# Best free or cheap alternatives to photoshop and illustrator? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 17, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-free-or-cheap-alternatives-to-photoshop-and-illustrator/698699 "2014-09-17T01:06:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-free-or-cheap-alternatives-to-photoshop-and-illustrator/698699/21 "2014-09-25T01:22:20Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > There’s lot of alternatives to Photoshop out there depending on your needs. Paint Shop Pro is one I know many folks swear by as a nice balance of power and usability. I used to work with the guy who was the principal coder of Paint Shop Pro. He was head-hunted to write the next version of Photoshop at one point, but they let him have a look at the code. He decided “I can do better” and wrote Paint Shop Pro, with the goal of doing 99% of what Photoshop did for a tenth of the price. > [@](#): > > Illustrator is trickier to replace. Corel Draw is the only one I know of that’s pro quality and still in development, but I think it’s substantially inferior in both capability and usability. Really? I’ve never liked Illustrators spline tools, and always thought Corel Draws were far superior and much easier to use. I know the people in the sign business are big fans of Corel Draw because it has much more powerful import and export features. And the main difference is that Adobe limits what each of their programs do to make sure you buy the whole suite. Photoshop has poor vector tools - if you want vectors, you have to use Illustrator, etc. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-free-or-cheap-alternatives-to-photoshop-and-illustrator/698699/22 "2014-09-25T05:05:29Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > I used to work with the guy who was the principal coder of Paint Shop Pro. He was head-hunted to write the next version of Photoshop at one point, but they let him have a look at the code. He decided “I can do better” and wrote Paint Shop Pro, with the goal of doing 99% of what Photoshop did for a tenth of the price. This sounds like utter nonsense. Adobe has had a core of software engineers surrounding Photoshop since the early 1990’s when the Knoll brothers were taken on board when Photoshop was acquired. Adobe would never have tried to recruit someone to “write the next version of Photoshop” because they’ve had consistent talent in-house since forever. Your friend is bullshitting you. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2014, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-free-or-cheap-alternatives-to-photoshop-and-illustrator/698699/23 "2014-09-25T07:49:33Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > [checks current temp folder full of images] Yup, png is what I’m using. Cool. I think that’s the default format offered when you ‘export to bitmap’ from Inkscape. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-free-or-cheap-alternatives-to-photoshop-and-illustrator/698699/24 "2014-09-26T03:52:47Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > This sounds like utter nonsense. Adobe has had a core of software engineers surrounding Photoshop since the early 1990’s when the Knoll brothers were taken on board when Photoshop was acquired. Adobe would never have tried to recruit someone to “write the next version of Photoshop” because they’ve had consistent talent in-house since forever. Your friend is bullshitting you. He was headhunted to join that team. I spoke to him after he went out there, but before he went to JASC. He described what he saw as “spaghetti code” and wanted nothing to do with it. He had some serious skills. When we were working together, I was the demo artist for TDI Explore on the SGI Indigo, and supported graphics programs on AT&T boards like the Targa and Vista - which was the only way to do 24 bit color on a PC. He built a prototype of one of the first cheap 24 bit PC graphics cards - he designed a motherboard, the card to plug into the motherboard, wrote the microcode for both and what eventually became Paint Shop Pro was an off-shoot of the graphics utilities he wrote to display and manipulate TGA files from the Targa and Vista cards (which were running Lumena, TIPS, DGS and QFX). You’re welcome to believe whatever you like. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-free-or-cheap-alternatives-to-photoshop-and-illustrator/698699/25 "2014-09-26T13:09:55Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Fourthing GIMP. There is also the offshoot [Gimpshop](http://www.gimpshop.com/), which provides a lookalike Photoshop interface that would be more accessible to those accustomed to using Photoshop rather than learning GIMP’s comparatively clunky interface. If you mastered GIMP first and then switched to Photoshop you would think Photoshop’s interface was clunky. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-free-or-cheap-alternatives-to-photoshop-and-illustrator/698699.md?page=1)