There was a time when only poorly developed alternatives to Photoshop were available. However, it is 2022, and plenty of alternatives are available in the software world now. Suppose you are totally inexperienced in graphic designing or photo editing. In that case, you may opt for these alternatives if you are not ready to pay a high amount for the original Photoshop software. These alternatives may come at a shockingly lower price than Photoshop, while some may be completely free with features similar to the original software. These cheaper alternatives are best suited for those course creators who don’t know much about editing and designing. Here is a list of such Photoshop alternatives which have similar features as Photoshop at a much lesser cost:

Canva

Canva is a photo editing and Graphic designing tool that is perfect for beginners. The user-friendly interface makes it easy for beginners and professionals to work on. It offers various ready-to-be-used templates that can be edited for multiple purposes. There is something for everyone here: one can make a poster, an invitation card, edit a video, design a presentation, and a lot more. All of these are enough for a course creator to design a course. Additionally, it facilitates the addition of speech bubbles and captions to photos to make them more intuitive. Although Canva is free, one can get Canva Pro for INR 499 per month. With Pro, one can get more features and templates to work on. This makes it a good Photoshop alternative.

GIMP

GIMP is a free and open-source platform suited for many tasks like image editing, retouching, image manipulation, etc. The interface is customisable hence, allowing you to include features according to your will. The features include many widget themes, custom tools, etc. This Photoshop alternative is perfect for video editing; hence, it is used by professional photographers, videographers, and graphic designers. A transparent virtual file system also helps one save files from remote locations. The best thing about GIMP is that despite being free, it is pretty competitive with Photoshop due to its customization features.

Figma

Figma is a great Photoshop alternative that allows easy collaboration of various design projects. It is fast and lightweight with lots of features. It is great for a course creator as the free platform allows you to collaborate in a professional environment. Apart from being great for course creators, it is compatible with graphic designers, UX/UI, and web designers.

Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is perfect if you want to create your course more professionally with software compatible with most modern technologies. This one will help you work on the fine details of a photograph. The software provides many options such as raw editing, pro-retouch, digital painting, and many more. The software is available for both Windows and macOS. Affinity Photo offers a free trial and is available for approximately INR 1500 for an iPad and INR 3800 for Mac and Windows computers.

Pixlr

Pixlr is another user-friendly online photo editing tool. Pixlr offers modern photo editing tools for quick edits, making it a favourite among beginners. Editing is really quick on the platform as it is powerful and versatile. The software also helps in speedy content creation as it offers a lot of professionally designed templates that are ready to be used. This makes it an excellent choice for course creators. The platform is free; however, you can try premium for more advanced features at approximately INR 380 per month. 

PhotoDirector 365

One can edit photos with great visual effects with PhotoDirector 365. The software has intuitive layer editing abilities. Features like photo animation, dispersion, and light rays can be utilised by course creators the most to showcase a 3D image or an animation. It also has an audio library. The software’s price starts at INR 270 per month—much lower than Photoshop.

Paint.net

Paint.net is perfect for Windows users, especially someone completely inexperienced in photo editing and graphic designing. The software has a very user-friendly interface that is intuitive and interesting. Multiple images can be edited at once, which is not supported well in Photoshop. The software offers special effects for more enhancements and keeps a complete history. The free software on dotPDN can be bought from the Microsoft store at about INR 545. 

Sketch

Sketch is a photo editing software with a vector editor, quick prototyping, and a powerful tool for collaboration. The software is made for those who want to work faster and better. The software is best suited for designers, artists, and creators. It also offers many plugins that allow one to perform non-destructive editing. The platform provides two types of yearly plans with a free trial in each of the offerings. One can buy a personal licence for a price of INR 7706 per year or a volume licence if a person has a team to collaborate for a price of INR 6928 for two devices.  

Inkscape

Inkscape is another free graphics designing tool. The interesting drawing features, along with a well-built application, draw everyone’s attention. It has text support which allows kerning, line spacing, and adjustments.

Sumopaint

 

Sumopaint is a browser-based software that can give good competition to Photoshop with its light tools that are quick to load. The interface includes features such as shapes, brushes, pencils, text, etc. It allows you to work on 3D projects, audio, video, pixel, and more. Therefore, it is perfect for course creators as it allows them to edit photos and videos hassle-free and quickly. Its interface can also be customised to different languages, allowing almost everyone to create great content. It has both paid and unpaid versions.

These are some of the best software and web-based editing tools that can be used by a course creator to edit videos and pictures for an online course. You do not necessarily need to use Photoshop for your design needs, and almost any design-related task you would like to accomplish can be performed using these alternative applications.