Adobe’s Creative Cloud is a collection of 20+ desktop and mobile apps and services for photography, design, video, web, UX and more. Explore your creativity with software like Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. Voted #1 in graphic design software.
Pros:
- Industry-standard and highly recommended by creative experts.
- Complete package with more than 20+ creative apps.
- Free trial available. No credit card needed.
Cons:
- Only available for a monthly or annual subscription.
- Less suitable for beginner or amateur use due to the relatively high cost.
More About Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Creative Cloud Reviews
Find out what each expert had to say about Adobe Creative Cloud.
Meghan Kotz
Joshua Galinato
As a photographer & graphic designer I have been using the Adobe Suite for over 10 years now. When it comes to editing photos it’s really down to the two main photo editing software:
✓ Adobe Lightroom
Great for organising albums and grading photos.
✓ Adobe Photoshop
Great for manipulating photos even further.
Having said that, this year I wanted to try my hands on open source software. The equivalent would be:
✓ Darktable
Lightroom equivalent.
✓ GIMP
Photoshop equivalent.
Although the free alternatives are similar, I can’t deny that the Adobe products are far better and more intuitive to use.
If I was an amateur with a small budget, GIMP & Darktable would do just fine. If I’m in a professional environment, I would need to use Photoshop & Lightroom.
Mike Charles
✓ Adobe Lightroom
For my workflow the software that I find the most powerful and efficient is Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom is the industry leader in software that is able to easily catalogue a large number of photos. The photo editing features are also very powerful and can handle any editing need from the most basic to the most advance. There is a monthly subscription cost for using Lightroom but Adobe constantly updates the software. There is also a bit of a learning curve but there are numerous free online tutorials that can help a new user get started.
✓ Luminar
The other image editing software that I use in my workflow is Luminar. This can be used as stand-alone software or as a plug into Adobe. It features a number of advanced features that can speed up edits to photos such as sky replacement or Artificial Intelligence-based editing. It’s available for a nominal cost and if you find that you’d like to do some more powerful edits than what Adobe Lightroom provides it’s a valuable piece of software to add to your toolbox
Brandon Ballweg
The photo editing software that I recommend is Capture One and Affinity Photo.
✓ Capture One
Capture One is used to make your initial photo adjustments like exposure, color/white balance, sharpening, and organizing your collections of photos. The control you have with Capture One over the color palette of your images is really unrivaled by any other photo editor.
Adobe Lightroom used to be basically the only game in town for this type of photo editing but Capture One has surpassed them, although Lightroom is still a viable option.
✓ Affinity Photo
For more advanced edits, like when I need to cut out sections of a photo, do more advanced dodging and burning, or graphic design, I use Affinity Photo, which is a direct competitor to Adobe Photoshop. I like the results I get with Affinity Photo better than what I was getting with Photoshop, plus it’s actually cheaper.
William Angelos
✓ Adobe Photoshop
I think that if we’re talking about the best everyone is going to think about Adobe Photoshop. It has all the features and can do just about anything anyone might need to do. It is however super expensive, and for most people it is complete overkill.
✓ Affinity Photo
Most people will just never need to do all that this program can do. For those people there is Affinity Photo by Serif. Rather than charge a monthly fee they just charge a 1 time price of $50. Adobe Photoshop is something you rent at $10 a month. Affinity Photo does +90% of what Photoshop does. So when cost and actual use is considered for me Affinity Photo is my choice for best photo editing tool.
Kristin McCrossin
✓ Adobe Creative Cloud
For true graphic designers, the Adobe suite can do everything. The Adobe tools are intuitive (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc) once you know the basics of how to use them. They can do anything you want – from editing images to creating a logo from scratch.
Theo Fels
✓ Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. This service allows you to use any of Adobe software for a monthly fee. The software is easy to install and is automatically updated so you are never using out of date software. Adobe also has free tutorials for all its applications and free downloads of all adobe fonts.
Also, all adobe products integrate with each other so importing files is easy because you can use the adobe native format (.psd .ai, etc). You don’t have to export into typical formats such as .jpg, png or .mpg.
Adobe Creative Cloud has a ton of stuff, here’s a rundown of the must haves:
InDesign – Print design
Photoshop – imaging and graphic software
Illustrator – vector (resizable graphic) software
After Effects – Motion graphics”
✓ Webflow
It’s also a subscription service. You don’t have to know anything about coding to use Webflow. The genius of Webflow are their tutorials, they are smart, informative, and entertaining. Our studio uses Webflow to make comprehensive prototypes that are fully interactive and responsive. We can show our clients exactly how the website will work and act before we hand it off to our developers. You can also use as a development tool but ONLY if you have the development capabilities in-house.
Ray Allen
✓ Adobe Photoshop
After over 10 years of personal and professional use, Adobe Photoshop continues to be my preferred photo editing and graphics software. I’ve used Photoshop for traditional photographic touch ups and editing as well as for more graphic and editorial projects. The tools and features continue to evolve with more specific nuanced editing options becoming available every year. It’s amazing to see how much the digital creative industry has evolved in the 21st century, and Photoshop continues to be the standard bearer.
Jase Rodley
✓ Adobe Suite
Of course, there is going to be no better alternative than the leader of the pack Adobe suite, which offers everything you want, and is the likely the package you would be used in most workplaces.
Although there is little to offer in the way of competition for professional editing, there are some great phone Apps which allow enough of a resource to the more casual editor.
✓ Instrafitter
One of my current favourites being instrafitter, which allows you to put a number of border styles around your photo, given them the perfect vintage feel of a polaroid, and adding an extra pop to your photos when sharing.
Greg Corey
✓ Adobe Suite
We recommend Adobe Creative Suite, with Illustrator, PhotoShop and InDesign being the ones we use most. They are the standard for our industry. In addition, we like that they have online training videos that make it easy to log in and out between your office computer and home computer. This has really helped during the COVID-19 crisis and the remote working schedule that we have lately had to deal with.
3D design software – We use ESKO and Strata. These programs help us turn our flat Illustrator files into the full 3D-rendered images that we send to our clients so they can see what the packages look like from all different angles. Then we use Strata to build the actual store environments. We create the floor, shelves and signage to help tell the story of how the packaging that we’ve designed will look on the shelf.