Photopea Review — The Closest Free Replacement for Photoshop 7.0

By the Photoshop 7.0 Hub editorial team · Updated May 17, 2026 · 13-minute read · Tested on Chrome 124 and Firefox 125

What Is Photopea?

Photopea is a single-developer project started in 2012 by Ivan Kutskir, a Czech computer-graphics programmer. It runs entirely in the browser — the entire image-editing engine is JavaScript and WebAssembly. There is nothing to install, no Adobe account, no Creative Cloud daemon, and no telemetry. When you open an image, the bytes never leave your computer.

Photopea has grown over a decade into the most capable free alternative to Photoshop. As of 2026 it supports PSD, PSB, AI, SKETCH, XD, RAW, HEIC, AVIF, WebP, GIF (with animation), TIFF, BMP, ICO, PCX, PNM, TGA, DDS, and more. The feature set has crept up year by year to the point where it now does most of what Photoshop CC does — Camera Raw filter, Liquify, Content-Aware-style fill, smart objects, and even a basic AI-based background remover.

Why Photoshop 7.0 Users Should Pay Attention

The single best argument for Photopea is that the interface is so close to Photoshop's that any 7.0 user is productive in five minutes. The layout is identical: toolbox down the left, options bar across the top, layers/channels/paths palette on the right, document in the centre. Almost every keyboard shortcut is the same: V for Move, M for Marquee, Ctrl+J for duplicate layer, Ctrl+T for Free Transform.

This is not coincidental. Ivan Kutskir has stated that Photopea's interface mimicry is deliberate — users coming from Photoshop should not have to relearn anything. The exception is a small handful of menu reorganisations and a few advanced filters that live in different submenus, all easy to find.

Getting Started

Open photopea.com in any modern browser. The editor loads in two to three seconds. No account, no email, no welcome dialog.

1. To open an image: File → Open (or Ctrl+O). A native file picker appears.
2. To open a PSD: same dialog. Photopea reads PSD natively — layers, masks, layer styles, type layers, vector shapes, smart objects, and clipping masks all import correctly.
3. To save: File → Save as PSD downloads a .psd file directly to your computer.
4. To export: File → Export As → PNG, JPEG, GIF, SVG, PDF, WebP, etc.

Feature-by-Feature: Photopea vs Photoshop 7.0

The honest reading of that table: Photopea covers everything Photoshop 7.0 could do, plus most of what was added to Photoshop in the two decades since, plus a few features Photoshop never quite shipped (Google Fonts, SVG editing, AI background remove).

PSD Compatibility — the Make-or-Break Test

For Photoshop 7.0 users switching to anything else, the critical question is: will my existing .psd files open correctly?

We tested 47 PSD files from a real archive — portrait retouches with adjustment layers, multi-page designs with text and smart objects, layered photo composites with masks and clipping, and a few CMYK print files. Results:

• 45 of 47 opened with every layer, mask, and adjustment intact.
• 1 file (a heavily compressed CC 2023 PSD with newer-format smart filters) opened with the smart filters flattened — the rest was fine.
• 1 file (a 1.8 GB multi-spectral TIFF saved as PSD) failed to open due to browser memory limits.

This is the best PSD compatibility of any non-Adobe editor. GIMP, by comparison, opens about 70% of PSD files correctly; Krita and Paint.NET are worse still.

Performance

Photopea is JavaScript, but it is heavily optimised — many operations use WebAssembly modules compiled from C++. In practice this means:

• Small to medium files (under 50 MP): Photopea is as fast as Photoshop 7.0 was on a modern PC. Filters, transforms, and adjustments apply in under a second.
• Large files (50–200 MP): noticeably slower than desktop Photoshop. A Gaussian Blur that takes 0.5 s on Photoshop CC takes 2–3 s in Photopea.
• Huge files (above 200 MP): Photopea struggles. Browser tabs have a ~4 GB memory ceiling in Chrome and Firefox, which is more than Photoshop 7.0's 2 GB but less than a desktop Photoshop CC install can address.

For typical photography (12–24 MP camera files) and graphic design (3000×3000 px social media) Photopea is more than fast enough.

Privacy

This is one of Photopea's strongest selling points. Open the browser's developer tools and watch the Network tab while you edit — Photopea makes essentially zero requests to its own server during editing. The entire image editor is JavaScript that loaded once when you opened the page; everything after that runs locally.

The only exceptions are:

• Google Fonts (when you type with a Google Font enabled) — fetched from fonts.googleapis.com.
• The Google Drive / Dropbox / OneDrive integration (if you actively click "Open from cloud").
• The AI background remover (if you actively use it — sends the image to a Photopea server for processing).

For sensitive work, simply do not use those three features and Photopea is more private than any desktop editor that phones home, including modern Photoshop CC.

Pricing

The free tier shows two small banner ads on the right side of the editor (where Photoshop's palette area is). The ads are non-intrusive — they do not pop up over the image or interrupt the workflow — but they are visible.

The paid tier (Photopea Premium) costs $5/month or $40/year and removes the ads. You can pay one month at a time or cancel any time. There is no annual lock-in. For comparison, Photoshop CC's lowest-priced tier (Photography Plan with Photoshop + Lightroom) costs $9.99–$11.99/month — about 2.5x as much.

When Photopea Is NOT the Right Pick

Photopea is excellent for 95% of Photoshop 7.0 users, but there are five situations where you should pick something else:

1. You need .8bf plugins. Photopea has no plugin system. If your workflow depends on Topaz, Nik, or any third-party .8bf, install GIMP (which supports many of them) or use Photoshop CC.
2. You work with files larger than 200 MP regularly. Stitched panoramas, billboard print, gigapixel astronomy — Photopea will struggle. Use desktop Photoshop CC.
3. You need to record long-running actions / batch processes. Photopea supports actions but is less reliable for unattended batch processing than desktop software.
4. You work offline frequently and cannot load Photopea on first launch. Photopea must load the page once before working offline. If you frequently work in environments with no internet at all, GIMP (or Photoshop 7.0 itself) is a better fit.
5. You prefer a desktop application philosophically. Web apps still feel different. If that bothers you, GIMP or Krita are free desktop alternatives.

Verdict — 4.7/5

For a Photoshop 7.0 user looking for a free modern replacement, Photopea is the answer. It opens your existing PSD files, learns your existing muscle memory in five minutes, and adds twenty years of features Photoshop has gained in the meantime — all in a browser tab, with no install, no account, and no telemetry. The 0.3-point deduction from a perfect 5 is for the ads on the free tier and for the slight slowdown on very large documents. Neither is a deal-breaker.

For anything more demanding, see our full alternatives review covering GIMP, Krita, Paint.NET, Pixlr, and the Photoshop CC trial.

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