In design world, Adobe is basically the lingua franca of the trade. It is not by luck but because they are that good. However, over the years, Adobe products become extremely mature that it is hard to justify the monthly cost of maintaining it. Here are some alternatives for your consideration

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Pixelmator Pro - Adobe Photoshop


Pixelmator Pro is one of the best editing tool I ever use. The most impressive feature that the liberal use of Machine Learning to fix photos. Magic eraser for example, making the task of removing unwanted object extremly trivial. Another is the smart sizing, where it uses ML to better introplate images when you resize them. Useful for assets that started small, and you need to resize them to a bigger size.

The short tutorial above shows how easy to remove objects in a photo. Extensive use of ML to detect objects and adjust them makes it a quality image editor for a fraction of the price of Adobe Photoshop.

  • Learning Pixelmator Book - Amazon

Affinity Designer - Adobe illustrator


Affinity Designer is the best alternative for Illustrator. It has all the feature set of Illustrator in a far cheaper package. It also available on the iPad which Adobe just arrive to the scene. Illustrator might have more features, but Affinity Designer feature set is expansive and powerful that it is a close rival.

  • Affinity Designer Workbook - Amazon

Skylum Luminar - Lightroom


Skylum Luminar main focus is color correction. They have one of the best color correction software in the market and they also have editing functions and asset management. I have to admit that the library function is clunkier than Lightroom, but the editing tools is far far better than lightroom.


Replacing sky is trivial in Luminar which is their biggest strength, color correction and enhancement. They also have a great library management too.
  • Photographers Guide to Skylum Luminar - Amazon

Final Cut Pro - Adobe Primer


Other than Adobe Primer, Apple’s Final Cut Pro is also an industry standard software that is used for video editing. FCP has been used for Hollywod films like 300, Social Network and No Country for Old Men.

If it’s good enough for Mr Zack Snyder, it’s good enough for the rest of us.

The scene above was edited using Final Cut Pro. Effects was using Lightwave 3D.

  • Final Cut Pro efficient editing - Amazon

Conclusion

So there you have it. You might not want to pay Adobe tax yet especially when you are a freelance person, so here’s the alternatives to help you get things done

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