I often get requests from readers looking for alternatives to Photoshop because it is too expensive or too complex to get started with. Photoshop is for sure the right choice for most professionals but I believe using Photoshop for very basic stuff like fixing private photos or simple graphics for web design is like shooting butterflies with cannons. I have collected a list of worthy alternatives that are free and available as on-line software services. If you need more On-line Photo tools you can check out this article: 25+ Really Cool Online Photo Manipulation Services
Feature Rich Editors
sumo
Sumo is an excellent on-line toll that offers both photo editing features and elements of vector drawing. It offers more than just basic features and a nice Photoshop look alike GUI. Features like Image Resize, Magic Wand, Transform (Ctrl-T) etc. makes you fell good even though it is still just an On-line application!
pixlr
Pixlr is a really great on-line photo editor with layers, history and other features you know from tools like Photoshop. The GUI is created to look like Photoshop. You will find that there’s an express version as well that focus on basic features like resize, crop etc.
Splashup
Splashup is designed to give you a feeling of working in Photoshop. It is integrated with Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, and more and even support layers. Being a free tool this application offers many features, filters and is really worth trying out.
Phoenix
Aviary offers a suite of tools for editing images, vectors etc. Phoenix is the Aviary image/photo editor and it offers layers and compositing. It is integrated with Flickr, Facebook and Picasa allowing you to import images from these popular services. This is another very interesting free tool to check out before investing in commercial packages.
Picnik
Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames. It is very popular because it integrated with Flickr, Facebook, myspace, Picasa, Webshots, Webs and more. Picnik offer the basic features needed and also have a premíum plan that adds more powerful features.
Photoshop Express
Photoshop is the market leader but did Adobe do a great job on creating the free on-line version Photoshop Express too?I believe they did! The express version have nice features and is easy to use. Unfortunately layers is not support.
Really simple editors
flauntR
Very simple but powerful tool. Can apply many effects to you images but you can really use it for photo editing.
picmagick
Very simple application that allows you to do most basic operations on images. Free and no registration needed.
snipshot
Another simple service with a decent GUI. There’s a premium version with more features if you need them.
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