Adjustment layers
16 live adjustments: per-channel Curves, Levels with a live histogram, Vibrance, Hue/Saturation, Gradient Map and more. Your pixels never change.
PhotoCraft is a native photo editor written in Rust and accelerated by the GPU. Layers, masks, adjustment layers and real PSD files — with the menus and shortcuts you already know. Free forever. No account. No cloud.
70+
filters & effects
3.4M
downloads
500+
scriptable commands
307/309
PSD round-trips
A complete editor, not a demo. Every tool you use daily, rewritten in Rust and accelerated on the GPU.
16 live adjustments: per-channel Curves, Levels with a live histogram, Vibrance, Hue/Saturation, Gradient Map and more. Your pixels never change.
Drop Shadow, Inner Glow, Bevel & Emboss, Stroke, Gradient Overlay — live on any layer, including type, and matched to Photoshop in PSD files.
Marquees, lassos and the Magic Wand for precision; Quick Selection, Object Selection and Select Subject when you want the computer to trace.
70+ filters with on-canvas previews: Gaussian, Lens Blur, Smart Sharpen, Twirl, Oil Paint and many more. Run them as smart filters and keep editing.
Point and paragraph text edited right on the canvas, with full Character & Paragraph controls. Type layers stay editable and round-trip through PSD.
Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Line and the Pen tool with resolution-independent shape layers. 116 of 116 shape layers match Photoshop pixel for pixel.
Adjustment layers sit on top of your pixels instead of rewriting them. Toggle, reorder, mask or delete them at any time — the original is always one click away.
Drag the handle to compare
From layered PSDs to OpenEXR and LUTs — no intermediate conversions, no lost layers, no lost color data.
An honest look: PhotoCraft is young, but already free, open source, native and shaped like Photoshop.
| Feature | PhotoCraft | Photoshop | GIMP | Photopea |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Subscription | Free | Free with ads |
| Open source | Yes | No | Yes (GPL) | No |
| Photoshop menus & shortcuts | Yes | Yes | Different | Yes |
| Layered PSD open & save | Yes · 307/309 | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| Native app, not a browser tab | Yes · Rust + GPU | Yes | Yes | Browser |
| Works offline, no account | Yes | Adobe ID required | Yes | Online app |
| CLI & MCP for AI agents | Built in | Scripting | Script-Fu | Limited |
Based on public documentation as of November 2026. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
Yes. The source is MIT / Apache-2.0. No subscription, no trial, no watermark, no ads — and commercial use is allowed.
For most everyday work — layers, masks, adjustment layers, layer styles, typography and PSD handoff — it can. This is still an early alpha, so generative AI and some advanced features are missing.
Yes. PhotoCraft reads and writes layered PSD/PSB, including 16/32-bit, CMYK and Lab. 307 of 309 files in the psd-tools test set render identically after saving; unsupported data is preserved rather than dropped.
Windows (x64, ARM64), universal macOS for Apple Silicon and Intel, Linux (AppImage, deb, rpm, Flatpak), FreeBSD, and any modern browser through the WebAssembly build.
No. Everything runs locally, including Select Subject. No sign-in, no image uploads, no telemetry. Private photos stay private.
Yes. 500+ commands shared across the UI, CLI, JSON channel and MCP server. Run headless, batch a whole folder, or let Claude or Cursor drive it directly.
Use the download button on this page. Pick the package for your platform and verify its SHA-256 checksum before installing; the macOS build is signed and notarized.
Download PhotoCraft, open your first PSD and put the subscription money toward something else.