Is there a free Photoshop alternative?

Yes, and the new one I'm watching is PhotoCraft, a free, open-source rebuild of Photoshop from the ArtCraft team. Its GitHub page calls it a clean-room reimplementation written in Rust, which means they built it from public specs and from how Photoshop behaves, not from Adobe's code. It does layers, masks, adjustment layers, layer styles, type, brushes and real PSD files, it runs on Mac, Windows, Linux and in a browser, and it costs nothing.

Now, I'd go in with my eyes open, because the same page says it's early alpha and not a Photoshop replacement for daily professional work yet. HEIC files open read-only, a re-saved PSD isn't byte for byte the same as the original, and when we tried the relight filter it blew our picture out. So I'd start with simple stuff like covers, thumbnails and quick fixes, and keep your originals backed up. The part I like is that it ships a command-line tool and an MCP server, so Claude Code can drive it for you. My guide to installing PhotoCraft and connecting it to Claude Code walks through the safe download and the whole setup.