We are going to explain to you what Photopea is and how it works. Photopea is a web application that presents itself as a complete and powerful online alternative for Photoshop. It is not a popular website despite having been launched in 2013, and its greatest asset is that it is designed for users who are used to using Photoshop.
Let’s start by talking a bit about the project, where it comes from, how it works internally, and how it can be made available for free so that you can get to know it well. And then, we will talk about how it works and its main features of use. The official website of this product is Photopea.com, it is not superfluous to say so from the beginning because we have detected that other impersonators use similar names.
What is Photopea?
Photopea is an online image editor created in 2013 by independent developer Ivan Kuckir. The idea came up in 2012, as explained in his blog when the developer had the idea to create a photo editor. He wanted to do it online to practice as a developer. After five months of work, the first version was ready.
The decision to do it online had to do with two points. The first one is that Photoshop, the most professional and used editor, was too expensive. And the second is that most of the big editors are installable applications, which means that many cannot be used on minority operating systems and that even for a quick edition you will have to find, download and install them, which already takes some time.
Photopea is a professional-oriented editor, an alternative to Photoshop and GIMP. It has features such as working with layers and masks, blending modes to combine layers, selections, and adjustments such as hue, saturation, blurs, or shyness. It offers everything Photoshop offer, along with the rest of the basic options.
This web application is designed for those who are used to using Photoshop. Some applications like GIMP are good alternatives, although they require relearning new keyboard shortcuts and ways of doing things. Photopea has the same keyboard shortcuts as Photoshop so that the workflow is not altered, and tries to be fully compatible with all its files and its way of working.
It is a free web application with advertising, which is the method with which it tries to monetize the project. It also offers paid accounts for working in teams with different people, as well as the possibility of making a copy for your website or an internal server.
Finally, Photopea supports .psd, .xd, .sketch, .xcf, RAW, and compressed formats such as JPG, PNG, and others. It also supports Photoshop PSD templates and offers an interface very similar to that of the Adobe application.
How Photopea works
The first thing you should know is that if you have ever used Photoshop, you will feel at home. Photopea’s interface is practically the same. The toolbar is on the right, and the panel with layer options and other features is on the left. You will also be able to customize the left column, although this will have to be done with every new project.
When you open the application, you will be able to open images from your computer or create a new project, an option that will allow you to create images from templates. Here is an interesting point, and is that there are templates with sizes adapted to social networks, with the measures of Facebook or Instagram for their different photos. Therefore, this can help you a lot when creating images for them.
The interface of this web application is adapted to be used without problems. For example, you can right-click on the elements in the options bar to display the sub-options. Besides, other external actions are disabled both by right-clicking and resizing the web.
In this program, you will also be able to add and manipulate image layers like in Photoshop, creating multi-layered graphics to your liking. Also, you have all the advanced options to modify the image and enhance it in the Image tab. You will also be able to adjust the contrast, tone, or color of a photo with automatisms in this tab.
As we have said, Photopea has an extensive catalog of keyboard shortcuts inherited from Photoshop, as well as a theme system to change the color of it looks. All in all, it’s perfect if you’re looking for an alternative to Photoshop that works in almost every browser and is free, and if your browser supports it, you can even install it as a web app.
Finally, we would like to say that the tool also has its filter section so that you can manipulate the image in a short time, and that you can synchronize it with Google Drive through an official extension for the Google cloud. This way, you can use that space to save your projects.
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