The good old GIMP! Before all the AI boom and people started to use web browser editors, GIMP was the only real alternative to Photosop. It's still very powerful, and very convenient. Works locally, if you don't want to rely on cloud and have all your files locally. Extensible with plugins.

I think the best part is that it's open source and free to use, and its extensive set of tools and capabilities that rival many paid photo editing software. It offers powerful layering, customizable brushes, and a wide range of filters and effects, making it suitable for both basic and advanced image editing tasks.

Did I mention Free? And it works well? The interface is a bit dense and the terminology can be daunting. However, for most photo editing tasks GIMP will do the job quite well and simple Google searches walk you through the steps. The developers keep it up to date and it has a very good selection of tools and sub-attributes like fonts, brushes and export options among many others. I find that most tools are not intuitively easy to use but there is an abundance of youtube videos available that help with any project.