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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Canva’s free Affinity tools make Adobe’s subscriptions hard to justify.
- Combining Canva and Photoshop costs half of Creative Cloud.
- Adobe’s AI limits and device restrictions push users away.
Oh, Adobe. I’ve been an Adobe user for a very long time. My primary tool is Photoshop, which I have used daily since before there was a World Wide Web.
I dabble with the other tools in Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite. I primarily use Illustrator to create vector designs for my laser cutter, and Lightroom to enhance some RAW-format photos. My wife loved Adobe Express until they completely changed the UI one night. And I used Premiere, the Adobe video editing tool, until it crashed more than 100 times during one video. I switched to Apple’s Final Cut Pro (which has a one-time fee) after that.
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Photoshop used to sell as a standalone software product. I bought it back in the 2010s for $700. I also paid upgrade fees relatively regularly. And then, Adobe launched the Creative Cloud subscription plan–>, which started at $50 per month and is now $70 per month.
I’ve been paying that every month. It costs more than $800 per year.
A few years ago, a credible Adobe competitor, Serif Ltd., released its Affinity software suite. Affinity had a photo editor that competed with Photoshop and Lightroom, a vector design tool that competed with Adobe Illustrator, and a page layout tool that competed with Adobe InDesign. Each tool was sold for a one-time price of $50.
I purchased the Affinity Photo editor, which I found to be quite powerful. But I have decades of Photoshop muscle memory. Something I could accomplish in Photoshop in minutes took me an hour in Affinity, not because Affinity was bad, but because I wasn’t familiar with it. As time savings is super important for me, I stuck with Photoshop.
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As I’ve been using Photoshop daily for decades, it has become deeply ingrained in my work habits. However, I don’t use the other Adobe tools very often.
And then Canva changed the game, acquiring Affinity in March 2024. Last month, Canva announced that all of the Affinity apps are now free — for everyone — whether or not you have a Canva subscription. Canva also offers a wide range of features for designers and marketers, also for free.
If you do have a Canva Pro subscription, the Affinity tools also gain AI features, such as generative fill. The thing is, Canva Pro is $15/month. Not $70 per month.
The subscription math
Let me be clear, Canva and Creative Cloud are different beasts. Yes, Affinity offers pro-level graphics tools that match some Adobe tools, but Creative Cloud offers powerful prepress capabilities for color management and print pipelines. Creative Cloud also offers advanced motion and visual effects capabilities through After Effects, as well as enhanced Premiere workflows.
But I jettisoned Premiere years ago. And while Illustrator is nice, there’s no doubt that I can achieve the same results with Affinity’s vector tool.
Also: I thought software subscriptions were a ripoff until I did the math
But I can’t give up Photoshop. It would cost too much time. Fortunately, Adobe offers a $20 Photography plan, which includes Photoshop and Lightroom. On the other hand, Adobe gets extremely stingy with its AI usage, giving you a total of 25 “credits” per month — basically, 25 spins on the generative fill AI wheel.
If you have Canva Pro, they don’t assign limits to the number of generative fill actions you can take using Affinity. You get it all — and by all, I mean video editing, brand management, gigatons of templates, design tools, mailing tools, form tools, and on and on and on — for $15 per month.
So, I could keep Photoshop, continue to leverage my muscle memory for $20 per month, and then add all the Affinity apps, including their AI features and other design tools, for an additional $15 per month. Together, that adds up to $35, half the price of Creative Cloud’s monthly fee.
Adobe annoyances
The thing is, Adobe’s stinginess has always seemed unnecessary. It’s not just the limit on 25 AI credits per month. It’s that Adobe limits use of their products to just two computers.
I regularly jump between three machines: the one in my office, the one in the family room, and my laptop. If I want to use any of the Adobe tools on all three, I have to uninstall from one computer and install it on another. It’s inconvenient and unnecessary.
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I know that Adobe has worked out the actuarial tables for AI credits, because you can buy more by signing up for their Firefly Pro plan<!–>, for another $20 per month. That gets you 4,000 generative AI credits instead of 25.
Basically, you can have Photoshop for $20/month, but barely any AI. If you want your Photoshop and your AI, too, you can get it for $40/month by adding in Firefly. Or you could go the full Creative Cloud by ponying up $70 per month.
Canva + Affinity + Photoshop
I’m going to give the $35/month Canva + Affinity + Photoshop approach a shot. Worst case, I can just re-up my Creative Cloud subscription.
But what about you? Is this approach for you? Here’s what I’d recommend.
- For everyday creators and marketers: Canva gives you design, publishing, and analytics. Affinity fills the “I need a real desktop editor” for some graphics tools. And if you’re like me, you can add Photoshop for $20/month.
- For students, hobbyists, and low-budget freelancers: Canva has a zero-subscription approach to Affinity, a free version of Canva, and a fairly inexpensive Pro upgrade.
- For small teams: Canva offers brand kits, editing comments, approvals, and email tools at a fairly low price. Affinity handles some of the bigger edits. By contrast, Adobe has enormously powerful team tools, but they get very expensive very quickly.
- For graphics specialists (broadcast, VFX, prepress): Adobe nukes Affinity, especially when it comes to After Effects and Premiere pipelines, color management, and enterprise-wide team coordination.
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But if you do dump the Creative Cloud apps and jump over to Canva, you get quite a lot.
- Vector, layout, and photo editing: The Affinity apps effectively replace Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop for all but the most arcane tasks.
- Social marketing: Canva has an epic ton of templates, designs, and marketing tools. Adobe Express, which comes with Creative Cloud, is on that path, but it’s not there yet.
- Interoperability: Canva’s apps can open most Adobe formats, so you’re good there.
Think about it. You might save some money.
My creative stack
Now that I’ve dropped Creative Cloud, here’s what my personal creative stack looks like:
- Photoshop–>: High-performance photo editing – $19.99/mo
- Affinity<!–>: Line art illustration, plus AI photo editing – free, but AI comes with Canva subscription
- Canva–>: Wide range of template-driven design tools, brand tools, marketing tools, and an enormous creative asset library, plus AI features – $15/mo
- Final Cut Pro<!–>: Professional video editing – one-time purchase (years ago) of $299
- Autodesk Fusion–>: CAD design tool – free for non-commercial and education use
- Eagle<!–>: Asset management tool – one-time purchase of $34.95
- CleanShot X–>: Annotated screenshot and screen recording – one-time purchase $29
- Audacity<!–>: Audio editing – free and open source
Obviously, what you choose will vary from the list above. There are also some crossovers here. For example, Affinity’s photo features are comparable to those of Photoshop, but I’m still paying for Photoshop because it’s so ingrained in my muscle memory and productivity patterns.
Canva has some basic video editing tools that can definitely do the job, but I prefer the professional-level Final Cut Pro for all its power. Canva also offers cloud-based asset management, whereas Eagle simply stores files on my local server. I like it because it’s very fast.
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You don’t really need to pay for CleanShot X if you want screenshots or screen recording. The Mac and PC have native screenshot tools, and QuickTime offers screen recording capabilities. However, I really appreciate the editor and annotation features in CleanShot, which I use frequently with ZDNET articles. Those annotations can be done in tools like Canva, Affinity, or Photoshop, but they’re extremely fast in CleanShot, which aligns with my theme of time savings.
The bottom line
The bottom line, though, is this: Since all but Photoshop and Canva are one-time payments (with an occasional upgrade fee), I now have a fairly low-cost structure for an enormously powerful creative stack.
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What about you? Are you sticking with Adobe’s Creative Cloud, or do Canva’s free Affinity tools make you reconsider that monthly bill? Have you tried combining Canva with Photoshop, or are you ready to drop Adobe entirely? How important are AI tools in your creative workflow, and do limits like Adobe’s 25-credit cap matter to you? What’s in your creative stack? Let us know in the comments below.
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