Making Digital Painting Accessible Pt. 1
Affordable Alternatives to Adobe Photoshop
I started exploring the world of digital painting at the ripe young age of 17 or 18. I was still in college, living off instant noodles and canned Vienna sausages. I had no money to spend on “frivolous expenses”. An adobe membership was something that at that time, seemed unattainable to me.
I didn’t have the chance to study art, or graphic design formally. I couldn’t afford to, but I had the drive. I was also running an essay writing business (very yikes), ghost writing e-books, and a dipping my toes in digital marketing. For a childhood hobby, digital illustration was not lucrative path for me — until I tried everything else and ended up back in it — so it didn’t warrant an “investment” at the time. I made do using my trackpad and mouse, and a little bit later, a $20 dollar knockoff drawing tablet. I couldn’t justify buying Adobe, so I had to use other programs.
Even with the cheap equipment I still had to teach myself, and couldn’t afford any of the online schools (nor could I attend live ones with all my classes and coursework). I learned everything I could from YouTube but even then, most information was limited to Photoshop. Thankfully, with the rest of the industry catching up and focusing on results vs. the software you use, more opportunities for learning and diving into digital art have opened up that are a lot more accessible to artists who are on a budget.
If paying a monthly fee for a Photoshop subscription doesn’t fall within your budget, there’s no need to worry there are plenty of free alternatives that are just as good with tutorials that are also just as good, which I’m posting about later. GIMP, Paint.NET, Krita, and Leonardo are some of the programs that work well enough for the beginner or even “broker” artist.
Paint.NET
Paint.NET literally looks like MS Paint 2.0. It’s a great free alternative to Photoshop, however, it’s only offered for Windows versions 7 through 10. This program is similar to the Microsoft Paint application, which is a built-in editing tool for PC users. The developer actually aimed to make Paint.NET a more sophisticated version of Microsoft Paint. Paint.NET is obviously more advanced and it can do complex tasks like using multiple layers and blending while it manages to maintain a user-friendly interface that’s intuitive.
If you have questions while navigating through Paint.NET visit the Paint.NET forums. They offer a lot of assistance and are a great place to turn to if you get stuck on something. You can also turn to the tutorials on the same website if you want a walkthrough on certain features.
Paint.NET does not offer some of the features Photoshop and GIMP offer like supporting PSD files, but you can install plugins such as a PSD plugin to access those files. It just doesn’t offer some features natively. Paint.NET is one of the fastest image editors available and it can run in almost two dozen different languages. Paint.NET is definitely a valuable option for a free Photoshop alternative.
GIMP
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is one of the best Photoshop alternatives because of its ability to do many complex tasks and plethora of image manipulation features. Although GIMP may not be as intuitive as Photoshop, there are many in-depth GIMP tutorials online that can really help you become familiar with the program. GIMP Tutorials range from beginner to advanced and cover things like Photo Editing, Painting, and Programming. These tutorials are thorough enough that you need little to no Photoshop experience beforehand.
Once you get the hang of it, however, it can do just as much as Photoshop. If you are just looking for the basics then GIMP may actually be a bit too complicated and you should probably go with a simpler alternative. GIMP is also available in twenty languages for Mac, Linux, and Windows. Surprisingly enough, GIMP recognizes most file formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF, and TIFF and others and partial support of PSDs (some part of PSD files may not be readable). Because of its many features, if you’re looking for a full-fledged Photoshop alternative, GIMP is definitely the program for you.
Krita
Krita is a free open-source application that’s primarily used for 2D animation and digital painting. But it’s still a good alternative for Photoshop. It has a great palette with lots of variety and an endless amount of brush customization options that can smooth out an unsteady hand. This application supports PSD files and it also offers advanced features like layer management. The desktop application uses OpenGL and allows you to open and manipulate HDR images and supports vector artwork. It also has a switchable customization profile feature. Krita runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows so it’s a readily available application. Krita has a very active forum community if you want to turn to for help or just to view other sample artwork.
Leonardo
Leonardo (beta) is a drawing and painting application that’s only available for Windows. It’s not free, but it’s daaaaaamn affordable. It’s a great alternative to Photoshop because of its many advanced features and capabilities.
Leonardo works with all PC tablets and is best known for sketching, drawing, painting, tracing, and whiteboarding. This application has a beautiful and user-friendly interface that scales to any screen and works great for both right and left-handed people. Leonardo is an extremely fast application that launches in less than half a second and makes it possible to paint in high resolution without lag. It also has an infinite canvas so you can just scroll anywhere on the canvas and sketch, instead of going page to page. Leonardo has a great brush engine that allows you to create any type of brush stroke you want. This application is built for PC tablets so if you have one, this is the application for you.
Which should you choose?
I tried all of these before I started making money from freelancing and doing commissions. I ended up gravitating towards GIMP and Krita more because it had the functionality of the two programs I use now: Clip Studio Paint and Adobe Fresco.
When Adobe Fresco came out, I couldn’t get it on my laptop yet so I ended up looking for a sketchbook alternative, and lo and behold I found Leonardo.
If you see my videos on YouTube, a lot of them use CSP or Fresco, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have used any of these alternatives if I had to. They all still work beautifully. Leonardo is doing updates fairly often (it’s currently in Beta) and it loads fast! Krita now has a much bigger user base, so there are some really great quality tutorials online available now.
