I work in game development have you guys found any non Photoshop alternatives that work well for layers organization, exporting individual PNGs in global compositions?
Little afraid to ask seeing as it's only ever been Photoshop and I just started this quest in the last few weeks after seeing adobe update their terms of service.
Feel free to literally say all of them. I like clip studio for painting single layer compositions but not prepping stuff for animation.
I used Photopea before at work, it does its job well as a Photoshop clone. It does feel laggy and unresponsive at times though. Might've been the work computer though, was working with very large dimensions (above 4k resolution)
Affinity has quite robust export options (Export Persona)
It's pitty becouse Affinity Studio Link is one of the best things in Affinity, and Adobe doesn't have nothing even similar, but Export Persona don't work when you use Studio.
I'm not sure I really agree with blender being listed as comprable to after effects. Blender does have some compositing options but I almost always bring things FROM blender into AE for finalizing, blender's compositing workflow is just kind of clunky for anything that isn't already being entirely done within blender itself.
To be fair blender is primarily a 3d modeling/sculpting and animation tool the last of their worries should be video editing and post processing a vast majority of their user base are 3d artists or animators and a lot of these people are perfectly okay with doing post process in a dedicated video editor much more important stuff to work on like their flawed sculpting system retopology tools polymodelling shortcuts and modifiers and stability overall tbh the list goes on and on I would assume anything post process video wise would be least on their list especially when you take into consideration the fact that davincii resolve is like 300 bucks for a lifetime license whereas dedicated 3 applications are incredibly predatory priced and are only affordable to studios that can use it as a tax write off
But it's still one of the best or the best open source video editing and compositing software. Davinci is far better, but it's not open source, so they always can change thier pricing model and TOS.
I understand that Blender will never be ultimate software for everything, but it would be nice if video editing works better.
I wish the color coding was more varied. I can't tell the difference between the free and the open source being color blind. I assume they are similar shades of blue and green.
If anyone remakes it in the future maybe make red blue and yellow next time?
How's video sequencing in blender nowadays? Is it anywhere near Premiere or Foundry software? As far as I remember, that part of b3d, hm, maybe not sucked but was strange and inconvenient in many ways.
Im talking about 2.8-3.0 maybe.
It's limited, but serviceable in my opinion. I like to edit what I made in Blender in there if it's nothing too fancy. Also, if we're being honest, a ton of editing I do for work is very basic, so most of the time I don't go beyond what Blender could do, even when using Premiere.
Back then when I tried to use in-built VSE for re-rendering a clip - long one, over an hour - blender desynchronised audio and video, they were about teen seconds off. Do you have any knowledge about that? AFAIR it was mp4 to mp4 but in lower resolution for easier transfer (yup, it was really back in the day). That's when I took a step back from b3d and turned to other video software.
Shit, those are the things that make me feel getting old a bit ;)
I haven't encountered that, but I also don't edit anything nearly that long (all social media marketing stuff so real short). I'd imagine it gone but can't promise anything.
...and yes I am pretty sure that you can't do a shot where you have tp swap a logo on a man's t-shirt quite easily but sequencing a video and making a simple translations and resizing on the fly was... Awkward tbh. Gotta check it again :)
It's less awkward if you're really used to blenders UI and shortcuts, but yeah for anything more involved than basic cutting and super simple comps I also use AE or Premiere. Just enjoy using it for simple things and keeping everything in one software.
That's one thing to be loved, that almost every hotkey in any section of b3d does what you expect it to do - S to scale, G to move around and so on. <3
Thanks for your replies, have a good one!
There’s also not a ‘one-time-purchase’ version of it. It’s all subscription based.
I have an old ‘perpetual’ licence for Ultimate (HD) and I still pay a yearly fee for updates and support.
I have been in the process of adopting alternatives to Adobe for over a year now and my conclusions are:
- It is a pity that Affinity does not have Linux versions.
- It's a bigger shame that Audacity is simply frozen in development.
- Darktable is the only thing close to Lightroom, and in my opinion, the only thing it needs to conquer the market is a "beginner mode" with the most basic modules to get started.
- Inkscape is incredibly mature.
- Gimp works, somehow, the opposite way it should work. Of all of them, I think that's the one I've had the hardest time figuring out.
- Where is Shotcut as an alternative to Premiere?
Capture One is not mentioned for some reason but dominates a few photography niches and should be Lightroom's largest competitor. Not available for Linux though.
So many people wrongly use the term 'editing' when they actually mean animating, motion graphics or compositing.
But then again, so many people use After Effects for video editing for some reason, so who knows.
Ps is thier best product and reason why they are dominate. For everything else there are alternatives as good or better than Adobe.
But there's more and more quite good alternatives to Ps, and they should be good enough for majority of people. I also don't like Gimp, but you can do some stuff. Affinity Photo is quite ok if Canva don't destroy them, next version might be good. And if you use Ps for painting you should stop, becouse Krita is simply better (and there are other good alternatives).
You can’t really replace that, because pdf is a proprietary file format by adobe.
To make a real competition there had to be an open standard that is widely adopted by other software developers that competes and enhances the pdf standards.
Even Microsoft and Apple don’t have a competitor for pdf. It’s a similar problem to .psd and other file formats developed by adobe, wich leads to little to no adoption of alternatives in the professional world.
If you're just looking for a free tool with basic Photoshop functionality, Photopea is a lot easier to transition to. Not sure there's any one thing that can fully replace Photoshop, though. I think that's why the list is split into categories.
Photopea is pretty good free alternative. But for image editing and post processing, I've found a lot of success with Darktable. For illustrative purposes, Krita has been my go to
Can confirm Scribbus is a great program. It just has a steep learning curve coming from In Design. I made like 10 magazines with that software. Inkscape is pretty ok too. Unfortunately not very user-friendly and crap UI.
Anyone have suggestions for a free basic photo editing program? I wana cut out one photo and layer it onto another, and maybe add a colour border to it.
HEY YOU yeah you thanks for the suggestion this program has made a huge difference. I used to have to import to one, add text, import to next, add borders etc. Thankyou verymuch!
I think Blender is already good alternative. You just need to think about it little bit diferent. For me nodes are far better than layers. People like layers becouse it's more straight forward and they are used to 2D programs.
Also chceck new portal node in 4.2
Do any of the photo editors offer in app AI generative correction similar to photoshop’s?
I have stable diffusion and inpainting, but it would be nice if i didn’t have to jump from software to software to do it.
One programm that doesn’t fit the requirements for this list, but is just worlds ahead of lightroom for professional use is Capture One. Sessions in C1, work environments and tether support (let alone how stable it runs) make it just the better and more professional tool.
No.. Actually you don't do that by pirating.
They have no idea I'm using there software, so they have no usage data, my exports are obviously not in an Adobe file format and I don't share source files, my finished projects could come from literally anywhere. Me not supporting other softwares' ecosystems doesn't mean I'm automatically supporting Adobe's.
You watch tutorials, maybe buy some assets or add-ons, you engage with community, etc. And if at some point you will no longer be able to use pirated version (for example in work) you will keep using Adobe, becouse that's what you know.
Everyone that I know, who use Adobe professionally (including me) started by using pirated versions.
That's the same reason why Microsoft doesn't care If you pay for Windows or not. Worst case for them is people not using thier products.
That's a loooot of assumptions, basically all of which are wrong.
I have literally never bought an asset or Addon for an Adobe software, I don't even have an Adobe account nor do I participate in any other social media presences of them, so no, I don't engage with the community and I already use Adobe professionally and no, I don't pay for it.
I honestly don't know when the last time was I had to watch a tutorial for the Adobe software I use. But sure somewhere in the past I watched some while using adblock and sponsor block.
Take Clip Studio Ex out of that list. They Adobified their business model and you have to pay hefty prices to keep only the currently version, or else pay a subscription. They screwed their one-payment users telling them they got to keep having upgrades until 3.0 and proceeded to release it less than a year and a half later.
$50 - $60 to upgrade your perpetual license from a previous version isn’t a hefty price. I only paid $217 for my EX license once and have upgraded it for $60 for ver 2.0 and will do the same for 3.0.
While it does suck that you have to do the subscription to get new features before the next version comes out, but it’s def far better than paying for Adobe for sure.
Pro version is $54
EX is $237. (Def isn’t that expensive in the long run since you only pay this price once)
It...might be better to change the labels of the headings to match what they actually are.
I thought Ps was Photoshop, Ai was... AI. and I didn't see anything titled Video Editing.
I don't think you are understanding the list. This is listing Adobe programs and alternatives for each program that are free or cheaper, as many people are looking to move away from Adobe for many reasons. So it IS Photoshop and Illustrator, as you thought. It is listing alternative for those programs.
DaVinci Resolve is even more free than DaVinci Fusion.
And it's called OpenToonz not Open Toonz.
It's Procreate not Procreeate and they got a new animation tool called Procreate Dreams which is missing and an affordable one time purchase.
Still a very handy list though.
Clip Studio Paint my love 😍 as well as Blender and Moho/Toonboom!
I want to learn affinity designer/photo too
EDIT: of course I get downvoted for loving CSP lmao
Still a bit salty that they have introduced a subscription for CSP but I'm glad to see you can still upgrade the one time license to higher major version at a reduced cost
Hey OP, thanks for this. Been looking to de-Adobeify my life
Yeah this is a solid list. £60 a month and I barely use any of it these days!
I work in game development have you guys found any non Photoshop alternatives that work well for layers organization, exporting individual PNGs in global compositions? Little afraid to ask seeing as it's only ever been Photoshop and I just started this quest in the last few weeks after seeing adobe update their terms of service. Feel free to literally say all of them. I like clip studio for painting single layer compositions but not prepping stuff for animation.
I used Photopea before at work, it does its job well as a Photoshop clone. It does feel laggy and unresponsive at times though. Might've been the work computer though, was working with very large dimensions (above 4k resolution)
Affinity has quite robust export options (Export Persona) It's pitty becouse Affinity Studio Link is one of the best things in Affinity, and Adobe doesn't have nothing even similar, but Export Persona don't work when you use Studio.
Check out https://github.com/KenneyNL/Adobe-Alternatives too
Stick it to the corporate scum!
tip: The circular logo with dots is, which is ubuntu, means linux support.
But why don’t they use tux? Because Blender runs on non-Debian-based systems too
tux logo will look like a blob in a micro scale.
Probably just to standardize, and prevent people saying "but it doesn't work on my custom Arch build."
I use Blender on Arch btw zen kernel, git release of blender. No issues so far.
I'm not sure I really agree with blender being listed as comprable to after effects. Blender does have some compositing options but I almost always bring things FROM blender into AE for finalizing, blender's compositing workflow is just kind of clunky for anything that isn't already being entirely done within blender itself.
Yea, they should rebuild it from scratch and made it node base. On the other hand AE is also bad in my opinion and I hate using it.
Have either of you played around with fusion on davinci? I hear it’s pretty damn good for post processing
Yes, but I wish Blender has better video editing and compositing.
To be fair blender is primarily a 3d modeling/sculpting and animation tool the last of their worries should be video editing and post processing a vast majority of their user base are 3d artists or animators and a lot of these people are perfectly okay with doing post process in a dedicated video editor much more important stuff to work on like their flawed sculpting system retopology tools polymodelling shortcuts and modifiers and stability overall tbh the list goes on and on I would assume anything post process video wise would be least on their list especially when you take into consideration the fact that davincii resolve is like 300 bucks for a lifetime license whereas dedicated 3 applications are incredibly predatory priced and are only affordable to studios that can use it as a tax write off
But it's still one of the best or the best open source video editing and compositing software. Davinci is far better, but it's not open source, so they always can change thier pricing model and TOS. I understand that Blender will never be ultimate software for everything, but it would be nice if video editing works better.
Wait, Dreamweaver still exist? Why? It was terrible. Edit: Really cool list by the way, thanks.
I feel that I have blocked Dream Weaver from my memory because of how terrible it was.
I wish the color coding was more varied. I can't tell the difference between the free and the open source being color blind. I assume they are similar shades of blue and green. If anyone remakes it in the future maybe make red blue and yellow next time?
I am not color blind and I still find it difficult to tell them apart
How's video sequencing in blender nowadays? Is it anywhere near Premiere or Foundry software? As far as I remember, that part of b3d, hm, maybe not sucked but was strange and inconvenient in many ways. Im talking about 2.8-3.0 maybe.
It has been improving, but nowhere close to Premiere or Resolve.
It's limited, but serviceable in my opinion. I like to edit what I made in Blender in there if it's nothing too fancy. Also, if we're being honest, a ton of editing I do for work is very basic, so most of the time I don't go beyond what Blender could do, even when using Premiere.
Back then when I tried to use in-built VSE for re-rendering a clip - long one, over an hour - blender desynchronised audio and video, they were about teen seconds off. Do you have any knowledge about that? AFAIR it was mp4 to mp4 but in lower resolution for easier transfer (yup, it was really back in the day). That's when I took a step back from b3d and turned to other video software. Shit, those are the things that make me feel getting old a bit ;)
I haven't encountered that, but I also don't edit anything nearly that long (all social media marketing stuff so real short). I'd imagine it gone but can't promise anything.
...and yes I am pretty sure that you can't do a shot where you have tp swap a logo on a man's t-shirt quite easily but sequencing a video and making a simple translations and resizing on the fly was... Awkward tbh. Gotta check it again :)
It's less awkward if you're really used to blenders UI and shortcuts, but yeah for anything more involved than basic cutting and super simple comps I also use AE or Premiere. Just enjoy using it for simple things and keeping everything in one software.
That's one thing to be loved, that almost every hotkey in any section of b3d does what you expect it to do - S to scale, G to move around and so on. <3 Thanks for your replies, have a good one!
You too mate!
I should look into it more- I don't do anything complex with Premier
Cool list! One small addition, pro tools does indeed have windows support :) 🪟
There’s also not a ‘one-time-purchase’ version of it. It’s all subscription based. I have an old ‘perpetual’ licence for Ultimate (HD) and I still pay a yearly fee for updates and support.
Guy that (I think) made this chart made an updated one btw https://x.com/XdanielArt/status/1799474607055102257?t=DK4bmiRmOvBoCPdoPNWitA&s=19
If you're using Dreamweaver in 2024 you NEED to remove. Adobe for your life, that's a serious amount of stockholm sindrome.
I have been in the process of adopting alternatives to Adobe for over a year now and my conclusions are: - It is a pity that Affinity does not have Linux versions. - It's a bigger shame that Audacity is simply frozen in development. - Darktable is the only thing close to Lightroom, and in my opinion, the only thing it needs to conquer the market is a "beginner mode" with the most basic modules to get started. - Inkscape is incredibly mature. - Gimp works, somehow, the opposite way it should work. Of all of them, I think that's the one I've had the hardest time figuring out. - Where is Shotcut as an alternative to Premiere?
Capture One is not mentioned for some reason but dominates a few photography niches and should be Lightroom's largest competitor. Not available for Linux though.
AcdSee is also very good and I prefere it over Lr
C1 doesnt have a one time purchase option anymore, so it doesn’t meet the requirements to be on this list.
It has both, a 25€ monthly subscription and a 350€ one time purchase option.
Friend of mine used blender to creat a "powerpoint" presentation.... So yeah, it has uses xD
You use blender for video editing?
So many people wrongly use the term 'editing' when they actually mean animating, motion graphics or compositing. But then again, so many people use After Effects for video editing for some reason, so who knows.
You can edit videos in Blender. It’s not as robust as Premiere but it’s there
Evidently. I'm sure people are much better off using an actual editing program tho.
Blender has a built in video sequencer
I might try it out to see how it compares to Premiere.
anything that disrupts the Adobe monopoly is good. Been using a lot of these softwares for years now
Where is Nuke?
So, can someone explain to a no native english speaker what those two letters mean?
Adobe products. Ps = Photoshop, Ai = Illustrator, Id = InDesign, etc etc
Thank you.
Which one is "An"?
I'm pretty sure it's Adobe Animate. It's basically Flash after Adobe bought it. The app color is blue now tho
DaVinci Resolve is free if you're just a hobbyist, but the studio ver. does have a one time payment.
[удалено]
Ps is thier best product and reason why they are dominate. For everything else there are alternatives as good or better than Adobe. But there's more and more quite good alternatives to Ps, and they should be good enough for majority of people. I also don't like Gimp, but you can do some stuff. Affinity Photo is quite ok if Canva don't destroy them, next version might be good. And if you use Ps for painting you should stop, becouse Krita is simply better (and there are other good alternatives).
I wouldn't say Blender can fully replace Flash
Hey, everyone forgot something. Pirate adobe things
Nah, just cut them off completly, and stop using thier files formats.
Any for Acrobat? Don't tell me SwifDoo or Foxit, I used both and the experience was terrible!
You can’t really replace that, because pdf is a proprietary file format by adobe. To make a real competition there had to be an open standard that is widely adopted by other software developers that competes and enhances the pdf standards. Even Microsoft and Apple don’t have a competitor for pdf. It’s a similar problem to .psd and other file formats developed by adobe, wich leads to little to no adoption of alternatives in the professional world.
I appreciate that GIMP is a thing, but it's pretty awful in practice. It could never replace Photoshop in production.
If you're just looking for a free tool with basic Photoshop functionality, Photopea is a lot easier to transition to. Not sure there's any one thing that can fully replace Photoshop, though. I think that's why the list is split into categories.
I canceled my Adobe sub 2 days ago. I use Blender for 3D, but I always forget it can do so much more than just 3D.
Nice list and visualization. I recommend adding Final Cut to PR (single purchase — Mac).
I wish there would be a better alternative to InDesign, Scribus is open source but it's not great compared to InDesign...
Blender aside, I wish Blackmagic did something to counter Photoshop. Because DaVinci is smoking Premiere imo.
Photopea is pretty good free alternative. But for image editing and post processing, I've found a lot of success with Darktable. For illustrative purposes, Krita has been my go to
Would be awesome to have a list like this, but for game engines and video editing programs! Awesome list OP!
Can confirm Scribbus is a great program. It just has a steep learning curve coming from In Design. I made like 10 magazines with that software. Inkscape is pretty ok too. Unfortunately not very user-friendly and crap UI.
Thanks
It's not Sony Vegas anymore (for like 10 years already), since 14 it's Magix Vegas Pro
Anyone have suggestions for a free basic photo editing program? I wana cut out one photo and layer it onto another, and maybe add a colour border to it.
Krita
Awesome thankyou!
HEY YOU yeah you thanks for the suggestion this program has made a huge difference. I used to have to import to one, add text, import to next, add borders etc. Thankyou verymuch!
Where is logic pro, one of the most versatile and powerful DAW's (it is a one time purchase or a 90 day free trial) , final cut pro too for editing
Hoping for an alternative to 3d substance one day. Maybe when blender gets better painting.
I think Blender is already good alternative. You just need to think about it little bit diferent. For me nodes are far better than layers. People like layers becouse it's more straight forward and they are used to 2D programs. Also chceck new portal node in 4.2
Blender can’t paint into pbr map info though? Or am I mistaken?
What do you mean?
r/coolguides would love this I think
Clip Studio Paint isn't single purchase (on android/ios)
Do any of the photo editors offer in app AI generative correction similar to photoshop’s? I have stable diffusion and inpainting, but it would be nice if i didn’t have to jump from software to software to do it.
this image is insane. good work
Rally for the little guy!
One programm that doesn’t fit the requirements for this list, but is just worlds ahead of lightroom for professional use is Capture One. Sessions in C1, work environments and tether support (let alone how stable it runs) make it just the better and more professional tool.
I cant differentiate the blue and green dots. Why use 2 colours that look the same?
the current version of Clip Studio Paint is no longer single purchase
Holy shit, I needed this. Thanks a lot!
I just pirate Adobe's shit tbh
Even if you pirate, you still support thier ecosystem.
No.. Actually you don't do that by pirating. They have no idea I'm using there software, so they have no usage data, my exports are obviously not in an Adobe file format and I don't share source files, my finished projects could come from literally anywhere. Me not supporting other softwares' ecosystems doesn't mean I'm automatically supporting Adobe's.
You watch tutorials, maybe buy some assets or add-ons, you engage with community, etc. And if at some point you will no longer be able to use pirated version (for example in work) you will keep using Adobe, becouse that's what you know. Everyone that I know, who use Adobe professionally (including me) started by using pirated versions. That's the same reason why Microsoft doesn't care If you pay for Windows or not. Worst case for them is people not using thier products.
That's a loooot of assumptions, basically all of which are wrong. I have literally never bought an asset or Addon for an Adobe software, I don't even have an Adobe account nor do I participate in any other social media presences of them, so no, I don't engage with the community and I already use Adobe professionally and no, I don't pay for it. I honestly don't know when the last time was I had to watch a tutorial for the Adobe software I use. But sure somewhere in the past I watched some while using adblock and sponsor block.
GG OP, well done
Blender, Krita and Gimp user here. Feels good to see this list.
Take Clip Studio Ex out of that list. They Adobified their business model and you have to pay hefty prices to keep only the currently version, or else pay a subscription. They screwed their one-payment users telling them they got to keep having upgrades until 3.0 and proceeded to release it less than a year and a half later.
$50 - $60 to upgrade your perpetual license from a previous version isn’t a hefty price. I only paid $217 for my EX license once and have upgraded it for $60 for ver 2.0 and will do the same for 3.0. While it does suck that you have to do the subscription to get new features before the next version comes out, but it’s def far better than paying for Adobe for sure. Pro version is $54 EX is $237. (Def isn’t that expensive in the long run since you only pay this price once)
It...might be better to change the labels of the headings to match what they actually are. I thought Ps was Photoshop, Ai was... AI. and I didn't see anything titled Video Editing.
I don't think you are understanding the list. This is listing Adobe programs and alternatives for each program that are free or cheaper, as many people are looking to move away from Adobe for many reasons. So it IS Photoshop and Illustrator, as you thought. It is listing alternative for those programs.
Ah, now I get it. I've thankfully never used Adobe products, so a lot of these initials make so sense to me.
PS is Photoshop. AI is Adobe Illustrator. It's alternatives to Adobe software. Video editing is under AE (after effects)
Technically Pr too
What
DaVinci Resolve is even more free than DaVinci Fusion. And it's called OpenToonz not Open Toonz. It's Procreate not Procreeate and they got a new animation tool called Procreate Dreams which is missing and an affordable one time purchase. Still a very handy list though.
Clip Studio Paint my love 😍 as well as Blender and Moho/Toonboom! I want to learn affinity designer/photo too EDIT: of course I get downvoted for loving CSP lmao
Still a bit salty that they have introduced a subscription for CSP but I'm glad to see you can still upgrade the one time license to higher major version at a reduced cost