Itching to learn a new skill? The Covid-19 pandemic has many of us feeling this way with many new content creators and influencers, while others may have opted to develop digital skills such as graphic and web design or completing courses from Google Digital Garage and other online institutions. One of the most popular apps that many have decided to learn about is — not you Canva — Adobe Photoshop. But is Photoshop really the app for you?
What many don’t understand is the plethora of creative apps provided within the parent suite for Photoshop — Adobe Creative Cloud. Within this suite of apps, users can create all sorts of magic through video editing, website design, audio engineering, character design and animation and so much more. While knowing to do the basics in Photoshop is a valuable asset to your personal portfolio, you may want to exploit a gap in your local market and learn another app that adds just as much value. Let’s explore some of these options.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Vlogging has become quite popular in recent years and whether you’re a vlogger already, an aspiring vlogger or just want to provide a service for vloggers, Adobe Premiere Pro is a powerful option for high resolution video editing.
In addition to features like transitioning, compilation, audio editing, lighting and loads of video effects, this app supports a wide range of video formats, the ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously, offers motion graphic templates and even offers support for VR projects.
Could this be the app for you? Let’s move on to the next wizard on this list.
Adobe After Effects
While Premiere Pro does offer many features that Adobe After Effects has, this app does so much more and in a much easier way too. Perfect for adding the flashy effects to really add that finishing touch to your videos as well as cool text animation and creating stunning motion graphics, Adobe After Effects is just a lot more advanced. It can be a bit difficult to learn at first but once you get a good understanding of keyframes and start using it regularly, everything feels possible.
Personally, I like to use this along with Premiere Pro for projects but I wouldn’t say one is really a substitute for the other. One is great for high quality video editing and the other great for adding motion graphic effects; both are powerful on their own and an absolute force when used together.
However, it is key to note that for this app, a computer system with the right specs is usually required to avoid lagging and reduce that usual long render time (try Shopping with Ay for assistance with this). You also get Adobe Media Encoder along with this app which is used mainly for exports and can be used for file conversions.
Adobe InDesign
Maybe editing videos doesn’t really entice you and you want something a bit more… still? Something that adds a little spice to your documents? Meet InDesign.
InDesign is like Microsoft Publisher but a whole lot more advanced. Best for creating projects with multiple pages and allowing you to create things like CVs, pamphlets, brochures, magazines, catalogues, interactive digital publications, ePUBS and loads more digital and printed material; this app helps you to create beautiful, professional designs.
Adobe Audition
Feeling musical? Audition is built for creating, mixing, editing and restoring audio content, adding a pristine sound to your videos’ audio finishing.
Perfect for podcasters, Audition allows you to record, edit, and integrate music clips. Also allows you to remove background noise and great for voice-over recordings. Personally I’ve used it to record and mix my own songs and it is pretty simple to learn.
Adobe Illustrator
Back to the graphics but this one adds a bit more fun features than Photoshop. Illustrator is great for releasing your inner artist allowing you to create digital drawings, paintings, typography and beautiful logos. You can draw freehand, trace, recolour and create patterns with its vast selection of tools.
While Photoshop is great for creating posters and image manipulation, you may prefer a look to Illustrator for an often more original vector-based art style for your design. Illustrator is also the better option for logo designs and character illustrations.
Adobe Animate
Like Illustrator, Animate also lets you create vector graphics but with the additional superpower of — you guessed it — animating those graphics. This comes in pretty handy if you’re planning on having your own animated show and creating animated graphics for video games, websites, apps, etc.
Adobe Character Animator
Another animation app but this one really brings your character designs to life. Using a process known as rigging, Character Animator allows your characters to mimic your facial expressions, body movement, blinks, and even converts the sound of your voice into lip-synced mouth movements.
This app is great for creating your own TV shows, adds a fun and interactive twist to your teaching sessions and presentations, and excellent for product promotions.
Adobe Dreamweaver
With so many new businesses popping up, at some point many of these business owners will desire a website. This is where Dreamweaver makes its entrance. Dreamweaver is mainly for web design and allows you to do so without even coding (though you probably will want to learn some level of coding for more advanced features). Website design, though a bit time-consuming, usually pays quite well so if you’re looking for a new income opportunity then this might be for you.
Adobe XD
Take a look at your phone screen. Tap a few buttons. Open an app. Close the app. See how it all works?
You may have heard of the terms UI/UX (User Interface/User Experience) design. Adobe XD is key in creating these interfaces by editing vector graphics as well as allowing you to add animations, build interactive prototypes, collaborate and test across devices. A great tool for planning your app or website designs and brilliant for showcasing your work.
Soooooo… still planning on sticking with Photoshop or has any of these apps piqued your interest instead? For £49.94 (US$52.99) per month, you could even just get them all, like I do. Quite worth it in my opinion. You also get extras like Behance, Adobe Fonts, Adobe Portfolio and 100GB of cloud storage along with your subscription. Otherwise, each individual app is usually about £19.97 (US$20.99) per month. If you’re planning to get multiple apps then it’s really much better to just get the full suite.
What you waiting for? There’s magic to be made! Get downloading and load up those YouTube tutorials and you could be a pro in no time!
