It is suitable for both applications, painting and photo editing.
I have used it strictly for photo editing professionally and privately and it works flawlessly. Highly recommended.
I use the knowledge I have from my Photoshop days and apply them in Krita, no issues there. For me it is a Photoshop drop-in replacement.
Before Krita was 'marketed' as a digital painting app, it was described and used as an alternative to GIMP and Photoshop.
At some point (in the 2010s?) there was a decision to refocus on digital painting, I think maybe because of the difficulty of keeping up with the expansive featureset of something like Photoshop or GIMP (and maybe the additional difficulty of still keeping a focused, pleasant UI).
But it's not like the developers removed a bunch of functionality. It's cool to hear that Krita remains capable of handling some heavy duty photo editing use cases.
This is really good to know. Years back they decided on making the program a painting app first and foremost so, not being an artist, I didn't really follow its progress. Knowing now that it does a solid job at photo editing tells me it is time to give it a second look.
Photopea is a perfect replacement for Photoshop, it's a shame you can't just buy it, he started a subscription model too. I don't want to pay a sub and I don't want ads.
It is suitable for both applications, painting and photo editing. I have used it strictly for photo editing professionally and privately and it works flawlessly. Highly recommended. I use the knowledge I have from my Photoshop days and apply them in Krita, no issues there. For me it is a Photoshop drop-in replacement.