How can I install Photoshop for free?

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Adobe has over 26 million paid subscribers, most of which started with a free trial, including ours. You can get the Photoshop free trial yourself, completely safely, for 7 days. After it ends, you may pay to keep using it or cancel the trial and walk away—no questions asked.

With so many fake promises and ads for Photoshop trials online, we decided to show you how to get it safely through Adobe, which is the only legitimate way. Also, keep in mind that Adobe recently reduced free trial durations from 30 days to 7 days. So don’t believe anyone promising 30-day trials. It’s either outdated information or a scam. Stay away.

Photoshop Free Trial Explained:

• Duration: 7 days (was 30 days)
• Cost: $0.00 ($9.99–$54.99/month) after the trial ends
• You get: Photoshop plus other apps with the plan you choose.
• Hidden fees: None
• Photoshop trial version: Full version.

How to Get Photoshop Free Trial?

Step 1. Go to the free trial page

The only way to get Photoshop free trial safely and legitimately is through Adobe, the developer of this image editor. The free trial is available on the Products/Photoshop/Free-trial-download page.

Step 2. Click on the “Start free trial” button.

When you land on the free trial page, click the big blue button that says “Start free trial”. This will take you to the Adobe store, where you can select which of the three plans you want for Photoshop.

Step 3. Pick a plan.

Of the three plans offered, the Photography plan (20GB) is the cheapest and best for photographers. There’s also the Photoshop plan, which is best for creatives who do not need Lightroom. Finally, the Creative Cloud All Apps plan gives you access to all Adobe apps, including Photoshop. You can get a free trial with all of them.

A summary of all three plans that offer the Photoshop free trial:

• Photoshop plan (US$20.99/month): You get Photoshop on desktop and iPad, Adobe Fresco, and 100GB of cloud storage.
• Photography plan 20GB (US$9.99/month): You get Photoshop on desktop and iPad, Lightroom on desktop and mobile, Lightroom Classic, and 20GB of cloud storage. There’s also an upgraded version, the Photography plan (1TB), for $19.99/month, which gives you all the same apps, but you get 1TB of cloud storage instead of 20GB.
• Creative Cloud All Apps 100GB (US$54.99/month): This is the most comprehensive plan that gives you access to all Adobe apps, including Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, and more, as well as 100GB of cloud storage.

All plans include free access to Behance, Adobe Fonts, Adobe Creative Community, Creative Cloud Libraries, Creative Cloud Assets, and Creative Cloud Market.

Our image guide will help you pick the right plan for your Photoshop free trial.

Step 4. Pick between being billed monthly or upfront.

Each plan has a few payment and duration options, which differ in price. The longer you subscribe, the cheaper your monthly subscription will be. Here’s a short rundown:

• Photoshop plan: Monthly for $31.49/month, Yearly Billed monthly for $20.99/month, and Yearly Billed upfront for $19.99/month.
• Photography plan (20GB): Yearly Billed monthly for $9.99/month, and Yearly Billed upfront for $9.99/month.
• Creative Cloud All Apps 100GB: Monthly for $82.49/month, Yearly Billed monthly for $54.99/month, and Yearly Billed upfront for $49.99/month.

Step 5. Create your Adobe account.

If you don’t have an Adobe account, you will need to create a new one. You can enter your email address and click “Continue”. If you already have an Adobe account, log in and continue to the next step.

Step 6. Enter your payment information.

Although you have to enter your payment information (there’s no way around it), you won’t get charged until the end of the trial. Adobe has to collect your details to prevent free trial abuse, which happened when people create multiple email addresses. Nowadays, you’re identified through your credit card.

Step 7. Download and install the Creative Cloud app.

The Creative Cloud app manages all your Adobe apps, subscriptions, and all other assets, like downloaded images, tutorials, and settings. Through this app, you can access, download, and update all your apps, as well as start new free trials and get all Adobe news.

Step 8. Download and install Photoshop from Creative Cloud.

To download Photoshop for free, create a Creative Cloud account and download the app. In the app, click the “Start free trial” button to initiate the download of Photoshop. The free trial lasts for 7 days.

How To Get Photoshop For Free As A Student?

Students can get Photoshop for free in the same way as any customer—with the free trial. The only difference is that students get a 60% discount if they continue the subscription after the trial ends. The student discount is available only when you get Photoshop with the Adobe All Apps plan, which costs $19.99/month for students instead of up to $82.49.

To get Photoshop free as a student, follow the steps for the Photoshop free trial (above), but after you create the account, you must prove that you are, in fact, a student. You qualify for a student discount if you’re a part of any of the following:

• University or college
• Primary or secondary school
• Homeschool

To get a discount, you must prove that you’re a student. You can provide any of the following:

• A document with your name, institution name, and current date.
• Use a school-issued email address.
• Proof of purchase of the curriculum.

Read more on the official Adobe site. After your trial, you will pay only $19.99/month for all apps for the first year and $29.99/month afterward.

Benefits of Using Photoshop

Although you can get good free alternatives, like Inkscape, Gimp, or Photopea, or budget options, like Canva or Adobe Express, none measure up to Photoshop’s power. It has hundreds of advanced tools, with several new ones added yearly and old ones updated and replaced with neural networks. These give you unique editing capabilities that you can’t get without Photoshop.

A basic understanding of Photoshop is a must for any aspiring designer, photographer, or creative because Photoshop is the gold standard for image editing and graphic design. So even if you can get 7 days of experience (for free), it’s better than nothing. However, we recommend you keep the subscription for at least a year, just in case the job you are applying for requires Photoshop experience, which is quite common nowadays.

It’s also ideal for solopreneurs who can create professional graphics for a meager price of $9.99 per month instead of hiring an expensive graphic design service. If you’re not a pro, you can get free (or paid) templates created by pros and tweak them to match your project and branding.

There are many reasons why you should consider using Photoshop. Here are just some of them:

1. Edit photos and videos with ease.
2. Manipulate photos into different shapes and sizes.
3. Add text and other elements to the pictures.
4. Make designs and logos.
5. You can create digital artwork, professional presentations, video effects, websites, and illustrations.
6. You can enhance your photographs.
7. Create videos, animated GIF files, photo collages, stickers, custom backgrounds, posters, and book covers.
8. The latest versions include Content-Aware Fill, a must for any photo manipulation.

Is Photoshop free?

In short, yes. Photoshop is free, but only for a week with the Adobe Photoshop free trial. After the trial expires, you can keep using Photoshop if you pay the subscription fee. Photoshop costs $9.99/mo; you get it bundled with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, several other Adobe apps, and 20GB—1TB of cloud storage.

What exactly is involved with the Adobe Photoshop free trial? You get access to the whole app for a full week, including all of its latest features and upgrades. This way, you get a first-hand experience of the subscription. It helps you determine whether it’s the perfect photo editor for your needs.

What To Pay Attention To

1. Fake credit card scams

Some guides and websites claim that you do not need to provide your credit card information to get the Adobe Photoshop trial or that you can use a fake credit card. First, Adobe requires that you provide your credit card information to prevent people from creating multiple email accounts to get infinite free trials.

Secondly, using fake credit cards is considered fraud because, before you start the free trial, you agree to the terms and conditions, which state that you are not allowed to provide false information.

2. 30-day free trial

More than a year ago, Adobe shortened the trial period for Photoshop from 30 to 7 days. Although this change was made some time ago, many tutorials have not yet been updated. Also, several clickbait websites advertise the 30-day trial in hopes of scamming you.

3. Pirated versions

The pirated version of Photoshop is one of the most searched topics on the Internet. But people who use pirated versions of Photoshop risk their security and compromise the security of their systems. A pirated version of Photoshop is not only risky, but it also limits your creative potential and can even lead to some really frustrating problems when using the program.

How to cancel Photoshop’s free trial?

If you don’t like Adobe Photoshop CC for image editing, you can cancel the free trial anytime within 7 days. You can do it one minute before it expires, and you won’t be charged.

1. Sign in to your Adobe account.
2. Select Manage plan or View plan for the plan you want to cancel.
3. Select Cancel plan (sometimes also Cancel your plan).
4. Pick the reason for canceling the trial.
5. Select Continue.

The best free Photoshop alternative

1. GIMP

My best free Photoshop image editing alternative is GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). This program has many professional-quality tools for editing images and creating creative artwork from the start. GIMP contains layers, brushes, filters, automatic image enhancement capabilities, and compatibility with a wide range of plugins (some pre-installed and others available to download separately).

Its robust contributor community ensures that it is always in development and any flaws are addressed quickly. It all adds to a genuinely excellent free picture editor that outperforms many paid products.

Pros

• Not the best interface.
• Many menus.
• Poor compatibility with Adobe files.

Cons

• Open-source.
• Lots of community-made plugins.
• Highly similar to Photoshop.

2. Photopea

Photopea is an application I recommend to those who are just starting to explore their artistic side and want to use Photoshop but don’t have the bucks. It’s free and allows you access to some of the capabilities featured in the standard Photoshop application. The UI is basic, straightforward, and useful for people just starting.

The most significant disadvantage of using this program is that you cannot close out projects to begin new ones in the same session since it does not save when you leave. It would periodically glitch and everything would be lost, making it more difficult to do anything than usual. If you need to use it for business, I recommend doing it elsewhere because this isn’t professional editing software.

Pros

• It’s a Photoshop copy.
• Totally free.
• Available online without downloading.

Cons

• Doesn’t save.
• Only an online version.
• Not as good as Photoshop.

3. Colorcinch

Colorcinch is simple to use and lets users perform basic modifications such as cropping, altering exposure, vibrance, and colors, as well as adding vignettes and doodles. A paid subscription is required to add text or drawings to your photographs.

These tools help you bring out your inner creative genius (or, at the very least, reduce the number of hours you spend messing around with Photoshop effects!). If you believe it’s interfering too much, the helpful card with brief instructions will assist you—but it can be turned off if it bothers you.

Pros

• Simple to use for basic edits.
• AI tools.
• More than 2 million images.

Cons

• Some tools are limited to the paid version only.

FAQ

Is there a free version of Photoshop?

Adobe offers a free version of Photoshop to anyone who applies for the free trial. Adobe Photoshop free trial lasts for a 7-day trial. After it expires, you pay $9.99/month. If you cancel before the trial ends, you pay nothing.

How to install Photoshop on mac for free?

Follow the steps from the step-by-step guide on how to get Photoshop for free I created above. The steps to get Photoshop for free are the same for Windows 10 and Mac.

How to get Photoshop for free permanently?

The only way to get Photoshop for free permanently is via illegal methods, which I don’t recommend. Cracked files are usually outdated because they are several months or years old and can also contain malware. Instead, $9.99/month is a low price for original software with all the latest updates.

Does Photoshop have a free trial?

You can get a Photoshop free trial for seven days. It grants you full access to the app, including all features, updates, and the latest version of Photoshop. If you don’t renew the service after 7 days, you lose access to all Photoshop tools.

How to make Photoshop free trial last forever?

Unless it’s granted to you by Adobe, you cannot legally make the Photoshop free trial last forever.

Can I install previous Creative Cloud versions?

Yes. Adobe archives older versions of the Creative Cloud application. You can download and install the archives version, if necessary, for any reason, like incompatibility.

How long is Photoshop free trial?

Your free trial of Photoshop begins when you check out and lasts for seven days. The trial will automatically turn into a paid Creative Cloud membership after seven days unless you cancel before it ends. The free trial does not last for a set number of hours but for seven days starting from the day you sign up. For instance, if you sign up at 2:00 PM on Monday, your free trial will end at 11:59 PM on the following Sunday, not at 2:00 PM on the following Monday.

Summary

Photoshop is the most popular photo editing software used by millions of people worldwide—I use it too. A Photoshop demo is the best way to decide whether you want to pay a monthly subscription for this program.

Whether you choose to keep it or not, you won’t have to pay for the free trial. These 7 days are completely free. Also, you won’t be charged for the free trial if you cancel it within the time frame. That is before it expires after 7 days.

About your guide

Matic Broz

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Matic Broz is a photographer, graphic designer, and stock photographer. For over ten years he's been helping photographers improve their photos and graphic designers find the best images for their designs. His work has been featured by Lifewire, Skylum, and PetaPixel. In his free time, he enjoys photography, hiking, and petting random dogs. Read more

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