PhotoCraft: ArtCraft's Free, Open-Source Photoshop Alternative

PhotoCraft is a free, open-source image editor that aims to do what Adobe Photoshop does, without the subscription. It comes from the team behind ArtCraft, Its source code went up on GitHub on September 30, 2026, and the repository collected more than 59,000 stars in two weeks.

It is also very new. PhotoCraft is labeled early alpha, and the team is upfront that it is not yet a Photoshop replacement for professional work. This guide covers what it can do today, where it falls short, and how to install it safely.

PhotoCraft at a glance

What PhotoCraft can do

The official pitch is "the image editor you already know how to use." Menus, panels, tools, and shortcuts sit where Photoshop users expect them, from ⌘J to ⇧⌘D.

• Real PSD files. PhotoCraft opens, edits, and saves layered PSD and PSB documents. Re-saving keeps the same render for 307 of the 309 files in the public psd-tools test set, and all 116 shape layers in the team's PSD test files match Photoshop's pixels.
• Layers the way you know them. Groups, clipping masks, pixel and vector masks, fill layers, smart objects with smart filters, and layer styles such as Drop Shadow, Bevel & Emboss, Stroke, and gradient overlays.
• Non-destructive editing. 16 adjustment layers and more than 70 filters with live previews.
• 67 tools. Brushes, selections, retouching, the Pen tools, shapes, editable type, crop, and more.
• Serious color. RGB, CMYK, Lab, and Grayscale documents at 8, 16, and 32 bits per channel, with ICC color management and soft proofing.
• Many file formats. Besides PSD, it reads and writes layered TIFF and OpenRaster, opens Krita and Paint.NET files, places SVGs as vector smart objects, and handles PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, OpenEXR, HDR, and more.
• On-device selection. Select Subject and object selection run on your computer, not on a server.
• Automation. Every menu item and tool runs one of more than 500 commands, which a command-line tool (photocraft-cli), a JSON control channel, and an MCP server can call. Scripts and AI agents can do anything you can click.
• In your browser. The whole editor also compiles to WebAssembly, so you can try it in a browser tab.

The interface is available in several languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Russian.

What's new in PhotoCraft 0.8.2

Version 0.8.2 shipped on October 12, 2026, one day after 0.7.0, and credited 103 contributors. Highlights from the release notes:

• New tools: Artboard, Perspective Crop, Color Replacement, Freeform Pen and Curvature Pen, Add and Delete Anchor Point, and Horizontal and Vertical Type Mask.
• Rebuilt panel docking, shared with the other Crafting Apps, with saved workspaces.
• Speed fixes: finishing a brush stroke no longer freezes the app, and large feathered masks refresh faster.
• Photoshop-style details: Free Transform gets a right-click menu, tool options are remembered between launches, and crop presets can be saved.

New versions arrive every few days, so check the releases page for the latest.

How close is PhotoCraft to Photoshop?

The team publishes an unusually candid parity assessment against Photoshop 2026. The figures below are from October 12, 2026:

In the team's words, PhotoCraft "is not yet a Photoshop replacement for daily professional work." The main gaps:

• Generative AI. There is no Generative Fill, Generative Expand, or Neural Filters. Only classical tools like Select Subject and Content-Aware fill.
• Plug-ins and scripting. No support for Photoshop .8BF plug-ins or UXP and ExtendScript scripts. Actions (.atn) can be loaded and saved.
• Performance. Very large or layer-heavy documents can be slow, and some users report brush lag.
• Stability. There are reports of freezes and GPU crashes on some machines.
• PSD exchange. Files usually round-trip, but some users report that Photoshop refuses files PhotoCraft saved.

Reviewers reached the same conclusion. Creative Bloq found PhotoCraft opened files without compatibility issues but had trouble with selection, masking, and filters.

PhotoCraft vs Photoshop and other free editors

PhotoCraft's advantage is the combination: free, open source, native on every desktop, and built to feel like Photoshop. Its disadvantage is age. GIMP and Photopea are far more stable today.

How to install PhotoCraft

1. Option 1: the ArtCraft Launcher (easiest)

   Download the ArtCraft Launcher from getartcraft.com/apps. It installs PhotoCraft and the other Crafting Apps, picks the right build for your computer, and keeps them updated.

2. Option 2: standalone installers

   Get PhotoCraft on its own from the official PhotoCraft page or the GitHub releases page. Windows has .msi installers and portable zips; macOS has a universal .dmg; Linux has an AppImage, .deb, .rpm, Flatpak, and tarball. The official site can lag a release or two behind GitHub.

3. Option 3: the browser

   PhotoCraft also has a web build, which is the quickest way to try it without installing anything.

Who should try PhotoCraft now?

PhotoCraft is worth installing today if you want a free editor that opens your existing PSD files, work on Linux, or want to automate image editing with scripts or AI agents. If you edit for clients or on deadlines, keep Photoshop for now and check back as new releases land.

PhotoCraft and ArtCraft

PhotoCraft is one of thirteen Crafting Apps, alongside alternatives to Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Illustrator, and more. Our guide to ArtCraft's Adobe alternatives compares them all with Creative Cloud.

It is separate from ArtCraft, the team's AI image and video studio, which this site mainly covers. If you want AI generation with scene control, see the ArtCraft review.