Alternative software to Photoshop/GIMP for texture creation/editing (WINDOWS)

[Kurz Neox]

Hello all!

I tried to do a quick search on the forum but did not find a good thread that talked about this topic, so hopefully I am not beating too bad of a dead horse here.

I should start by stating why I do not want to use Photoshop: I am well-trained in Photoshop, as I have used it since 1999. However, when Adobe decided to make it a subscription-only service, I decided that was not for me as I consider myself a casual user who does not use it to make any profit that would help pay the monthly fee. I did it for some drawing and painting, which I have other programs that specifically can fill that need (Painttool SAI, OpenCanvas, Alpaca, Krita) , however I do not have a program that combines drawing/painting and photo editing, which is useful when making textures in SL. If I was selling my art IRL, I would definitely just pay for Photoshop's subscription. It isn't that I am unwilling to pay for software, I just do not like that utlimately Photoshop will cost much more than most other software on the market with its subscription fee (over time). I hope that makes sense. I have thought a lot about getting back into making make-up, tattoos, and clothing textures and feel it would be a great time for me to get back into the hobby that I once found fun. I would love suggestions on other programs to look into or try other than Photoshop and GIMP. I run on Windows, so it has to be compatible with that operating system.

Now that I have explained that, ever since Photoshop went to subscription service, I have been searching for art programs that are very user friendly and similar to Photoshop in their menus. I have tried GIMP, and I cannot seem to do much beyond the basics before getting overly frustrated at its poor layout or lack of features (or the features are there and are worded differently or hidden in an obscure menu). Of course, I know there are lots of people who love GIMP and I think it is a great program that is offered for free. I think my problem is that I learned on and used Photoshop for so many years that I get in the program and it feels familiar but then it is suddenly like I am in the Twilight Zone with it. It is strange because I am able to use the other drawing/painting software just fine, however it is well-known that GIMP has a large learning curve and maybe it is just too big for me. A quick Google search lets me know there are other programs, some of which are not free, but offer similar experiences to Photoshop. I was hoping maybe others who use these other programs could chime in with their suggestions and opinions.

 

 

**BEFORE POSTING A SUGGESTION:  DO NOT comment saying one should just learn GIMP or just subscribe to Photoshop. DO highlight what you feel are a few PROs and at least 1 CON to the software you are suggesting. Links to the software should be added (if another user has already posted about the software, a link is not necessary) and any other links (video tutorials, etc are fine to add extra). Hopefully this thread can be useful to other users in the future as well.**

[ChinRey]

I use paint.net for nearly all my image editing, GIMP maybe once or twice a year for some more advanced function and Ifranview (Windows) and GraphicConverter (Mac) mostly for batch converting and to open uncommon file formats.

Paint.net doesn't have nearly as many bells and whistles as Photoshop or even GIMP but it's much more user friendly and for me at least, it's very rare that I actually miss a function. For texture work it offer two very valuable bonuses: the Overlay layer mode and the Fant scaling algorithm. Photoshop has the former but as far as I know not the latter. GIMP has neither.

(The Overlay layer mode is a combination of Multiply and Screen and it usually does a much better job adding shadings and finer structures and enrichen colours than either of those two or Color burn. Fant is a scaling algorithm owned by Microsoft who keeps it a colsely guarded secret (Paint.net has it because it's based on MS' .net framework). It tends to create sharper scaled down images than the common bicubic and bilinear algorithms.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Affinity Photo

[animats]

Inkscape and Pinta are options.  Inkscape is more for doing line art, text, etc. Pinta is more like a paint program.

I used to use Pinta but switched to GIMP.

There's still Photoshop Elements, which is a $100 one-time purchase.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

I agree with Chin, Paint.net is very full-featured, handling layers, layer blending, and with lots of plugins for effects and filters, it's free, it has a native-style Windows feel, and it's free.

 

Gimp has a superior perspective/cage transform function, but it's about as intuitive as a bible written in Klingon.

Edited October 31, 2021 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[Cecilia Dallas]

I'll second Affinity Photo on behalf of my non-SL-playing mom

My mom is a long-time graphic designer who gave up on the Adobe suite of software due to the whole subscription model a few years ago. I asked her at lunch, and she now uses Affinity Designer as her replacement for Illustrator, and Affinity Photo to replace Photoshop (along with a Mac-only photo editor called Pixelmator Pro). She said there are Windows versions of the Affinity products.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Giselle Kiyori

[Jennifer Boyle]

Like ChinRey, I use Paint.net almost exclusively. I highly recommend it.

[Cube Republic]

krita.org is good for painting and it's free. You can even paint in tiled mode which is great for textures!

[Jennifer Boyle]

I use paint.net. It is free. You can download it from getpaint.net.

I will definitely look at krita.org. Thanks.

ETA: I downloaded and installed Krita, and it has a much larger feature set that paint.net. Thanks very much for calling my attention to it.

The additional feature that I will find immediately valuable is the ability to save text that is superimposed on an image as editable text. That will really simplify something I'm working on.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Jennifer Boyle