Krita
A full painting and illustration studio that costs nothing.
Instead of Adobe Photoshop and Procreate for drawing
Screenshot from krita.org, taken 2026-10-23. The images belong to their makers and are shown to help you recognise the tool. Ask us to remove one.
Krita is made by a community inside KDE, with the Krita Foundation looking after its funding and trademark. The program is free to download from its own site, and the paid copies on Steam and the Microsoft Store are the same software, offered to people who want to chip in. What you draw is yours, in open file formats, and nobody can lock the studio behind a subscription.
It is built for painters and illustrators, with a deep set of brushes and tools to match. That depth takes time to learn and there is no sign-in prompt or upsell to push you around. It is not a photo-retouching tool, so photographers may still want something else.