers.

Adobe also offers a free web-based editor, called Adobe Creative Cloud Express. But it is rather limited in what it can do, and it will encourage you to pay as you try to use its fancier tools.