Is there a photoshop that doesn’t require a subscription?
Sfariah D
Posts: 26,516
in The Commons
I was wondering if there is a version of photoshop that doesn't require a subscription. I am having difficulty installing Photoshop CS6 on my Windows 11 computer. I was wondering if the only version of photoshop that is new is the subscription one?
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Do you need Photoshop?
There is nice image editing programs such as Gimp and Krita, that are open-source and therefore free to download.
No, there's only subscription for recent versions.
AFAIK the only non-subscription option is Photoshop Elements.
If Gimp or Krita aren't quite what you're looking for, you might take a look at Affinity Photo made by a company called Serif. It's non-subscription and fairly inexpensive. My dad bought it recently and told me about it. It's looking like a good alternative to Photoshop. I haven't played with it much, yet, but I like what I've seen so far. There's a trial/demo version on the website that you can check out.
There is also Corel Paintshop Pro which is also fairly inexpensive. If you haven't checked out Humble bundle, I would recommend watching for their Photography/art bundles. They usually have great deals for graphic items several times a year for outstanding prices. They actually have one on now. Anything But Ordinary Painter Bundle which includes: Corel Paint Shop Pro, AfterShot Pro 3, MindManager Essentials (1 Year Subscription, Painter 2022, Correl VideoStudio 2022, Winzip (1 Year Subscription, Plus a Bunch of Paper Packs and Brush Packs. It's by donation with a minimum price for the lot of 42.44 CAD. Partial proceeds go to charities (part goes to Humble Bundle, and part goes to vendor (Corel). You can adjust the amounts to each
To the best of my knowledge, Photoshop Elements is still available as a perpetual license. I admit that I haven't checked lately. It has about 80% of the features of the full version.
If you don't need to have the program installed on your own computer, another 80% solution is an open source app called Photopea, at (www) phptopea (dot) com. This one will open Photoshop documents, and save in Photoshop format, as well as .jpg, .png and most other commonly used file formats. It's free, but you need internet access to use it.
I looked at that and it is about $31 US dollars.
And the nice thing is except of the Mind Manager and Winzip...everything is perpetual licensing
Good news! I can try Winzip for a year but I rather not pay for Winzip as I can get 7zip for free forever. I have no clue what Mind Manager is. I doubt it is what I need for mind managing, aka managing my thoughts and procrasintation habits.
I second the suggestion for Affinity Photo. Lots of YouTube turoials and, apart from the higher-end pro features, it will give you most of what Photoshop offers and not trouble your bank account greatly.
Same here with Affinity Photo. I got it as Photoshop wasn't handling aspects of EXR's correctly.
LOL. Actually that's exactly what it is. It's a mapping tool for putting various thoughts and potential actions, solutions, ideas etc. I work in IT at a major hospital org as a Project Coordinator. Many of our Project Managers use it in their processes. It was recently bought by Corel. I won't pay for the licensing, but it's worth it to play with it for a year. I also have Affinity, and it's a great tool as well I am most comfortable with Corel, but everyone is different. I am also someone who likes to experiment with different things
@Sfariah Photoshop Elements 2023 was recently announced, and it's a stand-alone software (non-subsciption) with many of the same features you find in Photoshop CC. It's $100 but Adobe typically has Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales in November. Check it out here: https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html
OP, I was hesitant to move from CS6 to the subscription mode, and gave Affinity a try. I've been using Photoshop for so long that everything I tried to do in Affinity annoyed me. Had to suck it up and go with the sub.
What doesn't make much sense is that there is a Photography sub that comes with both Pshop and Lightroom (I think) for 1/2 the cost of Photoshop alone. Crazy.
That was my experience as well. I went for the Photoshop/Lightroom subscription. I have never actually opened Lightroom, though. The reason it's cheaper than just Photoshop is that you get less cloud storage, which I do not use anyway.
I retired recently and dropped my Creative Cloud subscription in favour of the Affinity trio (as well as the iPad versions of two of them) and am quite happy with them, but as someone else noticed, it takes a little time getting used to if you've been using PhotoShop for years. That said, I also use Photopea and it feels closer to PhotoShop; finally, I did buy PhotoShop Elements to run some of my Photoshop actions and use some of the plug-ins I've used in the past.
This is what I use. I switched to the Photo sub after using CS2 since release (upgrading was just not in my budget for a long time). It works well and for $9.99 a month I feel like it's well worth it (at least for me). It keeps me from having to switch between multiple programs. I got tired of following tutorials and not being able to complete them as I was missing features with CS2. Never tried Lightroom but I've seen some tutorials and it can be useful as well. One of my fave features of using Photoshop is having access to some free stock photos.
I had maintained the annual SMP (support and maintenance pack) for MindManager since I bought it in 2008. But after their Corel acquisition some couple of years ago, they changed their business model. They moved from perpetual licensing to subscription licensing but still honored the existing SMP users, at least in my case. I was able to get the 2021 perpetual license from Mindjet support but they stopped responding when I asked for the 2022 license. Ultimately, I had to approach Cleverbridge (their payment processor) to intervene and they refunded and canceled my SMP renewal charges. After a few months, I received a mail from Mindjet to activate the 2022 annual subscription (not perpetual). Checked my Mindjet account, at least the 2021 perpetual license is still intact.
I don't need fancy stuff with my photo editing program and have been using Ulead Photoimpact 10 for more than a decade. I think it turned into Paintshop Pro when Corel bought it. Shush.. with DS 5 pending I wish people wouldn't mention the word "subscription" too loudly round here.
Paint SHop Pro existed for a long time before Corel bought it, PhotoImpact was a separate application from a different publisher (JASC and Ulead were the companies for those two)
Try this one maybe. Browser based. It's almost like Photoshop.
https://www.photopea.com
You might be able to find a physical copy of Photoshop CS6 for preference, but good luck with that; I've been looking for years, and would have paid good cash for it too.
Never seen it in any of the charity shops i've looked in, and I used to make a point pre-covid of looking in any I passed.
CS6 was that last version of Photoshop that I had access to before I retired. After retiring I no longer had access to expensive software so I looked for alternatives. I had used Serif PhotoPlus previously but it crashed a lot so was wary of trying Affinity Photo (the later offering from Serif). Still, as an existing customer I was offered Affinity at half-price so I bought it. It very rarely crashes and I don't really notice much lacking when compared to CS6. I'm not a pro-level photo editor so there are probably things that CS6 had that AP doesn't but Affinity certainly does the job for me and, if I can't find how to do something, there is a tutorial just a click away.
What frustrates me is that whenever people make tutorials for DAZ Studio or other applications that involve image editing, there is usually an assumption that we all use Photoshop. Same goes for ZBrush. I find myself wishing that the assumption would be more biased towards less expensive alternatives such as Gimp, Affinity and Blender.
Beware some free versions of software do not allow you to use images for commercial purposes. Verify terms and conditions.
I have a very old cs3 version of photoshop, I won't upgrade to a subscription as I think the whole concept is a rip off.
I also have a very old version of psp...9 irrc. Both are good and can do things the other can't.
I also have a very old version of Photoshop elements.
More recently I've been purchasing Painter as it was reasonably priced and has some interesting functions, what I really need for it though is some good tutorials. I have the 2020 version. It has some really interesting concepts like stencils where you get some amazing patterns that I think might be interesting to use in textures.
That said my photoshop cs3 does everything I need. If it stops working on Windows...maybe I'll just switch to linux or something or not upgrade to Windows 11.
I use GIMP. It opens and can export .psd files. It can use most PS brushes (.abr). Just can't use the Layer Styles so I guess it depends on how much you use those.
Affinity Photo user here (and Designer + Publisher)
Having tried almost all of the other softwares mentioned and more, Affinity Photo is just the best bang for your buck. It took me maybe a week to get comfortable coming from PS, and there are quite a few YT vids to help you out.
The focus on non-bloat, speed and general usefulness makes it the best out there. I use Topaz + Luminar AI software for some lighter touchups or just as a easy DAW.
Affinity, Gimp or Krita.
I do prefer paying for Photoshop, but that's because I also need Camera raw and neural filters.
When Adobe went online and subscription they disabled my stand alone license and told me they no longer supported stand alone license's and that I would need to purchase the subscription version.
They didn't offer any option other than full price and you can guess what I told them
I am not a fan of subscriptions and want to get out from under Adobe, thus I have explored many alternatives--they also do not cater to Open source OS users. As others mentioned I have used Photoshop for so many years it has been different to transition to Affinity, I highly recommend it though--the whole suite. I have been using Corel since Corel 3, Paintshop Pro when it was owned by Jasc, and Painter 7 referred to as Procreate under Corel. Krita is comparable to Painter and is quite good, Am losing interest in Corel in that they install adware, & my 2019 versions of Painter and their graphic suite just randomly stopped working following a Windows 10 update-after weeks of troubleshooting, it was deemed the OS as the culprit by their support although it still works on my laptop. No way I would pay even their upgrade price again.. although I am going to pick up Humble Bundle's offer that includes Paintshop Pro which I find the best of the Corel bunch-(32 bit still runs my KPT)--so is Painter--when it works.
if you haven't tried these, they are pretty decent: (all offer perpetual licenses) Paintstorm, ArtRage, ClipStudio Paint, & ACDSee. Each offers different things and wont totally break the bank. Of those I find ACDSee one of the best for many reasons--it has IMO the best photo organizer out there (have used Adobe Bridge, Magix photo manager deluxe, Corel Keyshot Pro, Picassa 3--of which I still find useful at times) It does quite a lot with photos including RAW, has both perpetual/subscription with a whole suite of software for only $8 (subscription) or so but the suite is really decent.
Rebelle is also good as a Painter alternative, I think it is currently $10 for their tenth anniversary.