Adobe Photoshop is a very powerful application for image editing. It’s an industry standard for anyone serious about photo manipulation and such. However, it comes with a heavy price tag. Of course, it can be easily pirated, but we don’t advocate any illegal activity here at Sly. Let’s take a look at a few of the alternatives for image editing. Every program on this list is free.

5. IrfanView - Less of an image editor, more of an image viewer. If you’re not interested in adding fancy text and editing to your images and only want a reliable cropping and resizing tool, IrfanView is a light application that will do exactly that for you. I use it all the time when I don’t want to boot up Photoshop, which comparatively takes a lot of memory out of my system RAM.

4. Helicon Filter - The main focus of Helicon Filter is to provide an image editing program for photographers. You can easily edit standard images with it, offering a very basic and straightforward approach.

3. Pixia - The focus of Pixia was to be for the Anime and Manga community, however it has reached out to people looking for Photoshop alternative. The project has recently updated to a new engine, so be sure to give it a try.

2. Paint.net - Developed on the .NET framework, Paint.net offers a simple solution for your every day needs for resizing, cropping, etc.

1. GIMP -  The most powerful free image manipulation out there. It matches up closely to Adobe Photoshop, and delivers a lot of bang for no buck. If you want more of a replication of Photoshop, be sure to check out GIMPshop.

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