You can, of course bring in photos and work on them just fine in Krita, but if photo work is your primary goal, you’ll likely want to get a more specialized software package. Unlike Photoshop, Krita is more aimed at straight-up illustrations, and so it’s a compelling tool for game designers, illustrators, comic creators and other makers who draw from scratch. After smashing its fundraising goal, Krita got a basket of goodies added to it, making it unbelievably powerful, especially considering that the company still doesn’t charge for the product. In 2015, Krita launched a Kickstarter campaign to take things to the next level. After that time, the open-source program recruited students to work on its improvement, and in 2012 the Krita Foundation was formed to raise funds to continue supporting the completely free software.

With origins in various projects reaching back to 1998, Krita eventually became a free image-manipulation tool like Photoshop, or GIMP from about 2004 to 2009. As a piece of software, Krita has had an interesting history.

Krita for free