In the graphics editing area there are a lot big names and very expensive software out there, but there are alternative that can save you a lot of money.

The biggest and most expensive of these is the Adobe Creative Suite. The price varies depending on the plan you choose. The Photography plan which includes Photoshop and Lightroom cost just $9.99 per month. Over years this could cost you a lot of money. Creative Suite also has other programs available at an additional cost of course. Like Illustrator, InDesign, and many others.

Photoshop Alternatives

GIMP

My favorite alternatives to the Photography Plan is GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program.) Similar to Photoshop and very powerful but it lacks some of the features Photoshop users have grown use to like “adjustment layers.” For a Photoshop user this could take some adjustment (pun intended.)

Pixlr

There is a cloud alternative that I like called Pixlr. Pixlr has two versions Pixlr X a simple and less power version and Pixlr E which is super powerful free alternative. It is like a very simplified photoshop.

Lightroom Alternatives

Lightroom is a RAW image editor. It does non-destructive editing of RAW images in the program and then the photo can be exported out to a standard format like JPG.

Darktable

There are several Adobe Lightroom alternative. One of these is DarkTable, but I find it buggy and a bit hard to use.

RawTherapee

My favorite alternative to Lightroom is RawTherapee. It is very similar to Lightroom and isn’t buggy like DarkTable.

Cloud Alternatives

The closes thing that I know of to a Lightroom like web-app is Google Photos. It has the library thing like Lightroom and a primitive editor that reads RAW images, but I think due to the size of RAW images you will probably need to purchase some Google Drive space. Google Photos will automatically save your smart-phone images and those can be edited as well.