i don't use it myself, but what is an alternative to photoshop at a professional level?
Discussion
Photopea
And for Illustrator or Indesign?
And for Acrobat Professional?
In printing, publishing and paper converting there are no alternatives to Adobe.
Yes it becomes incompatible with the rest of the production chain.
I agree with dwaris. The Affinity Suite is pretty solid. One time fee. For now at least.
I use both. I bought Affinity Suite to see if I could ditch Adobe; it is quite good, but unfortunately it can't fully compete, at least for my workflows. Talking about basic tools (not fancy AI stuff), Photoshop and Illustrator are without any doubt superior.
But lately I'm finding myself using Affinity more often for some pluses: it is fast, doesn't span useless and memory hungry precesses around, and doesn't try to connect everywhere. It also doesn't refuse to start if I have "only" 10 GB of free space.
I gave up Adobe last year and switched to Affinity and Da Vinci Resolve for video editing. I never really used Illustrator too much so I can't comment about the differences. It was a learning curve for me to switch programs - that part was the most annoying.
I really can't complain about the differences.
The one thing Adobe did really well is After Effects... I miss it. But I'm getting used to Da Vinci Resolve's Fusion.
What Adobe features do you think are lacking in Affinity?
I agree, memory and muscle memories are hard to adapt after a long time (20+ years) using a software, and my memory is for sure still too tied to the Adobe way.
It is not a matter of missing features, but rather the accuracy of the tools or of the UI. Basic example: the cursor sometimes doesn't change when the modificator keys are pressed. Or with Photo I experienced bad antialiasing cutting some parts. I don't use Designer often, so I cannot comment it.
Yea I feel like learning a new program and getting used to it is definitely the most critical for a professional. There are certain shortcuts, commands and habits that just save so much time and adds to the end product.
That is disappointing to learn about the accuracy of tools. I wonder how responsive Affinity is. Maybe its worth bringing it up to their team?
Piracy. Very easy to find adobe tools with cracked software files, and block their hosts.
A good professional alternative is Affinity. As a graphic designer, I have been using their products for 4 years. They have representatives for three key areas of graphics:
Photos and raster graphics:
Adobe Photoshop ➡️ Affinity Photo
Vector graphics:
Adobe Illustrator ➡️ Affinity Designer
Print materials, typesetting:
Adobe InDesign ➡️ Affinity Publisher
You can purchase their products for a one-time price (as opposed to a subscription like Adobe) and they currently have a 50% discount.
💯 I love their products and have been bought up by Canva (for better or worse).