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What Is Photoshop Used For?
Photoshop stands unmatched in the realm of photo, graphic and video editing software. Explore the reasons and methods for leveraging Photoshop to benefit your business.
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Since its public launch in 1990, Photoshop has grown from a Macintosh-only software to the industry standard of graphics editors. The Adobe Creative Suite offering is used by novice and professional artists alike to create images, graphics and 3D artwork, and its name has even become part of the common parlance (for example, “photoshopping a picture”).
But why exactly has Adobe’s graphic design software become and remained such a dominant force? Below, we explore the benefits of Photoshop, why the product is so popular, how to use it for your business and alternative software options.
What is Photoshop?
Photoshop is an all-in-one graphic design tool that includes a variety of drawing, editing and producing features, such as:
- Content-aware fills to change the color of drawn lines
- Retouching and remixing tools to level up your photography
- Hundreds of brushes for unique digital calligraphy
- Quick-click selections and shape tools
- Collaborative functions to share designs with a team
As Clinton Gorham, founder of The Gorham Agency, pointed out, Photoshop was — and still is — a pioneer of the graphic design industry. “For a lot of us, [Photoshop] was the design world,” explained Gorham. “When I started school back in 2007, it was the only software the instructors even mentioned.”
This, he said, led to an entire generation of creatives with a deep knowledge of the platform. “Whether I am freelancing, collaborating with a team or jumping into a contract role, I never have to worry about compatibility. Everyone is speaking the same creative language,” Gorham added.
More than 37 million people around the world are paid subscribers to Adobe Creative, according to ProDesignTools. Starting at $19.99 per month for individual plans, a Photoshop subscription includes the software for desktop, iPad and web, Lightroom and 1TB of cloud storage.
“Adobe’s subscription model ensures users always have access to the latest features, updates and even beta tools, making it easier to stay at the forefront of innovation,” noted Brittany Chase, senior project manager at HFA Architecture + Engineering.
What is Photoshop used for in business?
There are so many ways to use Photoshop for your business, even if you don’t have a professional designer on your team. The only limitation is your imagination. “[Photoshop’s] roots lie in retouching, editing and comprehensive image management, but the program has grown to enable creating art from scratch as well,” said Jeroen Bours, founder and CEO of darling advertising and design.
Below are some of the most common business use cases for Photoshop.
Social media graphics
Businesses often use Photoshop to create eye-catching graphics and GIFs to share in social media campaigns. The tool’s customizable canvas sizes and easy exports let users convert artboards to JPEG format before sharing on social platforms. Photoshop also enables users to create social graphics from photos or draw on a blank canvas with shapes, brushes and pens. [Are you editing JPEG photos? Learn how to compress JPEG images.]
Video editing
Video marketing should be a key part of your web content strategy, and Photoshop makes it easy for even novices to get started. While not a full-featured video editor like Adobe Premiere Pro, it’s a great tool for the basics, including:
- Editing video and animation layers
- Creating frame animations
- Creating images for videos
- Adjusting audio tracks
- Including video transitions
- Applying filters to video layers
Users can export their edited videos in three different formats: Digital Picture Exchange (DPX), H.264 (MPEG-4) and QuickTime (MOV). [Learn more about growing your brand with video.]
Other visual marketing materials
Unified visuals on social media, direct mail and in-store signage are important for a consistent brand image. Photoshop makes it easy to ensure that posters, web graphics, images, email marketing campaigns and printed materials all follow the same style guidelines. With a set palette and fonts, designers can seamlessly apply the same style to different projects. Newer users can employ basic Photoshop skills or leverage templates and presets to create flyers, postcards, brochures, web pages, signage and business cards.
What are the benefits of using Photoshop?
No matter your industry, your business can likely benefit from using Photoshop. Here are just a few advantages:
- Complete creative control. Photoshop gives you the ability to create photos, graphics and more to fit your brand’s specific needs. With style presets, creating consistent brand assets is easy. Photoshop invites collaboration, ensuring accessibility to every designer on your team.
- Versatility of file types. While PSD is the master file type, Photoshop can work with and export numerous types of photos (JPEG, TIFF, WebP and PNG), videos (GIF, MOV, DPX and MPEG-4) and documents (PDF).
- Fast editing process. Photoshop allows you to edit images in a fast and efficient environment. The software also has preset filters, brushes and layers to expedite retouching. These beginner-friendly tools can help streamline the editing process, especially as your skill level grows.
- A wealth of available tutorials and resources. You can learn Photoshop in a formal or informal environment. Many colleges and universities throughout the United States offer Photoshop courses, but there are also many online resources that can help you learn this software, including Adobe Learn, Udemy, Alison, LinkedIn Learning and PhotoshopCAFE.
Photoshop’s generative artificial intelligence capabilities
Powered by Adobe Firefly, Photoshop has introduced generative AI tools that allow users to easily create and customize content. These tools make it simple for designers to add, remove or alter elements, including changing entire background images, to craft the perfect product in less time.
“Adobe has consistently embraced new technology — not as a replacement for creatives, but as a way to empower them,” Chase explained. “Rather than handing over control to AI, Photoshop keeps the artist at the center, offering tools that refine and enhance the creative process.”
Key features include:
- Refine Hair: Reduces the manual effort needed to edit hair in photos.
- Generative Expand: Lets you extend the size of images beyond their original dimensions.
- Generative Fill: Allows you to add new content to an image by selecting where you’d like to add an element, then describing it for the program to generate.
- Match Font: Detects fonts in an image and suggests similar options.
- Preserve Details 2.0: Maintains image quality when resizing.
- Curvature Pen: Makes it easier to draw smooth, editable curves.
Adobe continues to expand Photoshop’s capabilities with new features and improvements to existing ones. For example, the updated Actions panel — in beta as of May 2025 — can interpret natural language to make edits and even make tailored suggestions to existing images.
Reilly Newman, brand strategist and founder of Motif Brands, advised anyone planning to use Photoshop for their business to take the time to learn the ins and outs of it and to keep up with the latest updates. “It’s like playing guitar: You never ‘finish’ learning; you just continue to refine how you use it and learn new ways to play it,” Newman said. “Especially as technology continues to advance rapidly, you’ll be able to integrate many benefits into your workflow and creativity, thanks to a powerhouse like Photoshop.”
What are the alternatives to Photoshop?
Despite Photoshop’s dominance in the marketplace, other photo editing options are available, including:
Affinity Photo
Although Affinity Photo lacks built-in support for marketing materials, it is the closest alternative to Photoshop for professional designers and photographers. While using Photoshop requires a subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, Affinity Photo comes with a lower, one-time cost and includes many of the same tools. The software, available on both Mac and Windows operating systems, has a separate version for iPad devices but not for Android devices.
Canva
With a drag-and-drop interface, predesigned templates and AI-powered tools, Canva is an accessible and robust online design platform made with non-design professionals in mind. Katria Farmer, co-founder and creative director at Little Dipper Interactive, noted that Photoshop’s steep learning curve and complexity could be a barrier to entry for non-design professionals.
“Being a small business owner means you have to wear an infinite number of hats,” Farmer said. “[Photoshop can be] overwhelming, especially for those who [aren’t] tech savvy. For them, I recommend Canva. It’s an easy, visual point-and-click service that’s cheaper and also gives them easy-to-use templates.”
ChatGPT
Creating graphics in ChatGPT once required the use of DALL-E, an integrated image generation tool. However, as of March 2025, you can now create images directly in ChatGPT using the platform’s 4o model. From realistic interpretations to illustrations of animals and objects with human characteristics, this technology can generate a variety of images and art from scratch as well as modify existing images through different transformations .
GIMP
GIMP is a free Photoshop competitor with open-source functionality for Linux, Windows and Mac users. It includes features similar to Photoshop’s, such as painting, color correction/retouching, selection functions and the ability to work with different file formats. While GIMP receives constant improvements as open-source software, users may encounter software lags and a steeper learning curve.
Midjourney
Midjourney is a subscription-based generative AI tool that uses diffusion technology to turn text descriptions into images within seconds. Unlike many traditional photo creation tools, the program is accessible straight from your phone or computer’s browser and it can be run without any additional hardware or software. It generates up to 15 images per day available for both personal and commercial use, thanks to its free licensing.
Procreate
Often referred to as the best Photoshop alternative for iPads, Procreate is low-cost and has an intuitive user interface, making it a great choice for designers looking to do digital painting on the go. However, Procreate operates on iOS only and doesn’t include Photoshop’s full suite of functions.
Sketch
Sketch is a vector graphics application built for user interface and experience (UI/UX) design. It includes features like infinite zoom, layers, gradients and style presets, thanks to community-created Sketch plugins. However, Sketch is available only to Mac users.
Sean Peek contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.
