The usual Linux options, and their trade-offs
- GIMP is powerful but works differently from Photoshop, so muscle memory doesn't transfer and PSD support is limited.
- Krita is excellent for painting, less so for photo editing and layout.
- Photoshop under Wine can work for older versions, but installs are fragile and GPU features often don't.
If you know Photoshop and just need to get work done, a familiar layout matters more than anything else.
Why PS Online works well on Linux
PS Online runs PhotoCraft, an editor written in Rust and compiled to WebAssembly. That means:
- Same app on every OS. Your browser is the platform, so there's nothing to install, package or patch.
- Photoshop-style menus and shortcuts. Ctrl J, Ctrl T, Shift Ctrl N, Alt-click to sample: where you expect them.
- Real PSD round-trips. Open a client's PSD, change the copy, save as PSD again.
- GPU rendering through WebGPU, falling back to WebGL2.
Getting the best performance
- Use a recent Chrome, Chromium or Firefox.
- Make sure hardware acceleration is turned on in the browser settings.
- If you see a blank canvas, try the editor with WebGL2 forced.
Private and offline-friendly
All processing happens locally. Your files are read from disk and saved back to disk; nothing is uploaded. That makes PS Online a good fit for privacy-minded Linux users who'd rather not hand their images to a cloud service.