24 Best Corel PaintShop Pro Competitors, Features and Reviews

Corel PaintShop Pro has established itself as a popular choice among professionals and enthusiasts alike in the realm of image editing. However, it faces stiff competition from a range of other software solutions that offer similar capabilities and unique features. The top Corel PaintShop Pro competitors include Affinity Photo, InPixio, Inkscape, Photopea, Fotor, GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, Pixlr, Krita, Wondershare and Photoscape X.

What is Corel PaintShop Pro?

PaintShop Pro is a complete photo-editing studio with customizable graphic design toolset to edit, enhance, correct and turn images into engaging animations. It is a raster and vector graphics editor for MS Windows 7 and above that make use of AI for faster and easier photo editing and customization.

You can record scripts and add them as toolbar buttons. A former Jasc software Corel PaintShop Pro is now managed by Corel, who has been in the industry for a while now. It is commercial but cheap with a short learning curve.

Create designs using tools like brushes, texts, layers, gradients, crop, erase background, clone, straighten, retouch, remove red-eye and more. As a subscription-free service, Corel PaintShop Pro is a good Photoshop substitute for those who are averse to monthly subscriptions. There is a 30-day free trial.

Features of Corel PaintShop Pro

Photo editing tools
RAW image editing
HDR image merging
Batch processing
Selection tools
Layers and masks
Clone brush
Retouching tools
Object removal

Vector editing
Gradient fills
Adjustment layers
Image restoration
Scripting support
Scripting engine
Color correction
Image resizing
Noise reduction
Plugin support
Text tools

Pricing:

Paid. $79.99.

Corel PaintShop Pro Competitors and Alternatives

Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is a proprietary software released by Serif for Windows, iOS, iPadOS and macOS. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for editing and retouching photographs, as well as creating illustrations and graphic designs. Users have the ability to perform 3D image creation, image rendering, adding layer controls, masking, advanced RAW processing, HDR merging, Panorama stitching and digital painting.

Affinity Photo allows users to make precise adjustments to their images, such as…

Pricing:

Paid. $69.99.

InPixio Photo Studio

InPixio Photo Studio is a photo editing solution that helps you crop, edit, straighten and add special effects to digital images. The one-click editor helps professionals to adjust brightness of photos, replace sky, remove backgrounds and red-eye effects, easily combine photos, stickers and text as well as repair and restore old photographs via a unified platform using photo-montage AI technology tools.

There are two versions of InPixio—Standard and Pro. The pro version gives you more features and is worth the upgrade.

Pricing:

Paid. $49.99-$99.99/year.

Inkscape

Inkscape is another awesome open-source vector graphics editor app which is a competitor to GIMP. It is one of the best for vector-based image editing, with PDF import and export ability. Inkscape is free, open-source and with a tons of features to create professional artwork. It is easy to use, works on Linux and supports many advanced SVG features like markers, clones, node editing, alpha blending trace bitmaps and more.

Pricing:

Free. Open-source.

Krita

Krita is a free digital painting tool, with a wide range of features that make creating stunning artwork a breeze. With its intuitive interface, powerful brushes, and comprehensive layer system, Krita is the perfect choice for anyone looking to unleash their creativity. From drawing and painting to photo-editing and animation, Krita has you covered. Whether you’re a professional artist or just starting out, Krita is the perfect tool for unleashing your creativity in style!

Pricing:

Free. Open-source.

Photopea

Photopea is a free online photo editor that offers many of the same features as Corel Paintshop, including layer styles, masks, and filters. Its user-friendly interface and compatibility with PSD files make it an excellent choice for those who need a quick and easy way to edit their photos.This great full blown web-based image editor has the tools for most advanced image editing for free unlike its competitors.

Pricing:

Free. Proprietary.

Fotor Photo Editor

Fotor’s free online photo editor lets you edit photos in just a few clicks. It covers various free online photo editing tools, so you can crop images, resize images, add text to photos, make photo collages,enhance photos, retouch portraits, remove backgrounds, apply effects and create graphic designs with ease.

Apart from the online photo editor, Fotor has photo editor app versions for iOS and Android as well as programs for Windows and Mac. A cool…

Pricing:

Freemium. $8.99-$19.99/mo.

GIMP

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), is a powerful and free raster graphics editor used by photographers, graphic designers, illustrators and other creative professionals. It is a great alternative to commercial image editing software with a wide range of features and tools that allow you to manipulate and transform images, create digital artwork, graphics, logos and much more.

You can manipulate, crop and resize images,as well as create layers, adjust colors, and apply any number of special effects. Plus, because it…

Pricing:

Free. Open-source.

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop by Adobe Inc. is a raster graphics editor and one of the greatest Corel Paintshop Pro competitors. It is the go-to tool for digital creatives around the world with comprehensive set of tools for transforming your photos and images into stunning works of art. From subtle touch-ups to dramatic transformations, you can do it all with Photoshop.Whether you’re a professional or an amateur, Photoshop has something for everyone.

Create gorgeous images, rich graphics and incredible art by blending and mashing…

Pricing:

Paid. $24.14/mo.

Photoscape X

Photoscape X is one of the best free and most professional photo-editing application. Among the features offered by Photoscape X include batch editing, resizing, brightness and color adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, renaming, lossless cropping, filters, red eye removal, blooming, create GIFs, splitter, color picker, raw converter and more.

Photoscape X makes enhancing and editing images and photos editing…

Pricing:

Free. Proprietary.

ACDSee Photo Studio

ACDSee Photo Studio is an all-in-one solution for anyone who takes and edits a lot of photos, and wants to keep them organized. Easier to set up and use, the software has tools for easily retouching faces, photo-merging, panorama stitching, background removal, replacing the sky and shape selection.

ACDSee Photo Studio consists of modes to help you manage, search, view, develop and edit your files such as layered editing, non-destructive RAW photo editing together with superior file…

Pricing:

Paid. $8.9/mo.

Adobe Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is one of the best Corel Paintshop Pro competitors developed by Adobe Inc. It is a cloud-based software with an assortment of features such as color,brightness, contrast and level adjustments, filters, improving tone, reducing noise and level adjustments. It is used on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and web based platforms. Plans start at $9.99 per month.

Pricing:

Paid. $9.99/mo.

Pixlr

Pixlr is a powerful photo editing tool that will make you look like a pro in no time! With its array of features, you can easily enhance and touch up your photos to make them look stunning. From basic editing tools like cropping, resizing, and adjusting colors to more advanced features like layers, masks, and brushes, Pixlr provides everything you need to create professional-level photos. Unleash your creative potential and make your photos look the way you want them to be!

Pricing:

Paid. $7.99/mo.

Canva

Canva is again another free image editing software offering similar services like Corel PaintShop Pro. It is the perfect tool for beginners to unleash their inner artist. With its easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, you can create stunning graphics, logos, posters, videos, and more in just a few clicks. Whether you’re a budding designer or an experienced pro, Canva has all the features and tools you need to create beautiful designs that stand out from the crowd. From its AI-powered Magic Write feature to its clever app development platform, Canva is the ultimate all-in-one tool for anyone looking to level up their creative game.

Pricing:

Freemium. $12.99/mo.

Pixelmator

Pixelmator is a great macOS and iOS graphics editor that allows you to perfect your images. Pixalmator has ample editing tools for color selection, photo retouching, background removal, repair and cloning, masking and cropping and image upscaling. Pixelmator Pro costs $49.99 with a 7-day free trial.

Pricing:

Paid. $49.99.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe Photoshop Express (PsX) by Adobe Inc. is a free photo editing software, which allows users to enhance, crop, share, and print pictures. Along with this, it provides access to numerous features like applying presets filters, removing red-eye, reducing noise, and adding borders. Adobe Photoshop Express is free to download on the Apple App Store, Google Play, or the Windows Store.

Pricing:

Free. Proprietary.

Darktable

Darktable is a Linux-based 16-bit-per-color, non-destructive photo editing competitor to Corel PaintShop Pro which is also very similar to Adobe Lightroom. Use Darktable for adding filters, photo touch-up, color correction, support for scripting. Darktable is literally a great open-source alternative to Adobe Lightroom, great for processing quality, tons of options, and modern, easy to use interface.

Pricing:

Free. Proprietary.

Lightzone

Lightzone is free, open-source a digital photo editor for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X used for non-destructive editing of images in various RAW and JPEG formats. You can use it to create and apply predetermined image transformations called ‘styles’ to an entire batch of images in a single operation. LightZone is a free, open-source digital photo editor software application and can be downloaded free of charge .

Pricing:

Free. Proprietary.

RawTherapee

RawTherapee is an impressive, free RAW image converter and digital photo processing software similar to GIMP, darktable and Lightzone. Use RawTherapee to process photos in conjunction with hugin and digikam as well as non-destructive editing. The interface is clean and comprehensible, especially for professionals in photo editing.

Pricing:

Free. Proprietary.

PicMonkey

PicMonkey allows you to create quick, easy, and beautiful graphics online. You can create images using great effects, graphics, templates, texture tools to create logos and icons and more, with the flexibility of saving them to the cloud to re-edit later. But when you want to download or share an image, you’ll need to subscribe.The PicMonkey mobile app is free, but PicMonkey subscribers get access to premium features like touch up and integrated cloud image storage, with the ability to edit on the desktop, and finish on mobile, or vice versa.

Pricing:

Paid. $7.99/mo.

Polarr

Polarr is a photo-editing app and online editor that lets you create unique visual aesthetics using photo and video filters such as color and lighting adjustments, gradient and luminance masks, custom overlays, and segmentation of identifiable objects. Create and search for trendy filters with the Polarr QR code used by creators to distribute filters to their friends.

Polarr includes creator’s social handle, a visual preview of the effect, and a scannable code for users to acquire the filter. You can download…

Pricing:

Paid. $2.49-$3.99/mo.

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is another freeware raster graphics editor developed by dotPDN LLC. It is currently supported by computers running Microsoft Windows 10 or later. Some of its features include layers support, adding special effects and availability of plugins to add new effects and the ability to handle new file types. You can download Paint.NET for free on their website though it may cost you a small fee on the Microsoft Store, charged as a way to support development. Those who download from the developer’s website are asked (but not required) to make a donation.

Pricing:

Free. Proprietary.

FX Photo Studio Pro

FX Photo Studio Pro is an image editing software for Mac OS X 10.6 or later that allows users to apply filters, effects, and textures to their photos. Dubbed as the creative powerhouse for digital artists of all skill levels, you get more high quality photo filters and photo effects than in any similar photography software. FX Photo Studio costs $39.99 and a $9.99 standard version. A $0.99 iPhone version is also available.

Easily turn your photo into a vintage masterpiece, pencil sketch, futuristic 3-D shot, oil or…

Pricing:

Paid.$9.99/mo.

Photo Pos Pro

Photo Pos Pro is a powerful, free photo editor tool to turn you digital photos into stunning artworks, easily create, edit, enhance, manipulate and print your digital photos and eye-catching graphics. The photo editor provides you complete solution to enhance your images and photos for free.

A web-based editor is available as well as apps for Windows and iOS. Professional features include filters, layers, masks,…

Pricing:

Free. Proprietary.

Snapseed

Snapseed is a photo-editing application by Google for iOS and Android that enables users to enhance photos and apply digital filters to photos including those in JPG and RAW formats. Explore Snapseed’s incredible editing features and tools such as non-destructive editing,Image tuning, cropping, rotate, perspective, white balance, filters, vignette, lens blur, glamour glow, tonal contrast, HDR Scape and more

Pricing:

Free. Proprietary.

DxO PhotoLab

DxO PhotoLab is a powerful photo editing software that specializes in correcting lens distortion, optical corrections, enhancing image quality, DeepPRIME denoising technology, creative tools, great local adjustments and powerful digital asset management. Its advanced features like Prime noise reduction and ClearView haze removal make it a popular choice for landscape and architectural photographers. DxO PhotoLab is your complete, end-to-end, RAW photo editing and workflow software solution for proficient photographers built for quality and utility. Get it for a one time fee of $219 on their website.

Pricing:

Paid. $219.