I was able to use Paint.Net in place of GIMP. Paint.Net is Windows-only but it handled pretty much all my raster image editing needs and unlike GIMP I can actually remember how to use it despite only using it every couple of months.
I didn't just mean free options. There are still many other acceptably-priced and acceptably-licensed graphics programs besides PhotoShop. These may still be more acceptable than buying into the PhotoShop ecosystem. With 3D software, it's not so simple.