Adobe has created a suite of software products grouped together called Creative Cloud which is available as a subscription model. I have matched common Adobe products to similar free and open source programs.
Adobe Photoshop
Starting with the popular photo editor, Adobe Photoshop. There are a number of free photo editors on the market, ranging from the simple to the complex.
What comes the closest to Photoshop is Photopea, which is a web based photo editor that looks similar to Photoshop and can read and write Photoshop PSD files.
Affinity is a free program that replaces the functions of Photoshop, Illustrator and In Design. You need to have a paid Canva Pro account to use the AI features.
If you want a painting tool, have a look at Krita. It has 2D animation and can load and save Photoshop PSD files.
Adobe Acrobat Pro
Adobe Acrobat Pro enables you to handle PDF, such as split and merge as well as rearrange pages.
PDF24 has two different parts, creator for the desktop and PDF24 tools for the web.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Premier Pro is the video editor package.
DaVinci Resolve is free program that has been used to create successful movies. DaVinci Resolve is 4 professional apps in one:
- Video editing like Adobe Premiere Pro
- Fusion for motion graphics and video effects
- Fairlight for professional audio work
- Colour grading
The paid studio version adds advanced noise reduction, AI features and higher end export options.
If you want a basic video editor that is easy to learn, start with Shotcut. It has a simple interface that can take about an hour to get used to. If you need more than Shotcut, move to KDEnlive which has more complex features like multi-track editing and text to speech.
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator works with vector images. Unlike traditional raster graphics (like the ones used in photo editing) which you work with individual pixels, vector graphics are created using mathematical formulae to draw complex shapes that can be resized without loss of quality.
Inkscape is a free vector graphics program that is similar to Adobe Illustrator.
Adobe Audition
Adobe Audition is a professional audio workstation
LMMS is a digital audio workstation. It features a piano roll for creating melodies; a pattern-based system for building songs; a beat and baseline editor; along with synths, instruments and samples. It also supports VST plugins. However, it’s built around MIDI and patterns so won’t natively record vocals or live instruments.
Ardour is a free digital audio workstation designed for real instruments, vocals, podcasts and full studio projects. The Windows version requires a small payment to download the software.
Audacity is a simpler audio editor, enabling you to record and edit audio tracks.
Adobe Firefly
Adobe Firefly is an AI-powered studio for video, audio and images that brings planning, generation, editing and refining into one place.
Comfy is the AI creation engine for visual professionals who demand control over every model, every parameter, and every output. It uses an interconnecting system called “nodes” to link models with parameters and processing to make steps visible and adjustable.
KritaAIDiffusion is a free plugin for Krita that seamlessly integrates the power of Stable Diffusion into Krita, which enables artists to inpaint (replace existing areas of an image); outpaint (extend the canvas of an image with AI content that blends with the image); generate (create new content by describing using words or an existing image); refine (refine existing images); live-painting (AI interprets the canvas); upscaling (enhance an existing image to a larger resolution such as 4K or 8K.
