PhotoCraft

PhotoCraft is a free, open source image editor from the ArtCraft team, built to work the way Photoshop does. If you've used Photoshop, you'll find the same menus, tools, panels and shortcuts. It opens and saves Photoshop's own PSD files, works on Mac, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD, and can even run in a web browser. It was released at the end of September 2026 and became one of the fastest-growing projects on GitHub within days.

What it can do

• Familiar from the first click. The menus, tools and shortcuts copy Photoshop's layout, from ⌘J to duplicate a layer to ⇧⌘D to reselect. There are 67 tools, from the Magic Wand and Healing Brush to the Pen and Clone Stamp.
• Edit without losing anything. Adjustment layers like Curves, Levels and Hue/Saturation keep every change editable, so your original photo is never touched. Smart objects keep filters editable too.
• Real Photoshop files. Open, edit and save layered PSD and PSB files. In the team's tests, almost every sample file re-saved and looked the same.
• Smart selections, on your computer. Select Subject, Object Selection and Quick Selection trace things for you, and Select and Mask refines fine edges like hair. No cloud, no account.
• Text and effects. Type layers you can keep editing, plus drop shadows, glows, strokes and other layer styles that look like Photoshop's.
• A real brush engine that responds to pen pressure and tilt on drawing tablets.
• Lots of file types. As well as PSD it reads Krita, GIMP-friendly OpenRaster, Paint.NET, Affinity and iPhone HEIC files, plus everyday formats like PNG, JPEG, WebP and TIFF.
• Print-ready colour. RGB, CMYK and Lab documents at 8, 16 or 32 bits, with proper colour profiles and soft proofing.
• Works with AI assistants. Every menu item and tool is also a command, so the same edits can run from scripts, in batches over a folder, or from an AI assistant like Claude through its built-in MCP server.

Where you'll meet it

PhotoCraft is the flagship of the Crafting Apps, a growing family of free, open source creative apps from ArtCraft. Others include FilmCraft for video, LightCraft for photo libraries and raw photos, PdfCraft for PDFs and VectorCraft for illustration. ArtCraft also makes an AI image and video studio of the same name. PhotoCraft gathered more than 55,000 GitHub stars in its first two weeks.

PhotoCraft, GIMP, Krita or Photoshop?

All four can edit images. The difference is how familiar they feel, how mature they are, and what they cost.

PhotoCraftThis page

Best forPhotoshop users who want a free, familiar alternative to try

Copies Photoshop's layout, tools and shortcuts and opens real PSD files. Fast and native, but only weeks old: expect rough edges and missing features.

How mature

Early alpha (2026)

Open source

Yes (MIT or Apache 2.0)

Cost

Free

GIMP

Best forA free, proven editor for everyday photo work

The best-known free image editor, around since the 1990s. Capable and stable, with many plug-ins, but its layout and shortcuts differ from Photoshop's, so there's more to relearn.

How mature

Very mature

Open source

Yes (GPL 3.0)

Cost

Free

KKrita

Best forDigital painting and illustration

A free painting app loved by illustrators and comic artists, with superb brushes. It can edit photos, but it's built for drawing first.

How mature

Very mature

Open source

Yes (GPL 3.0)

Cost

Free

Photoshop

Best forProfessional work today

The industry standard from Adobe, with the most features, plug-ins and AI tools. Polished and dependable, but closed source and paid by monthly subscription.

How mature

Industry standard

Open source

No

Cost

Monthly subscription

A quick way to choose: need something dependable and free today? Use GIMP. Mostly drawing and painting? Pick Krita. Paid for by your job? Photoshop is still the safe choice. Know Photoshop and want a free alternative that feels the same? Try PhotoCraft, and keep an eye on it as it grows.

How to get it

• Easiest: download it from the PhotoCraft page on getartcraft.com.
• All builds: every GitHub release has installers for Windows (including ARM), Mac (Apple silicon and Intel, signed and checked by Apple), Linux (AppImage, Flatpak, .deb, .rpm) and FreeBSD.
• In a browser: a web version runs the whole app in a modern browser, and you can host it yourself with Docker.
• For scripts and AI assistants: the separate photocraft-cli tool edits images without opening the app and includes the MCP server.

Good to know

• Early alpha. The team is upfront that it's not yet a Photoshop replacement for daily professional work. Its own roadmap puts it at about 45% ready for real work, with AI features, some tools, deeper typography and plug-ins still missing.
• Saving PSDs for Photoshop isn't reliable yet. PhotoCraft opens Photoshop files well, but files it saves aren't always accepted by Photoshop. Keep a copy of your original.
• Changing very fast. New versions arrive almost daily, and there are more than a thousand open issues. Expect bugs, and update often.
• Built with AI help. The team uses AI coding agents heavily and even estimates its remaining work in agent hours.
• No Adobe code. It's a clean-room rebuild, written from public file specifications and by observing how Photoshop behaves, not from Adobe's code.
• Licence: MIT or Apache 2.0, your choice. Free to use, including at work. The ArtCraft and PhotoCraft logos and names have their own, stricter terms.