Maria Sibirtseva
Maria Sibirtseva

12\07\196 min

A Series of Free Online Tutorials on Photoshop Alternatives

Attending group courses on photography is a great chance to learn from professionals. It is also an amazing opportunity to network with colleagues and meet new people. Yet, sometimes you simply don’t have the time or resources to attend courses.

A great alternative to the common problem is to simply take matters into your own hands and learn online. With online tutorials, you can set your own pace of studying, skip classes on the topics you are already familiar with or, on the contrary, take the class several times.

Online courses are for those who want to learn quickly, efficiently, and at their own pace. Here’s a series of free online tutorials on the best Photoshop alternatives. They include tutorials on Lightroom, Capture One, Luminar, and even Snapseed for both beginners and professionals.

Best online tutorials on Lightroom

Lightroom Training Course

For more than 10 years, Lightroom has been a go-to source to quickly edit images and is also considered one of the best alternatives to Photoshop. But if you’re not familiar with the workflow or need to know the answers to the most basic questions, this course is a series of online tutorials by Photos In Color. You can find out all the basics and tips for beginners. what is Lightroom, how to use it and get to know many more useful tips for beginners.

Lightroom Tutorials

In recent years, Lightroom has become popular not only among professional photographers but also bloggers. Having hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, the editing style of Jacob Riglin (@jacob), Jack Morris (@doyoutravel), Samuel Elkins (@samuelelkins), and other creatives have served as a major source of inspiration for photography enthusiasts. Maarten Schrader is one of them, as this video creator has shared over 150 online tutorials on how to edit like photographers and bloggers who are popular on Instagram.

Online tutorials on Capture One

Capture One Tutorials

If you have a lot of things to do and don’t want to waste days exploring new apps, this set of Capture One tutorials is for you. It has only three videos that explain the difference between Lightroom and Capture One, show you how to get started fast with the app, and teach you how to make adjustments to photos. These tutorials will be enough to get an overview of the basic features and understand whether you want to explore the app further.

Capture One 12 Webinars

Are you already familiar with Capture One? Here are 12 free webinars on mastering your editing skills with Capture One. From color editing to optimizing for export – they have everything you need for a smooth workflow with the app. There’s even a tutorial for those who are migrating from Lightroom to Capture One.

Top online tutorials on Luminar

Luminar Learning Center

Jim Nix, a travel photographer and a teacher, has created a series of 170 videos that altogether make up a Luminar Learning Center. These tutorials cover almost every feature Luminar has to offer. For instance, you can learn how to add a spotlight effect, adjust gradients, dodge and burn, and even master masks. So, if you feel like getting familiar with Luminar, these videos are a good starting point.

Mastering Luminar

If you want to succeed in what you’re doing, you have to continuously master your skills. This set of videos will definitely help you in that. In addition to videos that share Luminar’s new features and explain differences between Lightroom and Luminar, there are 9 chapters that overview basics: filters and tools, workspaces and presets.

Free online tutorials on GIMP

Beginners Guide to GIMP

Not many know that GIMP is a great alternative to Photoshop. It offers a basic set of tools but its main advantage is that it is totally free. The Tech Gumbo’s Beginners Guide to GIMP consists of only two videos but they feature everything you need to know about GIMP’s interface and the main features.

GIMP Tutorial 2019

For those who’d like to explore GIMP on the advanced level, there’s a series of how-to videos. You can find out about color palettes import, adding effects, plugins and extra filers in the GIMP Tutorial 2019.

Online tutorials on Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo Tutorial For Beginners

Affinity Photo is an app that you can use on an iPad and where you can upload and edit PSD files. When you’re commuting, travelling to another country or simply don’t have an opportunity to always bring a laptop, you can start using Affinity Photo. These tutorials on editing and retouching will be really helpful if you want to understand the basics of using the app.

Official Affinity Photo Tutorials

The official YouTube account of Affinity Photo is a super useful resource for photographers who want to edit with the app. It has six folders with all the tutorials including:

  • basic
  • advanced
  • creative tools
  • corrective and retouching
  • filters and adjustments
  • export persona
  • workflows and techniques

Any time you have doubts about how to edit in a particular way, you can resort to these organized tutorials for help.

Snapseed online tutorials

Snapseed Tutorial: Learn the basics to better editing

If you’re not a fan of video tutorials and prefer step-by-step guides, we’ve created one on Snapseed. it serves a handbook to basics of better editing and explains the functionalities of every feature in detail.  You can learn how to correct major errors, create a particular mood of the image or bring your image closer to retro or black and white stylistics.

Snapseed tutorials

Not many people know that Snapseed is a full-fledged mobile alternative to Photoshop and you actually don’t have to carry a laptop with you to edit images like a pro. In Snapseed, you can do everything – change orientation, crop, adjust contrast, exposure, and brightness, and apply all other features that are usually used to enhance images.

If you want to explore the best Photoshop alternatives, learn something new or master your editing skills, save these series of online tutorials and resort to it from time to time. You can try tutorials on Photoshop alternatives you’ve heard about or haven’t tried, or learn a thing or two on programs you considered switching to. In the comments, you can also suggest the tutorials you’ve already taken and we will add them to the list.

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    Maria Sibirtseva
    Maria Sibirtseva

    Maria is a Head of Content Marketing at Depositphotos. She works on creative projects, curates content production, and manages the copywriting department. Maria explores the topics of visual trends, human creativity, and AI, sharing her knowledge at Europe-wide events.