I have been using Adobe products since the 90’s. Adobe has been a staple in my graphics toolbox since the beginning of time. Although I love Adobe Creative Cloud, I’m not in love with the subscription model.
I get that I have access to all their software but I don’t use all that software. Adobe is very inflexible when it comes to having more customizable subscription plans. An example plan could be pick any 5 applications for $9.99/mo would go along way to help out starving artists. Come on Adobe don’t give in to corporate greed.
In my search for finding alternatives to my well worn Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and of course Acrobat Pro, I’ve found that there are open source applications that give Adobe a run for their money. I don’t need access to every title, just the ones I use. That’s the extent of my software use.
Pixlr
A web based image editor. Powerful tools for editing photos. This can quickly rival Photoshop & another open source photo editor Gimp. I like the web based ease of this application. Save all your work locally or to cloud storage.
Gravit
A web based vector illustrator. Has quite a few features and should be more than enough to create great looking logos and custom graphics, even layout documents.
Canva
Canva is a combo of out of the box ready page layouts and the ability to create your own collateral. It comes with a few free templates you can use to get started. With Canva you can setup a web based office pretty quickly.
Now I don’t want to abandon Adobe but I feel like it has abandoned me. The subscription price is a bit high and in the end you get files you can’t run on anything if you don’t pay in perpetuity. I’m assembling web based graphic applications to supplement my existing software because all I need in the end is my laptop to complete my projects.