Photoshop Freeware Download

Download installers of Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020 and 2019. Read before you download Click here to expand the list of things you need to know before you download Photoshop Elements.
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Jun 18, 2020.

Adobe Photoshop does not need any introduction. It has been the professional image-editing standard for decades, and we use it as a verb for photo manipulation. In addition, countless amateur users have searched for a free Photoshop download. While there are several alternative applications, on this guide we will download Photoshop legally and for free from Adobe.

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Table of Contents

How can a free Photoshop download be legal?

How can a free Photoshop download be legal?

As you probably know, Adobe Photoshop is a commercial program, the price of which used to be quite high. The last standalone version, CS6, started at $699. The extended CS6 edition could go all the way up to $2,599.

Since 2013, Adobe changed its pricing model, turning Photoshop into a pay-as-you-go service. The latest Creative Cloud (CC) versions are only available as Adobe subscriptions.

If we want to use Photoshop for a single month, it will cost us $29.99. We can get discounted options for a monthly commitment of one year, or if we prepay for the whole year.

It's certainly more cost effective than buying the CS6 version. However, if we are not earning money from our work with Photoshop, it's hard to justify the cost just for the occasional crop, resize, or filter.

So, how is it possible to download Photoshop for free from Adobe?

How we got a free Photoshop download

The key to this whole deal is that Adobe allows a free Photoshop download only for an old version of the app. Namely Photoshop CS2, which was released in May 2005.

CS2 was one of the first versions of the Photoshop, if not the very first, with Internet activation. It needed to communicate with an Adobe server to activate the program.

Around 2013, Adobe had to disable the activation server for CS2 products, 'because of a technical issue.' The company has not provided any additional information on the nature of this problem.

Since there is no server to activate the program anymore, this posed a problem for Adobe clients who had bought Photoshop CS2. The company had to provide an alternative method for activation.

The 'technical issue' would suggest that this would be a temporary solution. However, it has proven to be anything but. Since it is an old version of Photoshop, Adobe hasn't bothered to re-launch the CS2 activation server and probably doesn't plan to do so.

As a result, it is possible even today to download Photoshop CS2 from the Adobe website. CS2 might be more than a decade old, but it sure beats risking any illegal method for Photoshop download, especially for occasional users.

After all, how many casual, non-professional users use even a 10% of Photoshop's functions? And how many need the latest version instead of CS2?

How to download Photoshop for free

To download Photoshop CS2, we'll first need to create an Adobe ID account or sign in if we already have one.

If you have to sign up, make sure you type the password right, because the sign-up process won't ask for confirmation.

Having completed our Adobe registration, we can download Photoshop for free at https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs2-product-downloads.html?promoid=19SCDRQK

We scroll down the page and select the language of our choice.

We will find several different CS2 products that we can download for free. For this guide, we will only download Photoshop. Of course, you are free to download whichever applications you want.

The English version of the Photoshop CS2 installer is 340MB. It should download in less than five minutes with an average ADSL line.

For a faster download experience, we can use a download accelerator, such as BitComet.

Even though there is a version for Mac, Photoshop CS2 only works on PowerPC Macs, the only version of Mac that existed in 2005. We can not install it on current models with Intel CPUs. So, it's only possible to download Photoshop CS2 for Windows.

Coincidentally, 2005 was the year that Steve Jobs announced the transition for Macintosh computer to Intel CPUs, and the first Intel-based models went for sale in January 2006. So, if CS2 had come out a year later, there would probably be compatibility with Intel Macs.

How to install Photoshop for free

After we have downloaded the installer, we locate it in our downloads folder and run it.

The installation is simple. At the serial number prompt, we copy and paste the following:

The most observant among you have noticed that is is the serial number Adobe provides at the download page. Apparently, it's a special serial number that does not require an internet activation.

Soon afterwards, the installation is complete.

When we start Photoshop, we will get a 'Registration' screen, which we can safely ignore. However, no matter if we select 'Register Later' or 'Do Not Register,' we will keep getting it every time we start Photoshop.

And this is it. The environment where many graphic designers, photographers, architects, engineers, artists had worked for hours each day in 2005 and the following years.

Photoshop CS2 is fully functional at the latest version of Windows 10, which is Creators Update, as of this writing.

Shortly after launching, Adobe Updater will open. Since there is nothing to update, we can clear the checkbox. As opposed to the registration prompt, the updater won't bother us again.

Can I use this free Photoshop in my business?

As you probably know, many countries have a much stricter policy on pirated software when it is for commercial use than for personal home use.

Even though we downloaded Photoshop from Adobe, and didn't use any illegitimate ways to activate it, we don't own a CS2 license. Adobe makes it abundantly clear that the particular website is for CS2 license owners.

Therefore, if you have a business, we urge you to consult your lawyer on whether it is lawful to download Photoshop CS2 and use it for free.

With other free image editing applications like GIMP, which is quite easy to make it look and work like Photoshop, there is no question of legitimacy for professional use.

Will Adobe provide free Photoshop download options for other versions?

Based on Adobe's explanation on why they allowed the CS2 Photoshop download in the first place, it seems highly unlikely that we will get the chance to download Photoshop CS3, CS4, CS5, or CS6 in the future.

There is also no guarantee that it will be possible to download Photoshop for free with this method in six months, a year, or in the distant future. Adobe had removed the links once in the past, and they might do it again.

However, if you download the installation file, you can use Adobe's serial number to install Photoshop for free as many times as you like.

Lastly, we tested the Photoshop download and installation in the newest Creators Update version of Windows 10. It is possible that it will not work on a future Windows 10 versions. After all, Photoshop CS2 was designed to operate on Windows XP.

Did you have any problems downloading Photoshop for free?

Anything in the guide did not work as we described? Did you have any trouble downloading Photoshop? Did everything go swimmingly? Let us know in the comments below.

See more ways to download Adobe Photoshop CC for free without torrents, cracks, and Keygen.

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Current Stable Version

The current stable release of GIMP is 2.10.22 (2020-10-04).

We think your OS is Well, we don't actually know. Either JavaScript is disabled, or I am not working quite right... So I am showing you all the options.

Show downloads for GNU/Linux | OS X | Microsoft Windows | All

GIMP for Unix-like systems

If available, the official package from your Unix-like distribution is the recommended method of installing GIMP!

The flatpak build is new and has known limitations, though it will likely provide faster updates, following GIMP releases closely.
Therefore choose your installation medium according to your needs.

Flatpak build available in: i386, x86-64, ARM and AArch64.

Flatpak additional instructions

The flatpak link above should open your software installer and prompt you to install GIMP. Yet it may not work out-of-the-box on some platforms since the flatpak technology is new. If that is the case, ensure flatpak is installed and if clicking the link still does not prompt to install GIMP, then manually install by command line:

flatpak install https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.gimp.GIMP.flatpakref

Once installed, it will be made available exactly the same way as other applications (menus, desktop overview, or any specific application launch process used by your desktop).
If this is not the case, we suggest to report a bug to your desktop or distribution asking for proper support of flatpak. In the meantime, you can still run it by command line (not as the recommended method, only a workaround):

flatpak run org.gimp.GIMP//stable

This installation will also provide regular update. You don't have to come back on this page and install again (it will not work!) when a new version of GIMP is released. Instead if your distribution and/or desktop has a good support for flatpak, it should propose to perform updates.
Once again, if your distribution does not have proper support, you can always fall back to using the following command line:

flatpak update

Systems without flatpak support

GIMP can also run on Solaris and is available for the BSD family of systems such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

Please refer to the documentation for your Unix-like system on the installation of software.

GIMP for macOS

Note: the currently available package provides GIMP 2.10.14 and has not yet updated to the latest version, GIMP 2.10.22. We're working on that, please check back later.

The download links above will attempt to download GIMP from one of our trusted mirror servers. If the mirrors do not work or you would rather download directly from our server, you can get the direct download here.

Photoshop Freeware Download Full Version

Supported OS: macOS 10.9 Mavericks or over

Since the 2.8.2 version, GIMP runs on OSX natively. No X11 environment is required.

Native build

The official GIMP 2.10 DMG installer (linked above) is a stock GIMP build without any add-ons. Just open the downloaded DMG and drag and drop GIMP into your 'Applications' folder.

The SHA256 hash sum for gimp-2.10.14-x86_64-1.dmg is: 52654d85f894834f6c134c724beff3eddf212a1bda317299314322cfeff97e52

Check it on VirusTotal: gimp-2.10.14-x86_64-1.dmg

Older Downloads

Previous installers for OSX can be found here: download.gimp.org.

Macports

An easy way to compile and install GIMP and other great Free software on your Mac is by using Macports. The installer allows you to choose from a large directory of packages. To install gimp using Macports, you simply do sudo port install gimp once you have Macports installed.

Last we checked, the GIMP port file pointed to the current stable release and we have reports from people who've built GIMP successfully this way.

Homebrew

Homebrew is similar to Macports and provides packages (aka formulas) to install, either by compiling them from source or by using pre-made binaries. There are indications that there is now a formula for GIMP, installable with: brew tap homebrew/cask && brew cask install gimp.

NOTE! Please be aware that it was announced recently that Homebrew is using analytics. To turn this off in homebrew then run: brew analytics off
You can read more about this on Brew Analytics.

Fink

Fink is a package repository that offer mostly precompiled binaries. It provides the apt-get command known to e.g. Debian and Ubuntu users, and installing GIMP is as easy as sudo apt-get install gimp once you have installed the Fink installer.
If there's no binary package, then fink install gimp will compile GIMP from source.

Disclaimer: we haven't been able to determine if it is possible to install or build recent GIMP from Fink. Last we checked, GIMP 2.6.12 appears to be the most recent GIMP package that is offered there.

GIMP for Windows

Supported OS: Windows 7 or over

These links download the official GIMP installer for Windows (~200 MB). The installer contains both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of GIMP, and will automatically use the appropriate one.

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing system. It works by downloading GIMP from a distributed network of BitTorrent users, and may improve download speed dramatically. Choosing this option will download the torrent file for the GIMP installer. You may need to install a torrent client to make use of this file. Learn more...

Hash Sum

The SHA256 hash sum for gimp-2.10.22-setup.exe is: f7851c348584ce432dfd8e69b74a168c7dec33ebfddc29c96ad2d6b83aded083

Check it on VirusTotal: gimp-2.10.22-setup.exe

Older Downloads

Previous v2.10 installers for Windows can be found here: download.gimp.org.
Previous v2.8 installers for Windows can be found here: download.gimp.org.

GIMP User Manual

These links download language-specific Windows installers for GIMP's local help. By default, they will place the help files with your GIMP installation.

Note: GIMP uses online help by default. If you want to use this local help offline, you will need to change GIMP's help settings.

In GIMP, select [Edit] > [Preferences] > [Help System]
For 'User manual', select 'Use a locally installed copy'
Under 'Help Browser', you can choose between your system's web browser and GIMP's help browser plugin (if available).

See the online help for more settings.

Chinese Simplified (39 MB)
Catalan (40 MB)
Danish (39 MB)
Dutch (39 MB)
English (39 MB)
English (United Kingdom) (39 MB)
Finnish (39 MB)
French (41 MB)
German (41 MB)
Greek (38 MB)
Italian (43 MB)
Japanese (39 MB)
Korean (40 MB)
Norwegian Nynorsk (35 MB)
Portuguese Brazilian (40 MB)
Romanian (39 MB)
Russian (40 MB)
Spanish (40 MB)

Source for version 2.10 (Stable)

GIMP releases available from gimp.org and its mirrors contain the source code and have to be compiled in order to be installed on your system.

For instructions, how to build GIMP from source code, please see this page.

GIMP 2.10.22 is now available at https://download.gimp.org/mirror/pub/gimp/v2.10/. You may want to read the Release Notes for GIMP 2.10.

To allow you to check the integrity of the tarballs, here are the hashes of the latest releases:

Photoshop Freeware Download For Windows 7

gimp-2.10.22.tar.bz2 (sha256):: 2db84b57f3778d80b3466d7c21a21d22e315c7b062de2883cbaaeda9a0f618bb
gimp-2.10.20.tar.bz2 (sha256):: e12f9f874b1a007c4277b60aa81e0b67330be7e6153e5749ead839b902fc7b3c
gimp-2.10.18.tar.bz2 (sha256):: 65bfe111e8eebffd3dde3016ccb507f9948d2663d9497cb438d9bb609e11d716
gimp-2.10.16.tar.bz2 (sha256):: cbf9fe9534b913a9487b00cd9710cbc569bfd71fdd2f8c321547701a7d70cbeb
gimp-2.10.14.tar.bz2 (sha256):: df9b0f11c2078eea1de3ebc66529a5d3854c5e28636cd25a8dd077bd9d6ddc54
gimp-2.10.12.tar.bz2 (sha256):: 7d80b58e0784120d57d327294f6a1fda281ff51a61935c2cd764da281acaac71
gimp-2.10.10.tar.bz2 (sha256):: 12d1f243265c7aee1f2c6e97883a5c90ddc0b19b4346cf822e24adbb6c998c77
gimp-2.10.8.tar.bz2 (sha256):: d849c1cf35244938ae82e521b92b720ab48b8e9ed092d5de92c2464ef5244b9b
gimp-2.10.6.tar.bz2 (sha256):: 4ec8071f828e918384cf7bc7d1219210467c84655123f802bc55a8bf2415101f
gimp-2.10.4.tar.bz2 (sha256):: ffb0768de14a2631b3d7ed71f283731441a1b48461766c23f0574dce0706f192
gimp-2.10.2.tar.bz2 (sha256):: 1cb0baaecdefe44d371a15f2739a1bcbce4682336b4ccf8eb7b587ce52c333eb
gimp-2.10.0.tar.bz2 (sha256):: 7fcc96fb88cb0a0595d2610f63a15dec245bb37bf9db527d37a24fb75e547de2

GIMP help files are available at https://download.gimp.org/mirror/pub/gimp/help/.

Please consider using one of the mirrors listed below.

Adobe Photoshop Freeware Download Windows 7

Development snapshots

We now have a separate page for development versions of GIMP.

Want to check out the GIMP development release?
Get it on our development downloads page.

FTP and Web Mirrors

Adobe Photoshop Freeware Download

We had a server move a while back that caused us to lose our existing mirrors (moved from physical to virtual server and to an environment that doesn't allow FTP access). On the plus side, we are now able to offer rsync access to download.gimp.org.

Adobe Photoshop Freeware Download Full Version

If you are running one of the existing GIMP mirrors, or want to create a new one, please contact us to get your rsync credentials.

Adobe Photoshop Freeware Download

https://mirrors.ukfast.co.uk/sites/gimp.org/pub/gimp/; ftp://mirrors.ukfast.co.uk/gimp.org/pub/gimp/; rsync://mirrors.ukfast.co.uk/gimp.org/pub/gimp/
Denmark: https://mirrors.dotsrc.org/gimp/gimp/; ftp://mirrors.dotsrc.org/gimp/; rsync://mirrors.dotsrc.org/gimp/
Finland: https://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/; ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/; rsync://rsync.nic.funet.fi/ftp/pub/mirrors/ftp.gimp.org/
France: http://ftp.iut-bm.univ-fcomte.fr/gimp/; ftp://ftp.iut-bm.univ-fcomte.fr/gimp/; rsync://ftp.iut-bm.univ-fcomte.fr/gimp/
Germany: https://ftp.fau.de/gimp/gimp/; ftp://ftp.fau.de/gimp/gimp/; rsync://ftp.fau.de/gimp/; https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/grafik/gimp/; ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/grafik/gimp/; https://artfiles.org/gimp.org/pub/gimp/
Greece: https://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/gimp/; ftp://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/gimp/
Japan: http://www.ring.gr.jp/pub/graphics/gimp/
Netherlands: https://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/software/gimp/gimp/; ftp://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/software/gimp/gimp/
Philippines: http://mirror.rise.ph/gimp/; ftp://mirror.rise.ph/gimp/
Poland: https://ftp.icm.edu.pl/pub/graphics/gimp/; ftp://ftp.icm.edu.pl/pub/graphics/gimp/; rsync://ftp.icm.edu.pl/pub/graphics/gimp/; gopher://ftp.icm.edu.pl/1/pub/graphics/gimp/
Sweden: https://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/gimp/; ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/gimp; rsync://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/gimp
Ukraine: https://gimp.ip-connect.info/gimp/; rsync://gimp.ip-connect.info/gimp/; ftp://gimp.ip-connect.info/mirror/gimp/; https://mirror.klaus-uwe.me/gimp/gimp/; ftp://mirror.klaus-uwe.me/gimp/; rsync://mirror.klaus-uwe.me/gimp/
United Kingdom: https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/; ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/; rsync://rsync.mirrorservice.org/ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/
United States: https://mirror.jaleco.com/gimp/gimp/; https://mirror.umd.edu/gimp/gimp/; http://gimp.cp-dev.com/; ftp://devhost.cp-dev.com/gimp; rsync://gimp.cp-dev.com/gimp; https://mirrors.syringanetworks.net/gimp/gimp/; ftp://mirrors.syringanetworks.net/gimp/; rsync://mirrors.syringanetworks.net/gimp/; https://mirrors.xmission.com/gimp/gimp/; ftp://mirrors.xmission.com/gimp/gimp/