AI
Someone used AI to clone Photoshop, for free. Can you cancel Adobe yet?
A project called ArtCraft is building free copies of seven Adobe apps, from Photoshop to InDesign, and the first one already opens real Photoshop files. Brandon Thomas, the developer most news sites name, says he wrote them with the AI model Claude Opus 5.5. They’re early test versions, and whether they’re legal is still an open question.
Sources: Gizmodo, 7 October 2026, Futurism, 8 October 2026.
Published 7 October 2026, updated 13 October 2026.
How good are they?
PhotoCraft (Photoshop) and PdfCraft (Acrobat) are early test versions; the other five are still in development. A Gizmodo reporter wrote that PhotoCraft "feels like using glitchy, but real, Photoshop". Thomas himself says the apps are "not anywhere close to ready".
PhotoCraft has 54,048 stars on GitHub, the site where developers share code (13 October 2026). It’s released under the MIT or Apache 2.0 licence.
Sources: ArtCraft apps page, storytold/photocraft on GitHub, Hacker News (checked 13 October 2026).
Is it legal?
No court has ruled. The project says it wrote new code only from descriptions of what Adobe’s apps do, with no Adobe code. Adobe’s terms forbid watching what goes into and out of an app "in order to recreate that system".
Technology law writer Andres Guadamuz thinks the project "may be on the right side of the law in the US", but would be surprised if Adobe didn’t challenge it. So far (13 October 2026), we’ve found no public statement from Adobe.
Sources: Adobe General Terms of Use, section 17, TechnoLlama, 9 October 2026. General information, not legal advice.
Why it hit a nerve
Thomas has named Adobe’s cancellation fee as one reason he started. In March 2026 Adobe agreed to a proposed $150 million settlement with the US government, which says Adobe hid fees for cancelling early and made cancelling hard. It takes effect only if the court accepts it.
Want to try it?
Download it only from the project’s own GitHub page and test it on copies of your files, away from client work. Keep real jobs in Adobe for now: clients and printers expect those files.
If you pay a big subscription for one small job, like bookings or quotes, a small tool of your own can replace it. It’s the kind of tool we build for clients, at a fixed price agreed after the first meeting.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers
Yes. They’re open source and free to download, use and change, on Mac, Windows or Linux.
The project says it opens, edits and saves layered Photoshop files, in PSD and the larger PSB format.
Your renewal date, the notice period and any fee for cancelling early, and how to export your files in formats you can still open once the plan ends.
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