4 ms·

I love Photoshop. Their hotkeys are a muscle memory in my brain for 10+ years. I hate CreativeCloud. It eats resources and I found gigabytes of random trash lo

I love Photoshop. Their hotkeys are a muscle memory in my brain for 10+ years. I hate CreativeCloud. It eats resources and I found gigabytes of random trash logs it writes. I wish I could download and use Photoshop on its own. When I get a new laptop, I won’t install CreativeCloud. Has anyone got recommendations for photoshop alternatives? For graphic/web design only stuff, editing, cropping, adjusting pixels and stuff like that.

HlessClaudesman 5y ago
Find a copy of Photoshop CS6. Newer features are not worth the CC grief.
- eropple 5y ago
  If all you need is Photoshop, that's true. But, IME, nothing steps to Premiere and After Effects, particularly in combination. And modern Premiere is worth paying for, for performance if nothing else. Going back to the scary old days of stuff like Voukoder--no thank you. (No, definitely not Resolve.)
  - uxcolumbo 5y ago
    Why do you think Resolve is not up to the job?
    - eropple 5y ago
      It's not Premiere. That might sound flip, but Premiere is a learned skill and I have yet to discover really compelling reasons beyond price (which isn't actually that expensive) to use Not Premiere. From a feature perspective its workflow options are sub-par; for example, it doesn't directly interface with After Effects. AE Live Templates in Premiere alone has saved me hours of time rendering out of After Effects. And AE, too, is not optional; while I like AE a lot less than I do Premiere, it sticks because--and there's a theme here--nothing else really does what After Effects does while integrating into an NLE. The ecosystem matters. I think Resolve is fine if you don't know other tools or your needs are small. I've used it in a pinch before when I didn't have any other options, it's totally usable. And there are some tools (grading, obviously) which are absolutely top notch, and if you are in an all-Blackmagic recording stack I can definitely see some benefits to ease-of-use when, say, pulling video recorded from an ATEM Mini and some Blackmagic cameras. But it's a limited editor with limited compatibility with everything else in my workflow and those of the folks I know.
  - VladimirGolovin 5y ago
    I recently tried Blender for video editing and was very pleasantly surprised.
nagasadhu 5y ago
Affinity photo
chdlr 5y ago
https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/
mattkevan 5y ago
Pixelmator Pro is excellent. Photoshop’s workflows are etched into my muscle memory, so while I like Affinity Photo, it’s just different enough to be frustrating. Pixelmator Pro on the other hand works exactly how I expect. It’s quick, fully featured and just plain pleasant to use. Thoroughly recommended.
- VladimirGolovin 5y ago
  Same here with the muscle memory. It's nice to hear that Pixelmator is compatible with it. BTW, do you use it on Windows or on a Mac?
  - mattkevan 5y ago
    Fairly sure it’s Mac only. It’s not a 1:1 replacement, but is similar enough for someone like me who’s used Photoshop for 25+ years to pick up quickly. Whereas I often find myself having to search through help pages and forums when using Affinity Photo. For many years I didn’t consider a computer a computer until it had Photoshop on it, but since moving to Pixelmator, Affinity and Figma I’ve been able to ditch Adobe completely.
andrei_says_ 5y ago
I was in a marketing research session for Adobe years ago. When they asked me if I’d be happy to pay a monthly subscription for their software instead of the version upgrades, I started openly cursing.
wanda 5y ago
Another vote for Affinity Photo and the Affinity apps in general actually: https://affinity.serif.com/ https://affinity.serif.com/

HlessClaudesman 5y ago

Find a copy of Photoshop CS6. Newer features are not worth the CC grief.

eropple 5y ago
If all you need is Photoshop, that's true. But, IME, nothing steps to Premiere and After Effects, particularly in combination. And modern Premiere is worth paying for, for performance if nothing else. Going back to the scary old days of stuff like Voukoder--no thank you. (No, definitely not Resolve.)
- uxcolumbo 5y ago
  Why do you think Resolve is not up to the job?
  - eropple 5y ago
    It's not Premiere. That might sound flip, but Premiere is a learned skill and I have yet to discover really compelling reasons beyond price (which isn't actually that expensive) to use Not Premiere. From a feature perspective its workflow options are sub-par; for example, it doesn't directly interface with After Effects. AE Live Templates in Premiere alone has saved me hours of time rendering out of After Effects. And AE, too, is not optional; while I like AE a lot less than I do Premiere, it sticks because--and there's a theme here--nothing else really does what After Effects does while integrating into an NLE. The ecosystem matters. I think Resolve is fine if you don't know other tools or your needs are small. I've used it in a pinch before when I didn't have any other options, it's totally usable. And there are some tools (grading, obviously) which are absolutely top notch, and if you are in an all-Blackmagic recording stack I can definitely see some benefits to ease-of-use when, say, pulling video recorded from an ATEM Mini and some Blackmagic cameras. But it's a limited editor with limited compatibility with everything else in my workflow and those of the folks I know.
- VladimirGolovin 5y ago
  I recently tried Blender for video editing and was very pleasantly surprised.

nagasadhu 5y ago

Affinity photo

chdlr 5y ago

https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/

mattkevan 5y ago

Pixelmator Pro is excellent. Photoshop’s workflows are etched into my muscle memory, so while I like Affinity Photo, it’s just different enough to be frustrating. Pixelmator Pro on the other hand works exactly how I expect. It’s quick, fully featured and just plain pleasant to use. Thoroughly recommended.

VladimirGolovin 5y ago
Same here with the muscle memory. It's nice to hear that Pixelmator is compatible with it. BTW, do you use it on Windows or on a Mac?
- mattkevan 5y ago
  Fairly sure it’s Mac only. It’s not a 1:1 replacement, but is similar enough for someone like me who’s used Photoshop for 25+ years to pick up quickly. Whereas I often find myself having to search through help pages and forums when using Affinity Photo. For many years I didn’t consider a computer a computer until it had Photoshop on it, but since moving to Pixelmator, Affinity and Figma I’ve been able to ditch Adobe completely.

andrei_says_ 5y ago

I was in a marketing research session for Adobe years ago. When they asked me if I’d be happy to pay a monthly subscription for their software instead of the version upgrades, I started openly cursing.

wanda 5y ago

Another vote for Affinity Photo and the Affinity apps in general actually: https://affinity.serif.com/ https://affinity.serif.com/