Not everyone can afford Photoshop
If you have a decent job, paying about 12 dollars per month for Photoshop (and Lightroom) is okay in most cases. But if you only get a minimum wage or are a student, most likely you can not afford the subscription for Photoshop (short PS).
That is also the case for the kids in the shelter where I am teaching Blender and Photoshop for many years now. So I had to find an alternative for them, and while using free apps like GIMP or Krita is fine for personal projects, you don’t learn how Photoshop works. Some of the kids want to go into the industry and need that knowledge.
Photopea is a great alternative!
The free online app photopea.com is a great alternative, because it almost looks and works like Photoshop. There are some things it doesn’t have compared to Photoshop, but it even offers smart objects which are important in the workflow nowadays.
So, Photopea offers enough to learn a lot of things you might need when you start doing compositions or paint overs for 3D renders, photo retouching, and other stuff. With the knowledge you gain from learning Photopea you will have no problems to switch to PS later.
These days you can download Photopea as an app, so you don’t have to open the browser. You still need an active internet connection, and you still have the ads on the right side of the window, but hey! You can either live with that small area you lose by the ads, or get an ads-free account (price differs, it is 10 bucks for 3 months atm, or 40$ for a whole year for a single user; team accounts are cheaper).
The courses on this topic are mostly done in PS, but in general you can follow along with Photopea. I will mention if you can’t do a step with Photopea and of course I offer alternative methods if possible.
