PhotoCraft

PhotoCraft is an image editor for photographers and designers working with layered PSD files, masks, editable text and color adjustments.

Familiar image editing, without a complete Photoshop replacement

PhotoCraft is a standalone application from the ArtCraft team. Its tools and panels follow a Photoshop-style workflow: open an image, place text and other elements on layers, make a selection, apply a masked adjustment, and export the result. The official interface image shows that workflow on Hokusai's The Great Wave, with separate title, credit, caption-card, Curves and Vibrance layers. This is the developer's example, not a Seailife editing test.

The project describes itself as early alpha. Familiar menus and a long tool list are useful starting points, but the team explicitly says it is not yet a Photoshop replacement for daily professional work. AI and generative features, missing tools, typography depth, professional workflows and plug-in compatibility remain important gaps. Start with a copy of a small document before considering a production migration.

Keep changes on layers

• Adjust color without replacing the original pixels: Curves, Levels, Vibrance and Hue/Saturation can live on adjustment layers, be reordered or disabled, and be restricted to an area with a mask.
• Build captions and artwork: point and paragraph text remain editable, while shape layers, pen paths, gradients and strokes provide vector elements inside a raster document.
• Separate a subject from its surroundings: manual selections, Quick Selection, Object Selection and Select Subject can become layer masks. The repository says smart selection runs on the device.
• Retain editable effects: layer styles include shadows, glows and strokes, and filters applied to smart objects can be edited, hidden, reordered or masked.
• Prepare an export: Export As exposes format, quality, transparency and scale with a preview and file-size estimate. Quick Export provides a PNG path for a finished flat image.

The difference between a layered working document and a final export matters. A flattened PNG is easy to share, while a PSD keeps elements available for later edits. Exporting a higher-bit-depth document to an 8-bit format reduces its sample depth; PhotoCraft's format documentation describes warnings for that conversion.

What the PSD tests establish

The repository's PSD section separates two kinds of round trip. Its standalone PSD parser and writer can preserve parseable test files byte for byte. Opening a file in the application and saving it through the document model rewrites image resources, layer records and the composite, so that saved file is not byte-identical to the original.

For the application workflow, the developers report matching rendered results after re-saving 307 of 309 files in the psd-tools set and 169 of 170 files in a mixed test set. Those are results from named developer test corpora, not a compatibility rate for every Photoshop document. The website's smaller byte-round-trip headline describes a different test claim; it should not be treated as proof that editing every PSD is lossless.

PSD and large-document PSB support includes layered documents and higher bit depths. RGB, CMYK, Lab and Grayscale documents, ICC profiles and soft proofing are documented too. If your work depends on a particular font, adjustment, smart object or plug-in, inspect that part of your own document after opening, saving and reopening it.

Other files are not all two-way formats

• OpenRaster can be read and written with layers, groups and blend modes. Krita and Paint.NET documents have documented import support, with their own supported element lists.
• Affinity documents open read-only. Unsupported effects, adjustments and other elements are reported in a warning, and exporting back to Affinity is unavailable.
• HEIC import is included in official builds, while source builds need the optional feature. AVIF output is optional; AVIF decoding and JPEG XL are unavailable in the documented format list.

Batch edits and agent control

The same command engine is exposed through the interface, command-line tool, a local control channel and an MCP server. The official CLI example opens a PSD, applies sharpening and a Curves adjustment, then writes a PNG. A batch command applies a saved action list to a folder of images. That makes repeated edits a distinct use case alongside manual retouching.

These interfaces let scripts and agents operate the editor; they do not establish the quality of an automated edit. A representative image and a reviewed output are still the useful starting point for a batch workflow.

Installation and current rough edges

The official page offers the ArtCraft Launcher for installation and updates, as well as standalone downloads. The engine and interface also compile to WebAssembly for a self-hosted browser version. The application uses MIT or Apache-2.0 licensing; bundled assets and ArtCraft branding have separate terms.

Linux users on native Wayland currently cannot open files by dropping them onto the window. The repository recommends File Open, copying and pasting an image, or running through XWayland. Along with the alpha limitations, that is a reason to try the workflow on your actual operating system before relying on it for daily work.