I started using Photoshop 5 in the late 1990’s and kept on using it in more modern versions all the way up through Adobe CC until a year or so ago. I loved what I could accomplish with it. But, I didn’t love the complexity or the price tag.
When it comes to price, Adobe has always been expensive. I think when I started using Photoshop it was over $500. Ouch! Adobe’s Creative Cloud runs $54.99/month if you commit to a one-year agreement or $82.49/mo if you want to take it one month at a time. If you just want Photoshop (and Lightroom) that runs about $20/mo and an annual commitment is required. Yikes!
For someone who is spending a significant portion of their time editing photos, designing graphics, or anything else the 20+ apps in Adobe CC are focused on, that’s probably not a terrible deal. But, for a solopreneur on a budget who could use a few of 20+ apps, but never touch 15 of them, the price is steep. That’s me. And if it’s you too, stick with me.
In my experience Adobe software is far more complicated than it needs to be. I’ve spent hours trying to figure out how to do the simplest of things and gotten little help from the help articles or videos. I’m no stranger to finding the solution to my problem but most of the time with Adobe products it would end with frustration as it became clear that there was no simple way and you had to do 3 other weird things to achieve the result. Ugh.
Granted, I am not a professional graphic designer and I did not major in Adobe in college. So, maybe this is all fine and well for the experts.
Thinking it was just me, I took an excellent course in Adobe Illustrator a few years ago. It was great to work through projects with the instructor and see what the app could do – and how to get there. The problem? There are many steps, it’s not intuitive, and it’s just one app in Adobe’s world of dozens of individual software apps. By the time I need to do something I learned in the course, in that specific app, it’s months later and I can’t remember the sequence of steps. That supports the theory that these apps are probably quite practical for those who use a handful of them every day, for years.
When I finally decided to part ways with Adobe, I was determined to find tools that were easier to use and hopefully cheaper. My first step was to replace Photoshop with GiMP, which is free, open-source, and very similar to Photoshop. I’ve played with it before, but it’s just different enough that I didn’t want to abandon what little comfort I had with Photoshop and start from scratch. But I was on a mission to end ties with Adobe, so I was all-in!
Instead of Illustrator, I started using Inkscape – free and open-source software similar to Illustrator. I liked Inkscape quite a bit and used it for everything I could – only turning to GiMP for things Inkscape couldn’t do.
But then I started hearing people talk about something called Canva. I steered clear for awhile because I just got out of that relationship with Photoshop and didn’t want to get drawn into another one when I was potentially vulnerable. One day I needed to create a thumbnail for a YouTube video and, for whatever reason, I decided to try this Canva thing that I kept hearing about. After all, it was free, so why not check it out?
It was really easy to get around in Canva and do what I needed to do. The templates and stock images and graphics were a big help and putting the thing together was just really simple. No frustration. No weird extra steps. It just worked. In a few minutes I had a thumbnail I really liked! I used Canva a few more times and started to poke around the app and see all the things it does and all the additional stuff that comes with the paid plan for $10/mo ($119/yr) and all I could say was “take my money!”
It’s been several months now and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve made thumbnails, banners, podcast covers, product labels, logos, website graphics, and probably a bunch of other stuff I can’t recall right now and it’s been a breeze. I can’t even estimate how many hours and how much frustration it has saved me since I started using it. I think I’ve only needed to use Inkscape once, to do something very specific, since I fell in love with Canva. I still have lots of room to grow with Canva. In addition to the projects I mentioned above that I’ve already used it for, it also does presentations, videos, infographics, social media posts (create many at once), and more.
As for my long-time complicated relationship with Adobe software, it’s really over now. I’m sure Adobe is the right fit for someone… just not for this guy.
