Happy, Happy Birthday!

Adobe’s world most popular and powerful graphics editing software Photoshop is celebrating its 20 Anniversary! Anytime someone pronounces raster graphics, photo retouching or manipulation, the first thing that comes to our mind is of course Adobe Photoshop. The software each self-respecting web designer should know how to work with is… well you know it!

Photoshop is said to be the world’s top raster editing software without any worthy competitors. But no one knows what might happen in future. Software development is in a great rush and maybe one day the era of Photoshop would be shadowed by any other a graphics editing program.

Here is a small list of the software that might change the future of the digital world of art:

1.CinePaint

CinePaint is an open source computer program for painting and retouching bitmap frames of films. Features that set CinePaint apart from its photo-editing predecessor include the frame manager, onion skinning, and the ability to work with 16-bit and floating point pixels for high dynamic range imaging (HDR).

2.GIMP

GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool. GIMP can also be used to create basic animated images in the GIF format. At present GIMP is entirely suitable for amateur or professional work with images intended for viewing on monitors and printing on inkjet printers.

3. Pixel

Pixel is a RGB, CMYK and HDR image editing, photo retouching and manipulating program available for many operating systems formerly known as Pixel32. It is available for Windows, Linux, Linspire, MacOSX, BeOS, Zeta, QNX, MorphOS, FreeBSD, eComStation, OS/2, SkyOS and even old plain DOS, for both x86 and PowerPC architectures. Pixel is rumored to be Photoshop’s analogue for Linux.

4.Pixia

Pixia is a freeware bitmap graphics editor program for Windows. It was originally designed for the anime/manga community but has also been used in other branches of art. The program supports multiple layers, transparency effects, standard file formats and a number of RGB file formats including .PSD.

5. PhotoPlus

PhotoPlus is the amazing photo editing software from Serif that allows you to enhance your photos and images, create stunning bitmap graphics and even web animations. With PhotoPlus you can easily edit images, enhance colour balance, adjust brightness and contrast and make many more changes and adjustments to achieve fantastic results.

6. Paint.NET

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

7. PhotoFiltre

PhotoFiltre is a complete image retouching program. It allows you to do simple or advanced adjustments to an image and apply a vast range of filters on it. It is simple and intuitive to use, and has an easy learning curve.

Online sources:

6. Splashup

Splashup, formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. With the features professionals use and novices want, it's easy to use, works in real-time and allows you to edit many images at once. Splashup runs in all browsers, integrates seamlessly with top photo-sharing sites, and even has its own file format so you can save your work in progress.

Aviary

Aviary is a great online service that has set of various editing tools. With the help of Aviary you can use image and color editor, apply different effects, image markups and make screen captures. Aviary is a really multifunctional and absolutely free online graphic editor that runs in all browsers.

Pixlr

Pixlr is an online photo editing tool. Fast, simple and enough features to make this a great find for photo editing. You can create a new image, upload an image, or grab one directly from a URL location. And it has great add-on for Mozilla Firefox that really simplifies process of online photo editing.

Sketchpad

Sketchpad is an online painting app that doesn't require Flash, or any other plug-in—just a modern browser. You can paint any color in any shade or opacity, take on patterns, and use all the tools you're likely familiar with from Microsoft's older versions of that old Paint standby.

FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer is a convenient, fast, online editor. Users can register accounts to store their edited images on the site, and they can also pull photos in from Flickr, Facebook, and other networks. This editor has equivalents of curves, pen selection, layers, filters and many more useful functions.

Flaunt

Flaunt is a free online photo editor with photo editing features similar to photoshop. Store and share your photos online, create slideshows and print digitally online.

SumoPaint

SumoPaint  is a web-browser based online image editor and drawing application. This graphic editor has strong community and great sharing features for registered users.

Myoats

Myoats is a place where you can create simple or complex designs, shapes and patterns. The designs that you create can be: downloaded as an image, downloaded as a transparent png, saved to your personal account, which allows for editing and re-saving, made into wallpaper.

Well, even though these programs lack a great number of possibilities Photoshop is eager to offer, they are becoming extremely popular what encourages developers to improve their software.