I think I found a good replacement for photoshop called clip paint studio. I just bought it and it's only $50 (price may vary). I was still using photoshop 6 lol but it couldn't open the most recent PSD files artists sent me. Now with this little program I can do it
well I tried GIMP, but the thing is that they don't work really well with newer PSD versions, and/or have different shortcuts. I'm too used to PS ones, for example hold down spacebar to scroll, etc.