One of the biggest issues while transitioning from one operating system to another is the lack of the exact same software that is frequently used. Hopefully, Linux has many free and open-source alternatives for various necessities for users coming from Windows. Pinta is one of them and it is a very handy image tool that might be a nice replacement for Photoshop, up to a point, of course.
Not great, not terrible
Pinta looks like a middle ground between Microsoft’s Paint and Adobe’s Photoshop. Its interface is similar to Photoshop, but with a lot of missing buttons. Still, it is way more capable than Paint; allows working with layers, and it records history. Layers can be blended like in Photoshop, which enables a lot of possibilities for cool effects on the images.
On the left side of Pinta’s interface, there are some selection, dragging, painting, text writing, shape creating, and some other tools for basic controls on the image. The handy Clone Stamp tool is also sitting on the left bar. However, we could not find an equivalent for Polygonal Lasso Tool, while having the standard Lasso Tool. One more missing feature is the automatic creation of new layers when deciding to add elements to the image, such as a new text.
Pinta allows users to adjust the target images’ color curves, and brightness/contrast and it has an effect gallery as well. The gallery includes Ink Sketch, blur options, image distortion, emboss, and some other effects. It is not as wide as Photoshop, but it delivers a good amount of effects.
Overall, Pinta is quite a nice option that can deliver what you need from Photoshop, depending on what you need from it. If you are a Photoshop master, it is almost impossible you’ll be satisfied with Pinta. But if you are an average Photoshop user, you should give a chance to Pinta.
How to install Pinta using snap?
sudo snap install pinta