PhotoCraft: the free, open-source Photoshop alternative
PhotoCraft is a free, open-source image editor that works like Photoshop and opens real PSD files. It was first released on October 2, 2026 and has passed 55,000 stars on GitHub in under two weeks. This unofficial PhotoCraft wiki explains what it is, how it compares, whether it is safe and where to get it.
Latest PhotoCraft version: 0.8.2, released October 12, 2026.
Get PhotoCraft from the official page Which file do I need?
The button opens the official ArtCraft website. This site does not host installers.
What is PhotoCraft?
PhotoCraft is an image editor written entirely in Rust by the ArtCraft team. The project calls it a clean-room reimplementation of Adobe Photoshop: it was built from public specifications and observed behaviour, with no proprietary code, shaders or assets. The menus, shortcuts, panels and tools are laid out where a Photoshop user expects them.
It is a native app, not a web page in a wrapper. The canvas is drawn by a GPU compositor that uses Metal, Vulkan, DirectX 12 or WebGPU, and the same engine also compiles to WebAssembly so it can run in a browser.
PhotoCraft at a glance
What PhotoCraft can do
- Non-destructive editing. Sixteen adjustment layers, including Curves with per-channel editing, Levels with a live histogram, Black & White, Channel Mixer, Gradient Map, Selective Color and Color Lookup with .cube, .3dl and .look files.
- Layer styles. Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer and Inner Glow, Bevel & Emboss, Satin, Stroke and Color, Gradient and Pattern Overlay, live on any layer including type.
- Selections. Marquees, lassos and the Magic Wand, plus Quick Selection, Object Selection, Select Subject and Select and Mask. The project says smart selection runs locally.
- Type and vectors. Point and paragraph text edited on the canvas, shape tools, and the Pen, Freeform Pen and Curvature Pen with shape layers and vector masks.
- Filters with live preview. Blurs including the Blur Gallery, sharpening, noise reduction, distortions, Pixelate, Stylize and Render filters. Filters on a smart object stay editable.
- Camera RAW. Since 0.2.0 it decodes DNG, Canon CR2, Sony ARW, Panasonic RW2 and uncompressed Olympus ORF. Nikon’s compressed NEF opens its embedded preview for now.
- Automation. Every menu item and tool runs a command from one registry of more than 500 commands, reachable from the app, a command-line tool, a JSON control channel and an MCP server for AI agents.
Where to download PhotoCraft
The project’s own advice is simple: if you are new, download it from the PhotoCraft page on getartcraft.com. Every build for every system is also attached to the latest GitHub release.
PhotoCraft Wiki is unofficial and hosts no files. The PhotoCraft download page lists each file by name and size so you can pick the right one and recognise a fake.
Recent PhotoCraft versions
| Version | Released | Headline changes |
|---|---|---|
| 0.8.2 | October 12, 2026 | Shared panel docking, camera data from EXIF and XMP in File Info, brush strokes that no longer freeze on release, faster GPU compositing for property edits |
| 0.7.0 | October 11, 2026 | Mask thumbnails that update after whole-mask edits, Smudge that follows the brush spacing setting, more Russian translation, MCP server setup from an installed release |
| 0.6.0 | October 10, 2026 | Motion Blur 6 to 70 times faster, PSD mask and export fixes, Delete and Fill Selection on the selection tools’ right-click menu |
| 0.5.0 | October 8, 2026 | Rendering modes with CPU fallback recovery, a pipette in the Color Picker, type recolouring from the Color panel and Swatches, easier Free Transform handles |
| 0.3.0 | October 7, 2026 | Crash-safe document recovery, interface in Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Russian and Czech, TGA export, Free Transform a Copy |
| 0.2.0 | October 5, 2026 | Camera RAW decoding for DNG, Canon CR2, Sony ARW, Panasonic RW2 and Olympus ORF, plus locked-down file access for automation clients |
More detail is in the PhotoCraft changelog.
Known limits
PhotoCraft is less than two weeks old. The project is open about gaps: two of the 309 PSD test files do not survive a round trip unchanged, Nikon’s compressed NEF is not decoded yet, and on a Wayland session files dropped on the window do not open. Treat it as promising early software, and keep a copy of any file you open in it.
PhotoCraft questions
What is PhotoCraft?
PhotoCraft is a free, open-source image editor from the ArtCraft team. The project describes it as a clean-room reimplementation of Adobe Photoshop, written from scratch in Rust. It has layers, masks, adjustment layers, layer styles, type, vectors and brushes, and it opens and saves real PSD files.
Is PhotoCraft free?
Yes. PhotoCraft is open source under the MIT or Apache-2.0 licence, at your choice, and there is no subscription or account.
Is PhotoCraft made by Adobe?
No. PhotoCraft is an independent project by the ArtCraft team and its contributors. The project states that it is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Adobe.
Which systems does PhotoCraft run on?
Windows (64-bit Intel/AMD, ARM64 and 32-bit), macOS (one universal build for Apple silicon and Intel), Linux (x86_64 and ARM64, plus a RISC-V build), FreeBSD 14 and the web through WebAssembly.
Can PhotoCraft open PSD files?
Yes. It opens, edits and saves layered Photoshop documents. The project reports that re-saving keeps the rendered result for 307 of the 309 files in the psd-tools test set. A re-saved file is not byte-identical to the original.
Does PhotoCraft work offline?
Yes. It is a native desktop app, and the project says its smart selection tools run on your machine with no cloud and no account.
Is PhotoCraft finished?
No. It is at version 0.8.2 and was first released on October 2, 2026. New versions have been coming out every one to three days, so expect rough edges and check that your own files work before relying on it.
For help with the app itself, the ArtCraft team points users to its Discord.