Another great Photoshop "instead of" is PaintNET. It was developed by university students under the guidance of Microsoft (first as a replacement for the simple Paint in Windows, but has grown to be a full fledged photo canvas tool), it's easy to use (once you get used to it) and has a large forum group for help.

Great list, thanks!

(just a heads up, there's a typo in the title)

Thanks for this post! Much appreicated:)

I tried to like gimp but I sort of hate it. While it can do a lot of what photoshop can, I don't think its nearly as easy to do many of the same things. If you really just one basic simple but capable photo editing I would go with paint.net as was suggested above.

Likewise, I'd go with LibraOffice over Open Office. Otherwise these are all great suggestions. Google Docs (now Google Drive) is also an excellent alternative to word, but not so much for the rest of the office suite.

Anybody looking for free alternatives should really consider Ubuntu - it's not for nerds anymore, once set up (if that's the only thing holding you back), it runs perfectly fine. If you know how to use google, you can tackle most problems.

Plus, Open Office, GIMP and lots of other free alternatives run fine. If you only use your computer for typing and surfing, it's pretty much the same as Windows XP, only much more stable and less prone to viruses (don't know about newer Windows versions, haven't used it in a while).

any suggestions for good video editing freeware? I have tried a few that lag terribly or just aren't meant to be used for anything but cutting and pasting and text overlay; but if these suggestions exist, perhaps a free substitute for Final Cut Pro exists somewhere? Thanks Apartment Therapy!

KristaLouise,

Don't know if Adobe still does Premier Elements, if they do, then see if they have a version for the Mac, it's less than a $100 and quite well featured. I have an older PS Elements 4 software on Mom's PC that served me well until I moved to the full Adobe Master Suite CS4 in 2009. I also had Premier Elements too as they both came as a bundle.

I've found that many of the lesser photo editing programs, at least in the past to be not all that good, nor well featured for anything more than fixing basic things like color correction, exposure, cropping, and sharpening and the like. For anything more complex, nothing beats either full photoshop, or its Elements version which is almost as feature laden as its full variant, but geared more towards the non professional user.

I, on the other hand kind of need the full versions as they ARE used in most offices these days and Photoshop can be used for more than retouching photos as I'm looking to move into graphic design/typesetting (electronic that is using software such as InDesign) for my next career.

Otherwise, good tips and just make sure whatever you choose, it supports the most common file formats upon importing stuff, and saving for use in the real deal when necessary, ie, that the files generated within the free versions are compatible with say, MS Word.

Just a heads up for anyone thinking about Inkscape: It's a fine program on it's own, but if you plan on using it with Illustrator (especially newer versions) in any combination get ready for a huge headache. It works, but it's a major pain in the butt.

Ugh, Open Office. We had that on our computers at work forever. I hated it. It gets the job done, I guess, but the simplest things always turned into the biggest headaches.

I love a program called "Everything" which indexes every file on your computer -- at lightning speed -- and allows for you to search for files by filename. Other, fancier programs allow you to search by a word or phrase within the file or other features; Everything only searches the filename. Those other programs a) are slow as a virus scan, b) build huge index files that take up hard drive space, and c) often re-index in the background when you least expect it, slowing your computer down to a snail's pace.
http://www.voidtools.com
Created by David Carpenter, david@voidtools.com
Don't know the guy, just love this speedy little file finder.

I'm a huge fan of GIMP. I own a magazine and it's all we've ever needed - no Photoshop at all.

I can't tell you how pleased I am to see Ubuntu mentioned on a website *so* far removed from the nerdy roots of Linux. Actually a lot of these great apps were on Linux loooong before they made it on to Windows or Mac. I know I know I'm boring you but as a nerd who also loves design, this pleases me immensely...

Open Office has become a bit of a dead end after Oracle took Novell over. Based on the same code (software) is Libre Office, which has taken over the momentum of Open Office and developed the software further. It's a nice improvement over the OO basis.

http://www.libreoffice.org/

Davbren, come to think of it, seeing the Gimp pic might have been why I - as an Ubuntu user - read the article in the first place! Also, Apartment Therapy is not that far removed from Linux, just think of the beautiful design of the newer versions - if you appreciate that, it's no wonder you also visit sites such as AT.

Never tried Gimp but have Elements (several versions old) which I bought for $80. I also recently bought Lightroom4 for $149 which I like to use to manage and quickly touch up my photos. Both Elements and LR4 are made by Photoshop. Both are great alternatives to the much pricier CS6, albeit they don't have the wealth of functions that their bigger sister has.

Ubuntu isn't that easy to use. Sorry, but even simple versions of Linux are still for PeopleNo are fairly techy.

If you have a Mac, I don't see why you'd need Everything.

It would be helpful to indicate which operating system these are for: Windows, OS10 or Linux.

It may be all a person needs but GIMP is not a reasonable replacement for Photoshop. It can't even support 16 bit images. The only real alternative for Photoshop in the market is Paint Shop Pro for $50 at Target, which is cheaper than the manufacturer's (Corel) web site for some reason.

I thought GIMP had a steep learning curve, but now I use it all the time at work and love it. It's true I have used Linux forever, but when I started, I was an English major and I not at all skilled with computers. When I did my first install (I think it was Slackware?), I didn't even know how to download an mp3. Open-source software has probably saved me thousands of dollars over the years, in addition to giving me a great education (and if you have a problem, there's a forum full of helpful people somewhere to get you through it).

I also agree that Libre Office is much better than Open Office.

There is a free alternative called Lightworks. It's currently Windows only but should be releasing a linux version soon and have said they will release a Mac version shortly thereafter. It's been around for decades and has even won some awards in the filmmaking community. Its completely free (though to use some higher end proprietary codecs you'll need to purchase a license to use them [$60]).

Unlike a lot of "free" video software, Lightworks is stable, powerful, and capable of cutting pretty much anything you can throw at it. And it's free, so worth checking out.

Blender is also another alternative if you're a bit adventurous. It's main strength isn't video editing in the vein of a Final Cut Pro or LIghtworks, but it has a video sequence editor that can work with any resolution, just about any flavor of video and has a ridiculous amount of versatility built in. Its primarily a 3D modeler and animator, but its fully capable of doing video editing as well. Can present a pretty steep learning curve though. But again, its free!

forgot to mention it, Blender is available on a bunch of platforms - Linux, Mac, Windows and FreeBSD.

Jose A,

Have you looked at the newest release of GIMP? It's interface has undergone a big change and is more "photoshop like' than previous releases.

That said, its not everyone's cup of team. But if you really need an image editor and can't afford to spend money on one, I suggest GIMP.

Thanks for the resources. Could you please give me some alternatives to Replicon - http://www.replicon.com?