PhotoCraft vs Photoshop

PhotoCraft vs Photoshop at a glance

The Photoshop column states only general, widely known facts. For Adobe’s current prices and features, check Adobe’s own site.

What PhotoCraft matches

• The layout. Menus, shortcuts, panels and tools sit where Photoshop users expect. The project’s line is: if you know Photoshop, you already know PhotoCraft.
• Layers and masks. Layer masks, vector masks, clipping, smart objects with editable filters, and 16 adjustment layers.
• Layer styles. The full familiar set from Drop Shadow to Pattern Overlay, read from your PSDs and, in the project’s words, rendered to match Photoshop.
• Tools. 67 tools are listed, among them Healing Brush, Patch, Content-Aware Move, Clone Stamp, Mixer Brush, Pen tools, Quick Selection and Object Selection.
• Filters. Gaussian, Lens and Smart blur, the Blur Gallery, sharpening, Reduce Noise, distortions, Oil Paint, Lighting Effects and more, each with a live preview on the canvas.
• Type. Point and paragraph text with Character and Paragraph controls. Type layers stay editable and survive a PSD round trip.

How good is the PSD support?

This is the part most people care about, and the project publishes numbers:

• Opening and re-saving a document renders the same for 307 of the 309 files in the psd-tools test set, and 169 of 170 in a second mixed set.
• 116 of 116 shape layers in its PSD test files match Photoshop’s pixels.
• Data PhotoCraft does not model yet, such as raw blocks and descriptors, is carried over instead of being dropped.
• A re-saved file is not byte-identical to its source, because PhotoCraft rewrites image resources, layer records and the composite.

Those are the project’s own test results, not an independent audit. Complex files with unusual effects are where differences are most likely, so open a copy and compare before trusting it with client work.

Where PhotoCraft differs

• It is new. The first release was on October 2, 2026. Versions arrive every one to three days and each fixes dozens of bugs, which tells you both how fast it moves and how much is still being fixed.
• No plugin ecosystem to speak of yet. The official documentation does not describe support for Photoshop plugins.
• Generative AI. The feature list does not mention generative fill or text-to-image inside PhotoCraft.
• RAW coverage is partial. DNG, CR2, ARW, RW2 and uncompressed ORF decode. Nikon’s compressed NEF opens its embedded preview for now.
• Built for automation. This is a point in PhotoCraft’s favour: every action is a command, so a script or an AI agent can do anything you can click.

Who should try PhotoCraft now

• Linux users who want a Photoshop-style editor with real PSD support.
• People who edit occasionally and do not want a subscription.
• Developers and teams who want to batch-process or script image edits.
• Anyone curious, since it is free and has a portable build that needs no installation.

Who should wait

• Studios whose work depends on specific Photoshop plugins or generative features.
• Anyone who cannot afford a surprise in a deadline file. Keep Photoshop for that until PhotoCraft has more history behind it.

What about GIMP and Photopea?

The PhotoCraft project does not publish a comparison with other editors, and this site has not benchmarked them, so there is no fair table to offer. The practical difference in approach is that PhotoCraft sets out to mirror Photoshop’s interface and file format directly. If you already use and like another free editor, the reason to look at PhotoCraft is PSD fidelity and the familiar layout.

PhotoCraft vs Photoshop questions

Ready to try it? See the PhotoCraft download page, or read Is PhotoCraft safe? first.