Adobe Photoshop is one such expensive tool which is considered to be the “the King of Kings’’. It has become the choice of the world because of a very obvious reason that it has an innovative and prodigious feature set. It is incomparable software which has no equal emulator. In addition to the fact that it is regarded as the best image editor, Photoshop is also very expensive. Here lies the real problem because neither every person wants to get frog in his throat by spending three figures for it, nor everybody wants to jump into the deadly and illegal case of software piracy.
Following is the list of five free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop with a brief outline of what each is like.

GIMPshop

GIMPshop is a free image editing software program which is designed and established by global volunteers. G.I.M.P or GNU Image Manipulation Program is well known alternative to Photoshop. It allows user to try and experiment with all the tools, layers and projects. The current version of GIMPshop includes support of 16 and 32 bit color, plenty automatic user interface and a huge collection of filters, brushes and other editing tools. Apart from image editing GIMPshop is also useful for graphic design. It has already gained the position as a global leader in free image editing software.

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a free photo editing software application outlined to work with raster images. Originally determined as a free substitute for Microsoft Paint software, it has developed into a strong yet uncomplicated instrument for image editing. It is easily accessible and simple in use. Paint.NET comes with features such as layers, tablet PC support, image cropping, filters and multiple effects, unlimited history, text editor and many more editing tools. It also supports extra plug-ins for free. Paint.Net as an open source is 100% free and is applicable for further modifications.

Photoscape

Photoscape is a user friendly photo editing software established by MOOII Tech, Korea. It enables users to enhance and edit images with the use of simple tools. The operation of Photoscape is classified into modules that incorporate different categories. It supports tools such as photo viewer, printer, color picker, page creator and other similar features. Although Photoscape does not have as many attributes as that of Photoshop, it is still preferred by many worldwide users. The editing tools of Photoscape make it promising alternative software to Photoshop. It is free and can be installed within a couple of minutes.

Splashup

Splashup is a photo editing tool which allows users to operate essential editing tasks. It is absolutely free of cost software that is excellently feature- filled. It mainly works like Adobe Photoshop and the only difference lies in the price. Splashup is unified with Facebook, Picasa and more where users can upload their images. It comes with strong editing tools such as text adding, multi-image editing and photo filters. It is user- friendly and can be operated by both children and adults. Splashup is certainly an impressive creation of image editing for both photographs and graphics.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe Photoshop Express is a free photo editing software by Adobe. It includes number of tools and features that makes it attractive to everyone experimenting with images. It is browser- based and is integrated with Flickr, Photobucket, Facebook and more rendering users to import and export images. Adobe Photoshop Express has photo editing proficiency such as filter effects, variety of brush tools, express organizer and lot more. Although it lacks strong features that Photoshop accompanies, but a free service makes it demanded by the users.

Author Bio:
This is a guest post by Rajkumar Jonnala on behalf of and .