Can Free AI Clones Really Replace Photoshop? I Put LightCraft and PhotoCraft to the Test

For years, Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop have held a near-monopoly on high-end image editing. Frustrated creators have complained endlessly about non-negotiable subscription fees, but traditional free or pay-once alternatives never quite matched Adobe’s raw technical power or fluid user experience. ArtCraft, a new challenger, is taking a bold approach with its collection of open-source, vibecoded apps that aim to exactly replicate the look and tools of Adobe’s programs. I downloaded the Lightroom and Photoshop clones, LightCraft and PhotoCraft, to see if these AI bootlegs can actually replace the real deal.

How AI Built an Entire Adobe Suite Overnight

ArtCraft’s Adobe clones burst onto the scene this month. And when I say clones, I mean it: LightCraft and PhotoCraft look just like the Adobe versions. All of the tools are in the same place, the keyboard shortcuts match up, and the menus are similar. If you’re asking yourself how the heck this is possible, I don’t blame you—Adobe has invested an unfathomable amount of money to create its software, to say nothing of the hours its development team has put in, and the required brainpower to dream up the software in the first place.

So, how did ArtCraft pull this off? If you guessed “AI,” well, you’re right. If you haven’t been following AI lately, the technology has moved from a fun way to create meme photos to a serious software development tool in a seeming blink of an eye. My colleague Ruben Circelli spoke with ArtCraft’s founder, Brandon Thomas, for an upcoming story to learn how he built the software, starting with PhotoCraft.

In simplified terms, Thomas used his existing knowledge of Photoshop to lay the foundation for PhotoCraft in an AI model, and then instructed the AI to build the front end based on tutorials it had already seen, as well as screenshots of the interface. A group of volunteers helped to create LightCraft and the other apps in the ArtCraft suite using the same method. This approach effectively enables a small team to reproduce years of development effort with far fewer resources.

Is this legal? According to a lawyer Circelli spoke with, Thomas Dunlap, reverse engineering software is generally legal in the United States. Courts have treated it as fair use for decades. But that protection only covers copyright, he said. It does not excuse breaking a license agreement, infringing a patent, or copying a product’s name or look.

The Ethics of Sticking It to Adobe

Is it ethical? That’s up to you to decide. If you ask me, the answer is clear: No way. The whole thing just feels icky, in a nebulous area between plagiarism and piracy. And while it annoys me that Adobe forces photographers into a subscription model (roughly $120 a year for the Lightroom bundle or $240 if you also want Photoshop), AI-powered piracy is just as bad. Still, those are my scruples, and others who’ve embraced AI as a tool to create art might not feel so bad about using ArtCraft to save some money, and yes, to stick it to the man.

LightCraft and PhotoCraft, as you might have guessed, are free to download and use on macOS and Windows. But if you want to generate AI images and videos, you need to buy credits, with plans starting at $8 a month.

Pricing aside, the more important question, of course, is whether these apps can keep up with the real ones.

PhotoCraft: Up to 90% of Photoshop’s Power for $0

Photoshop clones are nothing new; many paid apps and some free and open-source ones let you edit images at a pixel level, add filters or text, create adjustment layers, and perform basic tasks like resizing and color mixing. The difference, of course, is how quickly ArtCraft created PhotoCraft and how closely it mirrors the real thing.

I’m pretty happy with PhotoCraft. It’s fast and even offered to import my custom Photoshop keyboard shortcuts when I installed it. It handles the basics with flying colors, and even matches Photoshop’s output when using stylized filters, such as the Oil Paint effect. It also supports CMYK color, a must-have feature for publishing that competitors such as CyberLink PhotoDirector omit, and nondestructive adjustment layers, which Adobe includes in the full Photoshop app but not in the more consumer-friendly Photoshop Elements.

I won’t blame you if you took a look at this interface and assumed it was Photoshop—it’s PhotoCraft. The latter’s control panels match up with Photoshop’s almost exactly. (Credit: ArtCraft/PCMag)

One thing I noticed during testing is that PhotoCraft is not as good as Photoshop at identifying subjects for selection. For example, when I tried to apply an automatic mask to remove a background behind my black-and-white tuxedo cat, PhotoCraft picked up only the white parts of her fur, whereas Photoshop selected her entire body. PhotoCraft’s automatic masking tool is about as good as Photoshop’s was back in pre-Creative Cloud days. If you’re old enough to have used CS6, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Still, I was able to make a couple of selections to overcome the challenge, and PhotoCraft handled less challenging subjects (such as a water lily photo that I turned into an oil painting) with ease.

LightCraft (left) struggled with automatic masking this photo of my cat, while Photoshop (right) picked her out from the background. (Credit: ArtCraft/Adobe/PCMag)

So, what’s not here? PhotoCraft doesn’t have a Firefly-powered generative AI prompt, canvas expansion, reflection removal, or similar AI-driven tools, and when you dive deeper into its panels, you’ll notice that things are missing. For instance, Photoshop offers more swatches for adding some texture to a photo or making the background of an announcement flyer more visually interesting. It also includes preset filters that can change color tones with a single click—sure, you can give a photo a saturated look or sepia tone in LightCraft, but you’ll need to go through some extra steps to get there versus in Photoshop.

I won’t pretend to be an expert on everything Photoshop can do—it’s the 500-pound gorilla in the room because its feature set includes everything. But after some time tooling around in the menus with both apps open side by side, I’d estimate that PhotoCraft can do about 80 to 90% of what Photoshop does. If you’re considering it as an option for your workflow, it’s worth loading it up and checking whether it can handle your regular tasks.

LightCraft: Close Enough for Hobbyists, Rough for Pros

Although Photoshop clones have been around for ages, fewer apps have tried to imitate Adobe Lightroom. Part of this comes down to the audience. Photoshop has broad appeal for all types of imaging work, from photo editing to graphic design, while Lightroom is specifically for photographers who use a Raw file format with their digital cameras. I like to describe it as a workflow app for shutterbugs who enjoy photography as a hobby and pros who earn their living covering corporate and life events.

No, this isn’t Lightroom, but LightCraft’s interface is a nearly perfect copy. (Credit: ArtCraft/PCMag)

Lightroom is one of two photo workflow apps from Adobe; the other is Lightroom Classic, its predecessor. The two are similar in function, but have different interfaces and approaches to storage. For instance, Lightroom has a single-screen interface and pushes you to upload your images to the cloud, while Classic segments its user experience into multiple modules and works best with local image libraries. In true Adobe fashion, you have some flexibility with both; Lightroom supports local editing, and Classic can sync photos to the cloud.

LightCraft is based on the non-Classic Lightroom, with the huge exception that it doesn’t provide cloud storage. Another minor difference is that LightCraft omits Adobe’s AI Sharpen tool and instead requires you to manually install an ONXX model for AI Denoise to work. It’s also missing many of Adobe’s lens correction profiles. I spot-checked a dozen or so camera-and-lens combinations from my library, and most don’t have a profile, so you’ll have to rely on manual slider adjustments to correct barrel and pincushion distortion. You will also likely have to learn to live with some imperfections in photos you take with ultra-wide zooms that show more complex geometric distortion patterns. LightCraft also skips Camera Matching color profiles, an Adobe feature that lets you use the same looks built into your camera’s JPG engine for Raw-format photos.

LightCraft (left) doesn’t do as good a job of removing color noise and preserving color detail from this ISO 51200 test image as Lightroom (right). (Credit: Jim Fisher)

Still, that’s not a lot to give up. You get all the other tools to adjust color and exposure and add effects. The tools don’t work quite as well as Adobe’s, however. LightCraft’s noise reduction engine, for example, did a worse job of removing color noise from high-ISO images. LightCraft handled test images from the full-frame Sony RX1R III up through ISO 3200 well, but Lightroom is more adept at removing splotchy color noise and preserving fidelity in the ISO 6400-51200 range.

Recommended by Our Editors

LightCraft also shows a little less fine detail in images and renders colors differently than I’m used to seeing in Lightroom—granted, both are manageable issues. A tweak to color temperature and tint gets the results closer to Lightroom’s, and a little bit of added Clarity makes up for the mismatch in detail. Other differences are more aesthetic. LightCraft copies Adobe’s Grain simulation, for instance, but delivers results that are on the rough side (think of a high-ASA film stock) even after you dial the size and roughness sliders all the way down. Lightroom is capable of creating a fine-grain effect that gives digital images an analog aesthetic, without overwhelming the scene.

I used the same grain setings (50/25/25 on the sliders) for this image in LightCraft (left) and Lightroom (right), but LightCraft’s grain is rougher and heavier than Lightroom’s. (Credit: Jim Fisher)

Overall, my complaints are fairly minor. LightCraft is good enough that I’d recommend it to hobbyists who’ve soured on Adobe’s pricing. The familiar interface is a big plus for anyone moving over, and it’s easy enough to import your photos. I brought in my 2026 image folder (approximately 17,000 photos) in about 15 minutes, for reference. If you’re already using Lightroom for local edits, LightCraft will read its XMP sidecar files and apply the edits you’ve made to images with its engine. If you use Classic or store images in the Adobe cloud, you’ll need to take a few extra steps to generate the sidecar files with your edits.

Why I’m Keeping My Creative Cloud Subscription

I’m pleasantly surprised by just how close ArtCraft’s LightCraft and PhotoCraft recreate their Adobe counterparts. First and foremost, they nail the interface, so there’s no learning curve for existing users. And while some of their tools don’t quite match up with what you get from the real apps, the results are good enough to keep independent creators happy.

If you rely on Adobe apps to earn a living, however, I’d take a beat before jumping in whole hog. It might be tempting to trim $20 from your monthly overhead, but keep in mind that not every tool works as well as Adobe’s.

I’m not so sure the question about using the ArtCraft apps comes down to how they perform, so much as whether they are ethical. Are you comfortable supporting a company that is, for all intents and purposes, stealing from Adobe? I won’t argue if you view ArtCraft as a modern-day Robin Hood. After all, it’s easy to point to Adobe’s coffers and current valuation of around $95 billion. Starving artists might feel that it’s defensible to take away something from the rich.

Creators who are vehemently against AI will likely come down on the other side of the fence. Many of us want another option, but not one that stretches ethical boundaries.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if you’re OK using AI knock-off apps to support your creativity. In spite of my dissatisfaction with Adobe’s pay-per-month model, I’m a hard no on this one, as I count myself as part of the anti-AI crowd when it comes to creative work. But it’s not my place to impose my ethos on you, and if you’re looking for a free solution that can keep up with Adobe’s paid apps, ArtCraft gets the job done.