App to Replace Subscription-Based Photoshop License

by Rian

Adobe Photoshop is not for all consumers. This might come as a surprise for some, but there are other less known alternatives that provide more economical (i.e. less tools and options) options for average home users. I, for one, don’t do any illustrative works nor photography works; all my astrophotography hobbies often rely on open source softwares too.

My personal go-to, non subscription based, Pixelmator Pro, is priced at $49.99 and available at Mac App Store. Again, things I used to do on Photoshop were fairly limited: cropping, few editing here and there, and exporting into file format of my liking. Photoshop, on the other hand, is priced at $22.99 per month. If this is only for personal use, I think Photoshop is generally an overkill for average users, especially with its mounting subscription fees.

One other thing to note, Pixelmator comes with handy online user guides. If you have something to be done on image files using Pixelmator, there is a good chance a guide is already documented or someone has already asked for help on a forum. I do appreciate more welcoming community atmosphere of Pixelmator; Photoshop is often the tool of professionals, hence many guides are already paywalled.

One final tangent, Pixelmator is now acquired by Apple. As far as I am aware, Pixelmator hasn’t announced future plans as of yet. Also, if you are looking for just the “crop” and “straighten”, there are more alternatives available, some are even free. My point here is that there are more economical alternatives to professional softwares.

note: Featured image is from the Pixelmator