Resources for broke artists because Adobe prices are a joke
By a formerly broke, now professional artist
Adobe is the best at what it does when it comes to professional design, and unfortunately, they know it, so they have been trying to rob artists and charge them half a grand YEARLY.
But I'm sick of people saying you can only make good shit with adobe, so here's how I survived 3 years of art school and 2 years of freelance work with zero Adobe apps, a third-hand MacBook and the cheapest tablet Wacom produces:
Krita: For digital painting. Completely free. Can do almost anything Photoshop does in painting mode, just more user friendly. I still use it when I work from home and my digital art work is indistinguishable from what I do in Ph.
Firealpaca: Similar to Krita, also competely free, but I think the animation feature is better here, in terms of comprehension. Super direct interface, very encouraging for beginners and will give you much less trouble with Storage and layers than Procreate will (also they don't force you to buy a 500dollar tablet just to breathe near the app, cough, cough).
Davinci Resolve: For video editing and color grading. 90% of the features are free, but if you want to pay for the extra mile (don't really need to) it's just about 1/5 of Adobe's prices. Some filmmakers actually prefer this to Premiere and AfterEffects. Interface is much less terrifying but still very professional and versatile.
Figma: for graphic design and UI. Guess what, completely free. Best replacement for Illustrator and, honestly, much less scary for begginers. Some professionals say the UI design features are better but I don't do UI, so you might have to fact-check me here.
Affinity Publisher: for book/ document formating. Great alternative for InDesign (although InDesign is not as scary as its Adobe siblings in my experience, it's still very expensive) There's also Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer but I haven't personally tried those.
Blender: 3D design. Literally the best at what it does, no Adobe Program can compare here. Guess what. Completely free. Only downside is that its absolute bonkers interface (it wasn't made by designers for designers, so it functions more on a compsci mentality). However! there are a bunch of amazing tutorials on yourube if you have the patience and passion for it.
Lightroom Mobile: literally Adobe's Lightroom, just for free on your phone. All the major features are still there, you just don't have the benefit of a big screen and you rely on presets a lot.
If you're not a professional or aspiring to be one and you just want to try your hand at design/ editing as a hobby, you can also start here:
Canva: Graphic designers shit on it a lot but I made all of my college presentations here and none was the wiser. If you're creative enough with how you mess around the templates, no one is going to know, trust me.
Capcut: Video editors shit on it a lot too, but it gets the job done. Whether you want to edit your vacation vlog or make a titkok edit for funsies. It's pretty straight forward and also what???? completely free, exactly.
And if you want to check other people's work and presentations without having to resort to stolen screenshots on Pinterest, visit Behance. They upload their work themselves and put all of their contact info on there, for you to support them/ work with them.
And if for some reason you are hell-bent on getting the Adobe Suite, crack it, just be careful. Don't just use the first link you find on reddit, do proper research to avoid malware.
All you need is a crappy computer and spite.
titsay
jacobvanloon
kaledo-art
snowghoul
dededos
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
