Paint Tools; Alternative to Photoshop

Zack Maxwell

Hopefully this isn't anything as useless as a "Maya/Max/Modo/Blender?" discussion.
I'm basically looking to replace Photoshop, and I'm completely lost as to what would be a good alternative.

My pipeline as it is no longer really uses Photoshop.
Between ZBrush and Substance Designer/Painter, coupled with the fact that I'm focused primarily on a non-photo-realistic hand-painted style, the only use I get from a 2D painter is in creating UI elements, brushes/alphas/masks for use in other software, or occasionally touching up the paint on a texture already created elsewhere.
Photoshop is primarily focused on the photo-editing abilities, which I've no real use for at this point, and the painting is actually pretty subpar and convoluted. On top of which, it traps me in a subscription model.

I'm lost as to which alternatives would fit those needs effectively. Currently I'm looking at Coral, Krita and Black Ink.
Bonus points for something available in Steam. I already have most of my software there, and it's awesome getting auto-updates and not having to recall a bunch of sites and accounts whenever I need to re-install.

ultramedia

Well I'll jump in and say I use Gimp. It obviously doesn't have the full range of features that Photoshop does, but honestly I'm still surprised at how often things I used to do in Photoshop carry over into Gimp with next to no fuss.

Of course if you're a Photoshop power user who milks every last drop of blood out of it, you might the step down a bit jarring. But hey, it's free to try and if you're a mid level user like me you might find it can do everything you need

If you do want to try it there are windows binaries available at http://www.partha.com/

Fuiosg

I would go with Krita and Gimp, together.

Krita has really good painting tools, and gimp, while I hate it because it feels overwhelmingly designed by programmers, can occasionally complement it in technical areas where Krita is lacking.

.nL

As a photoshop power-user with a most rabid demand for the best of photo editing suites...

Krita before GIMP. All day 'ery day. GIMP's chunky, nasty, and several steps below Krita in almost every way. That said, Fuiosg's answer is correct. GIMP does do a few things that Krita doesn't, so download them both.

daphz

I suggest manga studio 5. It's like paint tool sai but with way more features. Super nice for hand painted texture stuff. It doesn't have all the crazy adjustment layers and filters photoshop has though. If you're just looking for a great painting program, really cant go wrong with manga studio. The 30 bucks I payed (on sale I think) was SUPER worth it.

iadagraca

I second Manga Studio 5 (Also called Clip studio which is what i own), its the closest to photoshop for me functionally. But its a lot better at painting functionally.

Justin Meisse

Maybe it's gotten better but the last time I used gimp I was shocked by all the crashing, one thing Photoshop has going for it is it's a beast that hardly ever crashes.

Zack Maxwell

Okay, wow... I've been trying out a demo for ArtRage, and it is really impressive. Considering how it works, that's very surprising to me.
The more I delve into it the more impressive it gets.
I've only been playing with it for a day, but I feel like I've found the Holy Grail of hand-painted texture software.
I'm definitely going to try this out more and see how it goes.
I may have to pair it with Gimp for some stuff.

I've gotten some crazy results so far by creating a texture map, painting out a base texture in ArtRage, then applying post effects in Designer/Painter.