Hi! Its been a hot minute but im getting back into making graphic/photo manipulations.

im curious what programs people use , i use affinity photo 2 ! So what program do you use and how do you like it?

im currently having a issue where im losing quality when i downsize my images so if anyone has any tips to help or prevent that id be grateful!

I cannot recommend Fire Alpaca enough. It reminds me a lot of like... 2000s era photoshop. The free version is pretty much all you need but there's a paid version on steam that's totally worth it. 

You can see the interface here: https://i.postimg.cc/X73NcZqr/image.png

Link Tree

gimp. Gimp is really good, its comparible to photoshop and other expensive programs. I used photoshop for over a decade and have a dree in design, I stopped using it as I don't support their values anymore or the issues with their generative ai, gimp handsdown is the best alternative. Gimp has a great brush tool system and making/installing/editing brushes is in my opinion, much better than ps. It's free. Theres plenty of tutorials, gradients/textures and brush resources out there. It is a learning curve at first but honestly its top tier for being free. They even have a raw edit add on, (And plenty other good ad ons) and extensions.

krita is more drawing based but its also free and good for making graphics, its just more illuistrative like fire alpaca.

here's some things i have made using gimp 

https://i.postimg.cc/bwDWpwQg/hanno-pic-1.png

https://i.postimg.cc/ZJHrrW63/ddgyxn3-83a1be83-c411-4934-b718-bb2f18eec09a.png (old but i used alot of layering and lighting)

https://i.postimg.cc/YSsSF9fh/fog-horse-pfp-bnner.png

Unfortunately my laptop is super old so i use my ipad now, I have affinity photo 2 which i did pay for and like but i used to use photoshop elements (back when it came on a disc and I got it for free when i got a drawing tablet wayyy long ago !) and gimp i also loved back in my hayday i think i also had a program called photofiltre or something along those lines too!

I use photoshop on the PC for all of my art. Unfortuantly Adobe got smart and started charging subsciptions for their program so it can be very costly. I've used GIMP before as well, but i'm spoiled and love my PS.