When I bought my Chromebook and still didn't know anything about Chrome Os, my first question was how can I get Photoshop on this machine. Thankfully in our days, there are lots of alternatives for Photoshop users or for digital artists that you can find on Chromebooks. In this blog, I will cover a few that I personally used.
Let's get into it.
1. GIMP
As you probably already know by now, Chromebook starts supporting Linux apps. This is opening a new door to lots of new things for Chrome Os users and one of that is the GIMP app. What I like about GIMP is that it's free, but provides lots of tools for artists to create their art. For some Chromebook, GIMP can be a heavy app. To install GIMP, first, you need to activate Linux from your Chromebook settings and then write these commands
Sudo apt update
Sudo apt install gimp
Let me know in the comments section if you want a tutorial on how to activate Linux on Chromebook.
Also, I want to mention that if you don't want to activate Linux, then there is actually an option for the play store too, it's just paid version.
2. Krita
If you want to avoid installing Linux on your Chromebook then Krita is next to go. You can simply download it from the play store. Krita is an open-source graphic editor digital art and 2D animation software. It supports Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and ChromeOS. Krita has lots of similarities with Photoshop. This app has color management support, an advanced brush engine, non-destructive layers and masks, group-based layer management, vector artwork support, and switchable customization profiles. I personally use Krita and really like this, but lots of people complain that it can be slow, but I guess that really depends on the Chromebook model.
3. Photopea
This is probably the most accessible and best free alternative to photoshop I think. Photopea is browser-based and it was actually made with the idea to be a free version of photoshop. It is used for image editing, making illustrations, web design, or converting between different image formats. Photopea is advertising-supported software. It is compatible with all modern web browsers, including Opera, Edge, Chrome, and Firefox. The app is compatible with raster and vector graphics, such as Photoshop’s PSD as well as JPEG, PNG, DNG, GIF, SVG, PDF, and other image file formats. While browser-based, Photopea stores all files locally, and does not upload any data to a server. If you have a Chromebook that is not strong, this is the best way to go, as it's fully cloud base and free.
Thank you for reading this post, let me know if you know any other good apps that I didn't mention here.
