How much does Photoshop cost in the UK?

£22 a month on Adobe's annual plan billed monthly, or £263 a year in one payment, both including VAT. New subscribers may be offered a lower price for the first months.

Where does Photoshop run?

On desktop, on the web, and on iPhone and iPad.

Is Photoshop worth it just for astrophotography?

Only wholeheartedly if you will use it for other things too; otherwise you pay a monthly subscription for one part of your workflow.

What have I not tested on the Adobe Photoshop?

The Curves layer in my screenshots is still at its default, and the starless and stars-only images are exports I had already made; no star removal was run in Photoshop for this page.

Adobe Photoshop review: the slickest editor, on a subscription

Where does it rank on our leaderboard

Nine of the 16 software on my board, against price
Rank	Software	Stars for Your Buck	Recorded UK price
1	Stellarium	100 out of 100	Free
2	NINA	98 out of 100	Free
3	SharpCap	97 out of 100	£14
4	GraXpert	96 out of 100	Free
5	BlurXTerminator	95 out of 100	£75
8	NoiseXTerminator	92 out of 100	£45
14	PixInsight	76 out of 100	£258
15	DeepSkyStacker	71 out of 100	Free
16	Adobe Photoshop	67 out of 100	£22

Contents

01 Where does it rank on our leaderboard
02 Specifications and features
03 A walk through Adobe Photoshop
04 Should you buy it?
05 Questions and more about this review

In 30 seconds

Stars for Your Buck 67/100

Written 2 Oct 2026 Updated 2 Oct 2026

Rank: #16 of 16 software
Verdict: Worth a look

Written by Damon Scotting 3 min read

Buy it if

You will use it outside astrophotography as well.
You want the industry-standard editor, and the slickest of Lightroom, Photoshop and GIMP.

Skip it if

You only need it for one part of your astrophotography workflow.
You edit on a laptop with limited memory.

“From the start I was told there were three programs to improve my images: Lightroom, Photoshop and GIMP. Of the three, Photoshop has given me the best results and the most enjoyment, partly because I use it for so much outside astrophotography that I know its tools well. There is a reason it is the industry standard: the others can adjust much of the same, but Photoshop feels far slicker. It is heavy on memory and file sizes, though, and it will drain the life out of a laptop. And it is an expensive monthly subscription. I would recommend it, but only wholeheartedly if you will use it for other things too, because otherwise you are paying hundreds of pounds a year for one part of your workflow.”

Adobe £22/month

Specifications and features

Against the software I have reviewed

Compare with

Adobe Photoshop reviewed #16 of 16	PixInsight #14 of 16	Siril #10 of 16	GraXpert #4 of 16
Recorded UK price	£22	£258	Free	Free
Stars for Your Buck	67/100	76/100	88/100	96/100
Made by	Adobe	Pleiades Astrophoto (Spain)	The Siril team (free-astro)	The GraXpert Development Team
What it is for	Image editing and design	Processing astrophotographs	Astronomical image processing, made for stacking many frames to raise the signal-to-noise ratio	Removing gradients and denoising; deconvolution in the 3.1 prerelease only
Price	£22 a month (annual plan, billed monthly), including VAT	not recorded	Free	not recorded
Yearly, in one payment	£263 a year, including VAT	not recorded	not recorded	not recorded
Licence	Subscription	€300 outside the EU; 45-day free trial	Free and open source (GNU GPL v3)	Free and open source (GPL-3.0)
Runs on	Desktop, web, iPhone and iPad	not recorded	not recorded	not recorded

A walk through Adobe Photoshop

Curves adjustment layer A Curves adjustment layer over my North America Nebula, still at its default straight line, with the image's histogram behind it.

Starless image My Veil Nebula with the stars already separated out: the nebula on its own, open in Photoshop.

Stars-only image The other half of the same separation: the stars of my Veil Nebula image on their own.

Screen blend The stars layer set to Screen over the starless background puts the Veil Nebula back together, so each half can be adjusted on its own.

Should you buy it?

67/100 Stars for Your Buck

Pros

Of Lightroom, Photoshop and GIMP, it has given me the best results and the most enjoyment.
It is the industry standard for a reason: it feels far slicker than the others.
If you use it outside astrophotography too, you already know its tools well.

Cons

It is heavy on memory and file sizes, and it will drain the life out of a laptop.
It is an expensive monthly subscription.

I would recommend it, but only wholeheartedly if you will use it for other things too, because otherwise you are paying hundreds of pounds a year for one part of your workflow.

Three alternatives I have reviewed

Questions and more about this review

Reviewed by

Damon Scotting

The Telescope Man Verified

BSc (Hons) Physics with Astrophysics and Cosmology, Loughborough University PGCE / QTS, University of Nottingham

About Damon About Damon Damon Scotting is The Telescope Man. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Physics with Astrophysics and Cosmology from Loughborough University and a PGCE with QTS from the University of Nottingham, and taught physics in secondary schools before becoming an astronomy creator. He is a contributing writer for BBC Sky at Night Magazine and the author of 42 Wonders of Our Night Sky, and his photograph of the galaxy M100 with the dwarf planet Ceres was Highly Commended in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 competition run by Royal Observatory Greenwich. He has appeared on the BBC's Blue Peter. More than 750,000 people follow his astronomy channels on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and he has reviewed more than 140 telescopes, mounts, cameras, filters and accessories hands-on for this site. More about Damon · How I test · Damon's book

I review all kinds of gear: most of it I buy, some is gifted and some is loaned, and all of it is reviewed the same way. How this site is funded

Four questions, answered

Questions about the Adobe Photoshop

Written 2 October 2026 ·Updated 2 October 2026

I review all kinds of gear. Most of it I buy, some is gifted and some is loaned, and all of it is reviewed the same way: no company sees or approves a review before it is published. How this site is funded

How much does Photoshop cost in the UK? £22 a month on Adobe's annual plan billed monthly, or £263 a year in one payment, both including VAT. New subscribers may be offered a lower price for the first months. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
Where does Photoshop run? On desktop, on the web, and on iPhone and iPad. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
Is Photoshop worth it just for astrophotography? Only wholeheartedly if you will use it for other things too; otherwise you pay a monthly subscription for one part of your workflow. The specifications and the comparison table ↓
What have I not tested on the Adobe Photoshop? The Curves layer in my screenshots is still at its default, and the starless and stars-only images are exports I had already made; no star removal was run in Photoshop for this page.