Photopea
Photoshop-style image editor that runs in a web browser. Free with ads, opens .psd files with layers intact.
Our verdict
Photopea is the shortest path from Photoshop to Linux, because there is no path: you open a web page and the interface you already know is there, menus and panels in the same places. It opens .psd files with layers, along with Illustrator, XD, Sketch and raw camera files.
For anyone who has to keep working on Photoshop documents other people send them, this beats GIMP on the one thing that matters, which is opening the file correctly. It runs on your own machine rather than a server, so an ordinary laptop handles an ordinary photo fine.
The costs are honest ones. It lives in a browser tab, there is an advertising panel unless you pay, it is not open source, and very large files feel heavier than they would in a desktop app. Treat it as the tool you reach for when a .psd has to come out right, and keep GIMP for day to day work.
What's good
- Looks and behaves almost exactly like Photoshop, so there is nothing to relearn
- Opens .psd files with layers intact, and also .ai, .xd, .sketch and camera raw files
- Nothing to install, so it works on any Linux machine with a browser
- Free to use, with a paid tier that only removes the ads
What to know first
- Needs a browser tab and behaves like a web page, not a desktop app
- Ads sit in a panel down the side unless you pay
- Not open source, and a large file has to be loaded into the browser before you can work on it
- Large images are slower than a proper desktop editor on the same machine
The details
- Cost
- Free with paid extras
- Open source
- No (Proprietary)
- How you install it
- In your browser
Windows apps it can replace
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