5 Best Easy-to-use Online Photoshop Alternatives

Ryan Barnett · November 13, 2024

 

Professional editors always need advanced image editing software to make their portraits stand out from the competition. From fine-tuning color contrasts to removing imperfections, they rely on robust image editors to bring their creative vision to life in the best possible way. For that, Adobe Photoshop has long been the go-to solution for professionals, providing a wide range of features specifically designed for enhancing image quality.

However, despite the versatility of this tool, many users are searching for alternatives due to its complexity. To help you find the perfect fit, we've provided the best 5 online Photoshop alternatives. This article thoroughly explores these substitutes, highlighting how they might better suit your project requirements.

Part 1. 5 Best Free Online Alternatives to Photoshop

Let's take your creativity to another level by introducing some excellent Photoshop alternatives online. Each of the following alternate tools offers unique features and capabilities for both beginners and professional creators.  

1. insMind

Being an innovative tool, insMind offers an AI-powered approach to image editing that stands out as a remarkable online alternative to Photoshop. One of its unique capabilities is AI image enhancement, which automatically adjusts the colors and lighting with minimal user input. This enables content creators to achieve professional-looking results without diving into manual adjustments.

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Moreover, its AI image generator feature facilitates creating an entirely new image based on the written description, bringing ideas to life instantly. While considering its AI capabilities, the face swap feature can't be missed as it allows users to swap faces realistically with reference images. The AI behind this face swap feature intelligently identifies and matches the facial expressions of the original photo.

Key Features

• Background Removal: Using this tool, creators can remove the background of their images and add any new of their choice with just a few clicks.
• AI Expand: This feature enables users to enlarge and expand their images without losing important details or introducing visual artifacts.
• AI Filter: To lift your creativity, insMind offers various AI filters, including Oil Painting, Sketch, and Van Gogh.
• Add Text to Image: With the help of this tool, you can add text to their and customize them by adding different styles.
• Compress Image: Users can efficiently reduce file size with insMind's image compressor feature to streamline their image compression process.

Comparison with Photoshop

What truly sets insMind apart is its powerful AI features, including AI image generation, which makes creative workflow easier. In most cases, Photoshop requires manual editing and sometimes involves multiple steps for tasks like creating new images. However, insMind simplifies such tasks with its user-friendly interfaces and automation embedded in features due to AI.

Pricing Plans

• Monthly: $9.99 per month
• Yearly: $69.99 per year

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2. Canva

Canva is a powerful image editing tool that offers a suite of features to make your editing experience hassle-free. It includes a diverse library of filters with different themes that you can apply to your images depending on your preferences. Additionally, the tool provides a wide range of effects, including blur and shadows. After choosing an effect, you can even adjust their intensity for a more creative effect.

Key Features

• This tool includes text-to-image functionality to let users create captivating visuals by simply inputting their descriptions.
• Users can even delete unwanted backdrops or settings from their images using the background removal feature.
• With a magic eraser, you get the chance to remove unnecessary objects from the photos using an adjustable eraser size.

Comparison with Photoshop

Though Photoshop is best for professional users, it has some limitations when it comes to the availability of AI tools. Compared to Photoshop, Canva has more AI enhancement options, making it a suitable tool for users looking for an AI-powered editing experience.

Pricing Plans

• Canva Pro: $6.50 per month
• Canva Teams: $5 per month

3. Pixlr

This online image editor is a simple solution for users who need basic features to enhance their images. Using its crop feature, you can adjust the image size by removing the unwanted parts. Moreover, it allows you to specify the blurriness level of photos by dragging a slider to your desired opacity value. You even get the chance to experiment with different saturation, brightness, and contrast levels.

Key Features

• With Pixlr, users can generate captivating advertisements by adding various promotional text presets to the images.
• To make your chatting sessions engaging, you can create custom stickers based on your prompts.
• Users can choose a relevant aspect ratio if they want to upload an image to any social media platform.

Comparison with Photoshop

This free online Photoshop alternative lacks Photoshop's advanced image editing capabilities, such as in-depth layer manipulation and extensive customization options. However, when it comes to usage, Pixlr takes the points due to its easy-to-use interface.

Pricing Plans

• Plus: $0.99 per month
• Premium: $4.90 per month
• Teams: $9.91 per month

4. Photopea 

Another online Photoshop alternative is Photopea, which transforms your photos with the help of professional-grade tools in your browser. Despite being an online tool, it facilitates users with all essential features like background removal and layer adjustment. Making it an ideal choice, it also enables editors to create and edit their designs directly within the tool.

Key Features

• Users can replace any part of an object from their image by simply writing content through text description.
• You can add multiple filters to your photos, like Gaussian blur, Liquify, and Puppet wrap.
• Many creators can edit their images instantly through its cropping and resizing feature.

Comparison with Photoshop

Photopea is a web-based application that works directly in your browser, unlike Photoshop, which requires a subscription and installation. Moreover, it provides advanced editing skills like layers, masks, and blending modes, just like Photoshop, but for free.

Pricing Plan

• Premium Plan: $8 per month

5. Photoroom

Last but not least, Photoroom provides users with tons of social media templates ready to promote new collections and black Friday. Moreover, this online tool is designed to help online sellers so that they can quickly edit and stand out online. With the help of this tool, users can effectively resize their images for any platform with just one click.

Key Features

• Creators can edit hundreds of photos by removing and applying background in a few seconds.
• Designers can generate realistic quality studio backgrounds with AI assistance.
• If you want to avoid unnecessary interference in your images, you can blur the background of your photos.

Comparison with Photoshop 

This online free Photoshop alternative stands out because of its easy-to-use interface, which makes the overall editing process much easier. Whereas Photoshop displays a more complex interface, leading to a learning curve for many beginner editors.

Pricing Plans

• Weekly: $4.99 per month
• Monthly: $12.99 per month
• Yearly: $89.99 per month

Part 2. What Are the Benefits of Online Photoshop Alternatives?

All above mentioned online Photoshop alternatives have gained significant popularity due to their accessibility and cost-effectiveness. While focusing on their expertise, we have compiled some of their benefits below:

• Accessibility from Any Device: One of the significant benefits of using online Photoshop alternatives is that they are web-based, which means users can access them virtually.
• No Installation or Storage Requirements: These online editors do not require downloads or installation and are much lighter on the system resources.
• Cost-Effective: Many online editing tools offer free versions with basic editing features, while premium versions tend to have relatively lower subscription costs than Adobe Photoshop.
• Faster Setup and Updates: Most of these photo editors provide much faster setup than software like Photoshop, with no need to download large files or install updates manually.

Part 3. A Comparative Analysis of the Best Free Online Photoshop Alternatives

After briefly exploring Photoshop alternatives online, let's compare their diverse range of features. Here's a comparison chart showcasing each alternative, highlighting their key aspects and expertise in a precise manner.

From the above table, it is clearly concluded that insMind stands out for its advanced AI features and wide range of editing tools. Moreover, the table also showcases that with its high customization ability, insMind is considered the best choice for both beginners and professionals.

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Conclusion

The above article summarizes that there are several great online Photoshop alternatives, each offering unique features and functionalities. Regarding photo editing, insMind stands out best because of its advanced AI-driven features, which streamline the editing process. Whether you're working on personal projects or creative designs, insMind offers everything you need in one convenient tool.

Ryan Barnett

I'm a freelance writer with a passion for editing and designing photos. Here at insMind, I strive to educate users on image creativity, photography, and enhancing product photos to help grow their businesses.