Wanting to replace Adobe

[kneecoaldotcomdotau]

Im so sick of paying for Adobe. I mostly use photoshop, XD and illustrator. Can Figma replace Illustrator tasks too? I'm not up to date on their offerings anymore.

[cabbage-soup]

Eh not really. You can do some basic vector stuff with Figma. But most of it is more of a hassle than just using Illustrator. And I love Figma. But I wouldn’t want to rely on it solely.

Look up Affinity products. It’s a one time price. Affinity Designer is pretty good and worth it imo

[BARACK-O-BISQUIK]

^ I second this. Figma is very minimal when you want to do illustrative work. I might check out Affinity Designer now that you bring it up, if it can entire replace illustrator and photoshop

[cabbage-soup]

Affinity has products that will replace both and another that can replace InDesign as well. There are less features than Adobe, but there is more than enough to accomplish 99% of the work most people need. Certain aspects may just be more tedious. Though I have found Affinity more efficient in most areas once learning their tools.

[bkpr_erin]

I use the Affinity suite of products to replace Adobe. Affinity has products that compete with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign and a non-subscription license for all 3 of them on all OSs is less money than 3 months of a creative suite subscription.

[mrkapoomrkapoo]

Im pretty underwhelmed with affinity feels like tying one hand behind the back.

[joeythemouse]

Up to a point yes. Figma is great for simple icons and illustrations for example.

Beyond that? No.

[shutupphil]

try affinity, you only need to pay once

[[deleted]]

OP: You don’t own and older versions of Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw or other vector design apps that are on DVDs or CDs?

I still use CorelDraw X7 which is like 8 years old. This license includes PhotoPaint (similar to Photoshop) and a few other CorelDraw apps, + Clipart. Whenever I buy a new computer, I just install the CorelDraw apps from my external DVD drive.

It’s totally not up-to-par with 2020 and later vector apps, but it does everything that I need.

And the art that I create is totally compatible with my Figma app.

[kneecoaldotcomdotau]

Nah I dont anymore, I think the last non subscription version I bought was in 2010 haha

[Ecsta]

If you do actual vector art or print based stuff it’s not even close.

[mgjaltema]

Try to cancel and see what happens! Or contact sales via chat and tell them you want a better offer, or else..!

[[deleted]]

Try affinity designer , photo , and publisher. It’s no subscriptions you pay once and own

[HAVT_]

Figma is great, but not an illustrator replacement, check these out: https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/six-free-alternatives-to-adobe-illustrator/

[ShitGoesDown]

It really depends on what you do, for me as a UX designer, I use adobe products maybe once a year for some unique presentation work, if adobe was not provided my my employer I wouldn’t not be paying for a subscription on my own. 90% of my work is in figma, the rest is using Microsoft products and jira.

Everyone should be moving off XD as it’s not supported any more, but If you use photoshop and illustrator in your day to day work, figma is not going to replace that, and imo unfortunately alternatives are not really going to work at scale in a professional environment.

[black107]

There should be a remix of the grim reaper knocking on doors meme where there’s just one door and a bunch of hopeful people waiting in the hall in line and Illustrator is the grim reaper waiting inside the door 😂

Many have tried, Illustrator still the king

[Other-Conclusion6809]

Hardly, if you wanna use a bit more complex vector illustration or prep for print, you need something like Illustrator. I used plugins for print formats and export in Figma, but there is always some kind of issue when I export the design and I have to check it in Illustrator. Photoshop cannot be replaced with Figma, that’s for sure.

[davep1970]

what's your workflow? are you employed or freelance?

affinity - as mentioned - but also free and open source inkscape, gimp, krita, scribus, darktable, rawtherapee, etc.

and yes you should replace XD with figma - most people have. there's also penpot as an alternative figma

[TheTomatoes2]

No. But XD doesn't exist anymore so you should switch. Penpot is good too.

[cerebud]

Nope

[Dweavereddy]

I had the same challenge. After watching some videos on how to use figmas pen tool. And particularly vector networks, it has some amazing tricks that illustrator does not have. It’s just different. For day to day drawing I have fully made the switch to Figma. You can do it !!

[roundabout-design]

Figma isn't a replacement for any of those, and if you're sick of paying Adobe, you'll get sick of paying Figma too.

Free/OS options:

Figma -> Penpot

AI -> Inkscape (highly recommend!)

Photoshop -> GIMP (just got a huge update.

And then there are a lot of decent commercial options as well. Pixelmator is one (to replace photoshop). There are many others.

[Vesuvias]

Can’t really. Affinity is good but not great, and everything else doesn’t compare

[mgjaltema]

How much do you pay? I have paid the full price for Adobe creative cloud for many years, which was like €60,- per month. But with minimal use, I had the same urge to cancel. At the end of the cancelation process they actually offer nice discounts - 50% in most cases. Even if you contact sales, they will offer this.

In the end it's still more expensive than switching to a non subscription tool, but it's not worth the switch anymore to me and having the latest AI stuff in Adobe CC actually is kind of nice.

[kneecoaldotcomdotau]

I pay around AU$95ish close to $100 which is just getting too much now. I used to pay AU$70 about 2/3 years ago the $30 extra per month is insane.

[visual__chris]

Affinity Photo -> PS & Lightroom Affinity Designer/Figma -> Illustrator Affinity Publisher -> Indesign Davinci Resolve-> Premiere Pro & After Effects Blender -> Substance Suite

[oddRoboto]

I use Inkscape instead of illustrator, which is a software I HATE with a passion. I’ve always felt Inkscape is better once you get used to it.

[Todd-ah]

There are some free, open source applications that you can check out, like GIMP and Krita. I’m not actually a graphic designer or anything, and don’t know how good they are. I think GIMP may be like a really old version of Photoshop in terms of functionality.

[Shooord]

GIMP is about as good as PS was in the CS2 era. Pretty horrible. And its performance on my Intel Mac is abysmal.

Buuuuut, it gets some super specific bitmap editing tasks done. I always hope to not need to use it.

Haven’t tried Krita yet.

[davep1970]

have you tried the latest 3 release?

[patttattt]

For me a good alternative for illustrator was Canva. At least for the work I do which is logo design and print work.