How to get Photoshop for free?

Photoshop is a professional photo editing software. It’s one of the most popular. It even has its own verb – to photoshop. So how to get Adobe Photoshop for free?

It’s quite pricy. And there is a good reason, because of the sheer quality and possibilities Photoshop has. Also, it has great synergy with other famous software like Premiere Pro or After Effects. That way it’s no brainer to get graphics ready in Photoshop, animations done in After Effects, and then make a video with all the media in Premiere Pro.

How to get Adobe Photoshop for free 2020

It’s quite easy. All that you have to do is to visit the official Photoshop CC webpage and download a trial version of the software. The link is in the top menu near the “Buy” button.

Here is the picture to make it all clear. Click here to get to the page.

Download Photoshop for Free

After pressing a button to download a free trial of Photoshop you’ll be presented with a message that you need to fill. You have to do this because it’s necessary to have an Adobe ID to get download Photoshop for free – or any other Adobe software likewise. Adobe needs these accounts in order for subscription and updates to operate.

To create Adobe ID you only need an e-mail and fill the needed fields in the form. When you’ve done your download will start automatically. When you have completed the download enter your Adobe ID into Adobe Photoshop. Start Photoshop Free Trial.

Adobe Photoshop Free and Paid Options

Adobe Photoshop is widely known to be one of the price choices for any professional working with graphics. To put it plainly – it’s the most popular software to edit photos and images. If you’ve downloaded Photoshop from the official website then you already have the latest version. Photoshop downloads all the updates automatically.

Photoshop is one of the Creative Cloud apps so you can easily get a whole pack for free, including such powerful software as Premiere Pro, Illustrator, After Effects, Lightroom and many more.

I know that you want to get Adobe Photoshop for free but there are also options that really overshadow a free 7-day trial. So here are all of them.

1. Photoshop Free Trial Version

We’ve already come through the way to get this version. Simply go to the official webpage of Adobe Photoshop and click the “Free Trial” button there.

This free 7-day trial version has no restrictions. It just works only for only a week. In other regards, it’s fully functional and works perfectly fine.

2. Single Application Subscription

You can get a subscription to Photoshop only if you don’t need other Adobe Applications. It’s not the cheapest way to subscribe to Photoshop and not the best one to get. Besides the application itself, you will get some useful goodies: 100Gb of cloud storage, Premiere Rush, Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark. All the future updates of Photoshop also would be available as long as your subscription is active.

There are three different pricing plans for you to fit into your budget:

• Annual plan, paid monthly – $20.99/mo.
• Annual plan, prepaid – $239.88/yr.
• Monthly plan – $31.49/mo.

3. Photography Subscription to Photoshop

It is the cheapest and most cost-effective way to get Photoshop. By getting this option you would leverage Photoshop for desktop and iPad, Lightroom for desktop and mobile and Lightroom Classic for desktop. Along with it, you’ll get a nice 20Gb of cloud storage. There is an option to get 1Tb of cloud storage, but it costs an additional $10 a month.

There are two different pricing plans to choose:

• Annual plan, paid monthly – $9.99/mo.
• Annual plan, prepaid – $119.88/yr.

Overall, it’s the best option to download Photoshop if you don’t need to work with video and other media.

4. All Creative Applications Subscription

This is the best value option that has all of the Adobe Creative Cloud apps. You’ll get 20+ creative desktop and mobile apps with such widely used as Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, After Effects, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro. With this option, you can leverage the great synergy between Adobe’s software – all of the apps can communicate and share the media from one to the other. And don’t forget that you can get Adobe Creative Cloud for free for 7 days also.

There are also three pricing plans to get this option:

• Annual plan, paid monthly – $52.99/mo.
• Annual plan, prepaid – $599.88 /yr.
• Monthly plan – $79.49/mo.

5. Students and Teachers Discount

If you’re a student over 13 years old or a teacher then you opt to get a whopping 60% off on All Creative Applications Subscription. The only thing to consider is that you have to prove that you’re a student or a teacher. If you have a school or college e-mail address than you’ve already proved to be eligible for a student discount. In other cases, you’ll have to send a photo or a scan of your School ID Card or another document that proves that you’re studying or teaching.

The pricing plans for Students and Teachers Discount are:

• Annual plan, paid monthly – $19.99/mo.
• Annual plan, prepaid – $239.88/yr.

These are all the options of how to get Adobe Photoshop for free or paid. The best of all is the flexibility – if you want just one application or a bundle, and if you’re a student or a teacher you can get a discount.

Sure it can be a little bit disappointing to know that there is no legal way to get Photoshop for free for an unlimited time. And if you thought about pirating it I ought to tell you against piracy.

Don’t use Photoshop Crack

On the Web, you can come across such a portable version of Photoshop or a “free and patched” version. Just know that web sites that let you download such software are pirate sites – torrent trackers, software sites that filled with questionable adults-only ads and so on.

Just as I’ve mentioned you shouldn’t get into piracy by no means. But here are some key points why cracked Photoshop is a bad thing:

1. Malware, Spyware, Viruses, Trojans

This one is the gravest danger of getting any pirated software. You download a Photoshop crack and virus get into your computer. The dangers of viruses vary from getting your PC to slow down or simply blocking it so you can’t use it unless you pay a ransom or even stealing your sensitive data like the credit card number.

2. Forget about official updates

If you don’t have an official Adobe subscription and Adobe ID you can forget about any updates for your Adobe Photoshop. Software updates are distributed to users who legally subscribe to the software. Adobe is the company that makes important updates to its software so you’ll be missing a lot of sweet Photoshop features that legal users enjoy.

3. No customer support for pirates

Pirate users can’t leverage Adobe support which works 24/7. Cracked or pirated Photoshop is not covered with user support. So if you have a problem with your software and you don’t have Adobe ID and active subscription you’d be unable to write to customer support or make a phone call.

4. Pirated Photoshop is not working properly

Even if you pirate the latest version after searching how to get Adobe Photoshop for free, this doesn’t mean that your version would work as intended. The thing is that in order for a pirated version to work is should disable some of the important features built into Adobe Photoshop CC. Since it blocks the Internet connection you would be missing the important Internet-connected functions.

5. It’s just illegal

It is this simple. Downloading, installing, using pirated software and the results of its work is illegal in most countries. The USA and European laws are prohibiting people from pirating and cracking software. So don’t be surprised if you’d be addressed with charges for piracy.

Photoshop Free Alternatives

If you’re not satisfied with a 7-days trial free version of Photoshop then you can look for Photoshop free alternatives. Here are some of the most popular alternatives:

GIMP

GIMP is open-source software for editing photos. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You simply need to get to the official website and choose your operating system to download GIMP.

It’s a quite capable image-editing software that can work with Photoshop PSD files and has many tools that mimic Photoshop workflow. At first glance it works pretty similar to Photoshop. However, it’s not completely true. GIMP lacks a great number of features compared to Photoshop.

But the most thing GIMP lacks is in the department of usability. Free software come with its on caveat which is poor user interface compared to its paid counterparts. That thing is expectable because Adobe makes a lot of effort in making Photoshop interface usable. Because of that it’s only natural that GIMP is not so handy to use but it’s a drawback that you should be aware of.

Overall, GIMP is great software with pretty consistent updates that improve its features. If you’re only getting into editing photos then GIMP can be a great way to start your journey.

Paint.NET

Paint.NET, in a free Photoshop alternative for Windows. It was an open-source app back in the day but now it is sponsored by Microsoft and now it’s Windows-only software. You need Windows 7 or higher to use it.

It also mimics Photoshop a bit in terms of the user interface and partially workflow. On the left side toolbar, you can find familiar instruments like the brush, magic wand and so on. This is a great decision because it allows users who start with Paint.net to easily migrate to Photoshop when they will upgrade their skills.

Just as with GIMP you can do a great number of adjustments to images: tune colors and contrast, apply special effects, cut objects. The number of the filters are great – from removing red-eyes to create painting style. In most regards, Pain.NET is pretty similar to GIMP, however, it’s less capable but easier to use.

Paint.NET can export images into multiple formats like PDN, PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, TGA – but sadly it can’t export images into PDF file format which is native to Adobe Photoshop.

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Want to learn more about the best photo editing apps? Then check our article 14 Best Photo Editor Apps.