Awesome Adobe alternatives
Becoming an eLearning developer or instructional designer can be expensive. If you’re trying to make it on your own as a freelancer, the many subscription costs can soon add up. With Articulate Storyline starting at around £1100 a year, you could soon be looking at £1500 a year in software subscriptions alone.
If you’re just looking to casually begin developing skills in a new media, it can feel like a big expense, especially if you are not using these skills for a return (i.e. as a freelancer or contractor).
As you’re reading this blog, I’m going to assume you have an interest or knowledge of digital design. I’m then also going to assume you have heard of Adobe.
The Adobe suite is the top dog of creative media software and don’t get me wrong they are fantastic programmes that have amazing functionality; however, I remember finding them incredibly overwhelming when starting out in digital design.
There were toolbars loaded with different buttons, pop up windows covering the screen, a tonne of different options for layering, masking and don’t even get me started on key frames. (After Effects brings me out in a cold sweat)
As a fledgling digital designer and poor university student, all I wanted to do was have a go at creating some simple vector illustrations and editing a few photos to create some custom images. In reality, I spent much more time trying to figure out how to navigate the software.
Once you get your head around it, the Adobe software can be pretty easy to use, but if you don’t know what you’re doing it can be intimidating and spending £60 a month on a subscription, just to spend most of your time glued to Youtube trying to find the tool you need, is not ideal!
But did you know there are many free, or cheaper alternatives to the Adobe suite that can offer you the chance to practice, without feeling like you need to ‘get your money’s worth?’
I’ve compiled a list of 3 great alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, that won’t break the bank…or your sanity.
Affinity Designer and Photo
I was a huge fan of Affinity back when it used to be under the brand name Serif. Serif DrawPlus was a free vector illustration software that really kick started my love of digital illustration and taught me all I know about anchor points and manipulating vectors.
Let’s start with the positives:
It’s subscription free!! You can buy the Affinity suite (Designer, Photo and Publisher) for £160 or purchase one of the programs for £67.99. Once purchased there’s no more fees and no monthly cost.
It’s iPad friendly, if you’re the kind of person that likes to freehand draw or just prefer to use an iPad, you can purchase Affinity designer for iPad for only £19.99.
You can purchase some really great add-ons, this includes texture packs, brushes, filters the list goes on. These are fab for creating a specific effect and are a quick way to add a range of extra tools to your programme.
The UI feels intuitive and mimics Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator but feels less cluttered and overwhelming at startup.
What could be improved:
As far as I’m aware you cannot use Affinity on an Android tablet, so us Android folk will have to settle for a good ol’ fashioned graphics tablet and laptop.
Affinity has a lot less programmes than Adobe, so if you’re someone looking for animation or video editing software, you’re not in luck here I’m afraid.
You have to pay for different versions! Affinity has just launched a version 2 of its suite of programmes, so for all version 1 users this means paying to upgrade their existing version. All files can be transferred over and Affinity are offering a nice chunk of freebies for those who upgrade, but this is a downside compared to Adobe who offer free updates.
Let’s run through the key features of each programme:
Affinity Designer 2
Vector based design software.
Loads of opportunity to personalise your designs, add stroke effects using brushes, apply textures and easily edit vector illustrations.
Pen tool is simple to use and editing ‘nodes’ (think of these like joints) is easy to navigate too.
The initial toolbar is uncluttered and features key tools such as the pen tool, fill tool and shape. You can add to these but for beginner it’s easy on the eye when trying to find the tool you need.
Loads of export options, you can choose a range of file types from SVG, PNG and PSD, this is really handy if you do then transfer into Adobe as you can open your vectors.
Photo 2
Access to a large range of assets to enhance your design.
Simple, easy to navigate toolbar with key tools.
Very similar features to Photoshop, including layers, masking, filters and wealth of photo editing tools.
Great for even basic photo editing, remove backgrounds and touch up photos with ease.
(Photo Copyright Affinity)
Inkscape
A free vector design software, Inkscape can be considered as being in its infancy compared to Adobe and Affinity, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great programme to use. The biggest benefit of Inkscape is that it is free, there’s no subscription, no upgrade costs, no extra add-ons to pay for, so for those who just want to dabble in vector illustration every now and again, Inkscape is great.
The positives:
It’s free! Need I say more? In all seriousness, you’ve nothing to lose with downloading Inkscape, if you try and don’t like it then you’ve not paid anything or committed to a subscription.
The Inkscape website, this is full of loads of information about the software, but also has a community page where you can check out creations from other designers.
You can see a handy list of all of Inkscape’s features on the website, meaning you can check if it will be able to do what you need before downloading.
Has all the functionality you need to create vector illustrations and export them as images or SVG files.
What could be improved:
In comparison to Illustrator and Designer, Inkscape’s UI feels a little busy. When you open a new document you have a range of colour palettes down the bottom, a large toolbar to your right, gridlines, rulers etc… It could do with being stripped back a bit.
Less export options, you can export as PNG, SVG, GIF, JPEG, but there’s no PSD option and quite a few less export options than Affinity Designer.
When you click to open Inkscape a window pops up asking you to select an existing document or create a new one. As with the UI of the main screen, I didn’t find this very intuitive to navigate and it took some time to get used to it.
Key features
Use the pen or brush tool to create a variety of vector illustrations, add fill effects such as gradient and pattern fill.
Shape tool and spiral tool! (I think the spiral tool is cool)
3D shape and box tool.
Add filters and image effects, such as grain, overlays and textures.
SVG font and text editor.
Final thoughts…
I definitely have a soft spot for the Affinity suite and think it’s fantastic value for money, but if you’re just looking to use this software ‘as and when,’ Inkscape is a great starting point. My advice when jumping into a new software is give yourself a couple of hours to settle into it, don’t jump right into trying to create sleek graphics, just play. Draw lines, fill shapes, amend nodes / anchor points and get a feel for how things work. If you do want to start drawing, then try tracing over an image first, this will get you used to creating a variety of lines, paths and curves. From here you can then experiment with fill effects, brushes and more.
If you want to check Affinity or Inkscape out, visit the links below.
Inkscape - https://inkscape.org/
Affinity - https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/#top
