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13 Reasonable Alternatives to

Adobe's Expensive Apps

• Affinity Photo [Adobe Photoshop]
• Photopea / SumoPaint [Adobe Photoshop]

J • GIMP / Glimpse Image Editor [Adobe Pho-
umping into the full suite of Adobe’s Creative
toshop]
Cloud apps is an expensive proposition: a
$53/month setback (as of this writing) that
might be overkill for your needs unless you’re pro- • Krita [Adobe Illustrator / Photoshop]
ducing a lot of media across a variety of formats. • Inkscape [Adobe Illustrator]
You can go piecemeal, of course, but you’ll still be
paying quite a bit more than your typical monthly • Scribus [Adobe InDesign]
music subscription to edit photos/videos/audio/print
pages/etc. And then there are the cancellation fees, • RawTherapee / Darktable [Adobe Light-
room]
which might come as an unanticipated shock if
you’re trying to get out of an annual plan early. • PDF-XChange Editor [Adobe Acrobat]

Not to hate on Adobe, but if you’re looking for alter-
natives that cost less, cost nothing, or simply aren’t • DaVinci Resolve [Adobe Premiere]
as bulky to work with as some of Adobe’s apps, I’ve
got you covered. While nothing beats Photoshop, • Audacity [Adobe Audition]
for example, there are plenty of cheaptools out
there you can use to accomplish much of what the
app lets you do. Dare I say it, these “lesser” apps
might even be a better fit, as you don’t really need
the tank of graphics-editing apps if you’re just doing
a little cropping and color-correction from time to
time.

I’ll be highlighting a bunch of alternative Adobe apps
in this guide, but if you’re impatient, here’s the full
list:

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