Most of the Adobe alternatives I try are open-source or indie projects. My Photoshop replacement stack heavily leans more open, accessible, and privacy-focused with tools like Photopea, Krita, Penpot, and Pinta. These are all great options and they deserve a shot, but I’ve started completely overlooking the consumer-focused, proprietary, and cloud-based tools. These tools are popular for a reason - they’re fast, polished, easy to use, and very capable of handling complex work.
Picsart is actually a tool I’ve been using long before canceling my Adobe subscriptions or building an open-source kit. I started by just casually editing some shots on the mobile app, then eventually moved my work over to the browser-based version on my desktop, and then forgot that the app existed. But now that I’m extensively testing Adobe alternatives, I found myself coming back to Picsart, and it’s had some nice upgrades since I last used it, too.
What is Picsart?
Think Photoshop meets Canva
Picsart is first and foremost an image editor, but it’s also a commercial, AI-powered digital creation platform for users of all skill levels, including social media posters and professional marketers or small businesses. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools for photo and video editing, graphic design, and AI-generated content, and it can be used on iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, iPadOS, and in the browser. There’s no option for Linux, though you could run it through something like Wine.
The interface is very intuitive and simple, and it also puts a lot of emphasis on its AI automation toolkit and templates, which makes it more accessible to non-designers and newbies. This way, you don’t even need to make manual adjustments, but there are comprehensive controls for creating multi-layer designs from scratch. In terms of capability, I would place it somewhere between Photoshop and Canva. It supports a wide range of formats, including JPEG, PNG, PDF, SVG, WebP, TIFF, MPO, MP4, MOV, WEBM, and HTML.
Picsart is a freemium tool, so there will be some features that are paywalled. The free version is good enough for decent edits - you still get multi-layer, effects, adjustment sliders, access to some templates and premade elements, shapes, and brush tools. The paid options are better suited to businesses and serious designers; they give you access to all of the AI tools and models, all of the effects and adjustments, bulk image editing, and more storage.
How I use Picsart
Creating Photoshop-level edits, but with less complexity
I used to have a Picsart subscription that I eventually canceled. So coming back to it, I wanted to be deliberate about how I evaluated it. I started by editing on a free account, then signed up for the free trial to get a clear sense of what the paid features actually add.
On the free version, about half of the effects are available to you as well as all the adjustment sliders - there are a bunch of new ones since the last time I used it. So if you’re only doing color corrections and grading, you’re all set. I was able to correct the lighting and tones of my images using just a handful of sliders and filters. The text tool is also available for free, and I used it with the blend modes to replicate the way I edit my watermarks. It’s really easy to make translucent signatures, watermarks, or even social media icons in Picsart.
Most of the stickers and elements were available to me in the free version - they’re an easy way to add creative accents to an image so that you don’t have to create them from scratch. All of the drawing/brush features are also free, and although intended to be used artistically, you can actually do some dodging and burning with them to make lighting corrections. Unfortunately, the free version only grants you up to five layers per project.
The paid version (or my free trial, rather) unlocked everything else, which includes more effects, all the AI tools, and access to all the premade elements, templates, and stickers. I will say, this made it much easier to whip up creative designs that would have otherwise taken me longer to do from scratch, especially since the AI tools have expanded compared to my last run-in with Picsart. AI is also the backbone of object selection and removal, so that means you’d need to pay for advanced selections - still cheaper than Adobe, though.
Picsart isn’t Photoshop
They cater to different types of creatives
Photoshop is geared to professionals who do graphics and photography for clients, so if you’re looking for something more in that lane, Affinity or Photopea are your best bet. Picsart is for designers and non-designers alike, and this philosophy shows up in its toolkit. For one, object selection isn’t really a priority in the app, that’s why it’s AI-powered so users don’t have to struggle too much with manual adjustments. You also won’t find vector editing tools, RAW support, high-res output, neural filters, or the same fine-grain control overall.
Picsart is worth a try
Even though Picsart isn’t a match for Photoshop in every way, it never intended to be or marketed itself that way. Picsart exists in its own lane as a powerful graphics editor that lets anyone, regardless of skill, churn out high-quality designs, thanks to its premade content, AI features, and easy approach. It’s great for mid-level photography editing, creative designs, and experimentation, even if you’re using the free version.