Photopea is a powerful online photo editor that lets you easily edit your photos. It is quick, simple to use, and has many features for novices and experts. So, in this Photopea review, we’ll take a closer look at the app’s features, usability, and overall value.
Let’s discover more!
Short Photopea Review
Photopea is a free online photo editor. It’s ideal for people who dabble in image editing, graphic design, photography processing, and even animation. The program is also available in 41 languages.
Photopea started as a passion project in 2012 by Ivan Kutskir, a Czech-based Ukrainian computer programmer. Today Photopea has over 2.4M downloads on Google’s Workspace Marketplace, with positive user feedback and plenty more web users.
Packed with an expansive list of tools and features, it’s an undeniably good photoshop alternative for people who don’t want to commit to a subscription-based service like Adobe Photoshop.
It works with raster and vector graphics. It’s suitable both if you’re an amateur using simple tasks like resizing images and an experienced graphic designer with complex tasks like editing, creating illustrations, and even automating your work process.
Also, it has pre-designed templates ready for use. This helps you easily create social media posts, banners, advertisements, and more.
Moreover, it has an easy-to-navigate and intuitive interface. It supports a wide range of file formats, and can be integrated with third-party platforms like Google Drive and Dropbox due to its application programming interface (API).
Pros
- Free
- No harddisk space requirements
- Intuitive interface
- Easy to use
- Multiple file formats supported
- Numerous tools
- Extensive learning and tutorial library
Cons
- Low cloud storage
- Can be slow
- Limited color channels
- Not as comprehensive as paid programs
Ease of Use
The workspace of Photopea has a Toolbar on the left side, a Top menu at the top, a Sidebar on the right, and a Working area in the middle.
All the available tools are lined up vertically in the Toolbar. The tools that have a little arrow in the bottom-right corner contain a group of related tools within them.
The Top menu is the main one of Photopea, where you can access various options like File, Edit, Image, Layer, etc. The parameter options for the current tool in use are displayed below the Top menu.
The Sidebar contains panels like Brush, Adjustment Layers, History, Paragraph, CSS, Gallery, etc., that can be collapsed and expanded as needed during your work.
The working area is in the middle, and this is where you can work on your designs. Furthermore, above the canvas, there’s a file bar.
Photopea lets you have multiple projects opened simultaneously, which you can switch through by clicking them on this bar.
Features
- Similar interface to photoshop
- Web-based program
- Raw photo editor
- Learning library
- Supports numerous formats
- Automation tools
Similar interface to Photoshop
Photopea has a similar user interface to Adobe Photoshop. It doesn’t try to be different. Its goal is to be accommodating to new and experienced users alike.
This makes the program easy to navigate and an excellent free photoshop alternative. Many new users feel an easy transition from Photoshop due to this.
Web-based program
Photopea is a web-based photo editing app. There’s no need to download and install anything on your device. You don’t have to install Photopea or worry about storage space. All you need is an internet connection.
Even though it doesn’t run from your hard drive, Photopea still runs on your device, like Photoshop. It doesn’t upload your files to the Internet; rather, they never leave your computer.
Therefore, you can just load Photopea.com, disconnect from the Internet, and keep working offline, so you don’t have to worry about your internet speed interrupting your work.
Raw photo editor
Photopea supports “.DNG,” “.NEF,” “CR2,” and “.ARW” raw files and lets you quickly open and edit photos in this format.
Once you import your photo, the ‘Raw Photopea’ editor window pops up. You can see a histogram of color channels and settings for the Temperature, Tint, Exposure, Brightness, and Contrast levers on the right sidebar.
You can use these readily available settings to adjust your photo and open it for further editing or save it as a JPEG.
Learning library
Photopea has an extensive library dedicated to learning how to use the program and helpful tutorials on its many features.
You can find guides on Layers, Layer Editing, Selections, Channels, Brush Tools, Vector Graphics, etc. All of these concepts are explained at a beginner’s level before diving into a further explanation of how to use them.
Numerous formats supported
Photopea lets you open and work with PSD, XCF, Sketch, XD, and CDR formats. This is a huge advantage over Adobe Photoshop, which only supports PSD files.
Photopea opens all your files as PSD files (if they weren’t PSD files previously) and lets you export them as PNG, JPEG, SVG, PDF, and WEBP, among many others.
Automation tools
Photopea offers automation tools that can help you automate your workflow if you work with repetitive tasks. You can use Actions, Scripts, and Variables.
You can record a set of actions that can be applied later. You can write a program code to process a document. You can define a set of variables and pass Photopea a spreadsheet with different values for your variables to create multiple versions of your project.
Pricing
Photopea is free software with all its features and offers 0.5 GB of cloud storage. That being said, the free version also has ads running on the right side of the sidebar.
You can avoid these ads by purchasing a monthly Premium plan. The Premium plan also contains all the functions, with an additional 5 GB of cloud storage, no ads, offers 2x the amount of Undo steps, and quick email support.
Photopea Premium plan pricing
| Single User | Team of 5 | Team of 20 | Team of 50 |
| 30 days: $10 | 30 days: $20 | 30 days: $70 | 30 days: $150 |
| 90 days: $15 | 90 days: $45 | 90 days: $150 | 90 days: $300 |
| 365 days: $50 | 365 days: $150 | 365 days: $500 | 365 days: $999 |
You can purchase a Premium plan for $10 a month for a single user. The Premium plan is also available for teams of 5, 20, and 50. You can purchase a Premium plan for 30, 90, and 365 days.
Photopea Review: User Rating
Photopea has overwhelmingly positive feedback from users. Users are happy with how easy it is to use Photopea and how welcoming it is with its learning library.
The functionality it offers at 0 costs is unmatched. The fact that it’s a web-based photo editor is also a huge advantage for most of its users since they find it convenient that they can use it on practically any device.
You might be interested: How to Image Search on iPhone (2023)
Conclusion
Photopea is an overall excellent photo editing software. It offers basic and advanced tools at no cost, making it one of the best free Photoshop alternatives.
The similar layout to Photoshop’s interface makes it easy to use and a must-try for everyone interested in image editing.
It’s ideal for marketers since it offers quick edits and readily-available promo designs for social media posts, ads, banners, etc. It’s also good for professional photographers since they can easily process photographs with Photopea’s Raw editor.
We hope this Photopea review was helpful to you!
