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It’s Adobe’s Creative Cloud TITSUP birthday. Ease the pain with its RGB-wrangling rivals

Alternatives to pixel-poking behemoth Photoshop

Pixlr Editor

RH Numbers

Autodesk’s Pixlr Editor is an image editor that works in your browser. There are also native desktop apps for Windows and Mac, which have an optional subscription charge of $1.99 a month (about £1.30) or $14.99 a year (£9.75) to activate some of their features.

Autodesk Pixlr Editor

Pixlr Editor runs in a browser window using Flash. The distracting ads can’t be removed, but they can be shifted off screen by resizing the window – click for a larger image

The web app provides a decent range of features for free, and works in just about any recent browser as long as Adobe Flash is installed – so you can use it on Chromebooks, for example. Its user interface is a stripy mess of black, pale grey and Windows Vista-era gradients, and just to distract you even more it opens with a column of animated ads down the right-hand side.

The ads can’t be removed, but you can size up the window and drag it so they’re off the screen. It’s vital, though, to remember that you’re working in a browser. If you close the window, there’s no warning before your work is lost. Accidentally using the standard File > Open command or key shortcut (instead of selecting File > Open in Pixlr’s own menu bar) bumps Pixlr out of the window, and pressing Back won’t restore your session.

Autodesk Pixlr Editor

With no advanced selection tools available, mask painting is the only way to isolate complex areas, and Pixlr doesn’t make it easy – click for a larger image

Pixr doesn’t support raw images, but you can open the standard file formats, including layered PSDs (although I found these occasionally crashed Flash), and save your work back to your hard disk, to your Flickr account, or to your personal Pixlr Library online. Layers can have masks, although mask painting works oddly: only the brush’s opacity, not lightness, is heeded, and you have to switch to the Eraser tool to increase transparency. There are a few layer styles, but no adjustment layers.

Autodesk Pixlr Editor

Finished result – click for a larger image

A History palette lets you step back through recent operations, and – unlike with some web apps – key shortcuts and right-click menus are available. But on the Mac, where holding Alt normally switches modes from Add to Subtract, you have to use the Command key, which would normally switch tools; and holding both Command and Shift just invokes Add, instead of Intersect.

Autodesk Pixlr Editor

As in Photoshop and other apps, the Clone Stamp tool is a simple way to paint a small part of an image seamlessly over another to remove small unwanted elements – click for a larger image

Clone Stamp and Spot Heal brushes, Levels, Curves, Unsharp Mask and a bunch of filters are present and correct. But with no selection tools beyond Lasso and Magic Wand, no vector paths, no Shadows/Highlights and no non-destructive editing features, Pixlr Editor is of limited practical use. Even so, it’s a handy option if you’re stuck without an editing app. ®

Price Free (browser version)
More info Autodesk

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