53 tools
Marquee, Lasso, Magic Wand, Object Selection, Crop, Brush, Clone Stamp, Healing, Pen, Type, Shapes, Gradient, and more — the everyday Photoshop toolset.
Photoshop Alternatives
PhotoCraft Software
PhotoCraft is an open-source Photoshop alternative—familiar layers, masks, brushes, and native PSD support, built from scratch in Rust for desktop and the browser. Free, offline, and yours.
- 9.4k+ GitHub stars
- 34 Tools
- 500+ Commands
9.4k+
GitHub Stars
34
Tools
16
Adjustment Layers
27
Blend Modes
Runs natively on every platform, automatable by any agent
Toolkit
PhotoCraft Tools
Familiar tools, a real brush engine, proper layers, serious colour, and the formats you already use.
A real brush engine
Pressure, tilt, and rotation drive Shape Dynamics, Scattering, Texture, Dual Brush, and Wet Edges. Presets, Define Brush, and replayable strokes.
Layers, done properly
Groups, clipping and vector masks, fill and adjustment layers, smart objects, 27 blend modes, locks, labels, merge, flatten, and Paste Into.
Any colour, any depth
RGB, Grayscale, CMYK, and Lab at 8 / 16 / 32-bit. Native ICC management, soft proofing (⌘Y), and Gamut Warning (⇧⌘Y) on the GPU.
Formats
PSD, PSB, layered TIFF, SVG, PNG, JPEG, WebP, OpenEXR, HDR, Affinity (read-only), and native .pcraft — with depth preserved where the format allows.
The everyday essentials
Auto Tone and Color, Image Size, Fill and Stroke, Copy Merged, guides and snapping, Actions, and a command palette (⌘F).
Get started
Get Started with PhotoCraft
From a fresh clone to a saved, layered document.
- 1
Clone and build
git clone the PhotoCraft repo and run cargo run --release -p photocraft to build the native desktop app, or compile the entire engine to WebAssembly for the browser.
- 2
Edit with familiar tools
Menus, shortcuts, panels, and tools sit right where you expect them. Includes layers, masks, adjustment layers, layer styles, typography, vectors, and a full brush engine.
- 3
Save and automate anywhere
Open, edit, and save layered PSD and PSB files, then control the engine via the UI, the CLI, a JSON channel, or an MCP server.
Features
PhotoCraft: a serious editor, not a demo
PhotoCraft's engine, tools, and file formats are all built from public specifications.
Familiar by design
Menus, shortcuts, and panels sit right where you expect them, from ⌘J to ⇧⌘D.
Native and fast
Powered by a GPU compositor on wgpu (Metal, Vulkan, DX12, WebGPU), copy-on-write tiles, and multithreaded filters. No Electron, no web view.
Real PSD files
Open, edit, and save layered Photoshop documents. Re-saving preserves visual fidelity across 307 of 309 psd-tools test files.
Edit non-destructively
16 adjustment layers, including Curves with per-channel editing and Levels with a live histogram—all fully maskable and reorderable.
Smart selection tools
Marquee, Lasso, Magic Wand, Quick Selection, Object Selection, and Select Subject—all executed locally with no cloud dependencies.
Type, vectors, and brushes
On-canvas typography, pen and shape layers with gradient fills, and a custom brush engine driven by pressure, tilt, and rotation.
Under the hood
One engine, every interface
A decoupled document model and command engine sit beneath a lightweight UI, ensuring the UI, CLI, and AI agents run identical commands.
- Layers & masksGroups, clipping masks, pixel and vector masks, fill layers, smart objects, and 27 blend modes.
- Colour & depthRGB, Grayscale, CMYK, and Lab modes at 8, 16, and 32 bits, backed by native ICC color management in Rust.
- Agents & CLIEvery action is a structured command, enabling full automation via the UI, CLI, JSON API, or MCP.
Use cases
Built for real workflows
Production workflows powered by PhotoCraft, a native, scriptable image editor.
Stack Levels, Curves, and Vibrance on a scanned painting, mask them, and preserve the original pixels intact.
Retouch public-domain art
Adjustment layers
Apply automated action pipelines across hundreds of images from the command line without opening a UI window.
Batch-grade a folder
photocraft-cli
Point an MCP-capable AI agent at a layered document to insert text, layer styles, and adjustment layers automatically.
Automate PSD edits with AI
MCP
Run the exact same engine and UI on the web with zero installation and no account required.
Design in the browser
WebAssembly
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Can't find what you're looking for? Open an Issue on GitHub.
What is PhotoCraft?+
PhotoCraft is an open-source, clean-room image editor written from scratch in Rust, featuring layers, masks, adjustment layers, layer styles, typography, vectors, brushes, and native PSD support.
Is it a full Photoshop replacement?+
Not yet. PhotoCraft is in early alpha. While much of the feature set is functional, key development areas include generative AI capabilities, about twenty secondary tools, advanced typography controls, and plugin compatibility.
Which platforms does it run on?+
PhotoCraft runs natively on macOS, Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD, as well as anywhere on the web via WebAssembly.
Does it open real PSD files?+
Yes. It opens, edits, and saves layered Photoshop documents. Re-saving preserves render fidelity across 307 of 309 test files in the psd-tools suite.
How can an agent drive it?+
Every action is exposed through a unified registry of 500+ commands. You can execute them via the UI, photocraft-cli, an authenticated JSON control channel, or an MCP server.
Get PhotoCraft Download
Grab the latest standalone builds for macOS, Windows, and Linux—free, open source, and ready to run offline.