An Adobe Creative Cloud subscription can be costly, but with a little intel, you can find and use plenty of Adobe tools without paying a penny. There are more than a handful of tools available across smartphones, desktops, and browsers which let you use Adobe’s features to transform your work for free, while still offering familiar interfaces compared to other free Adobe alternatives. You typically need a free Adobe account, and some tools do require subscriptions to access premium features, but all are available for free otherwise.

10 Adobe Premiere Rush

Mobile video editing

Although Adobe has a comprehensive video editing tool, Premiere Pro, sometimes you need a mobile version that’s not quite as heavy-handed. That’s where Adobe Premiere Rush comes in — this video editor is available for free on iOS and Android, as well as desktops running Windows 10 or later and macOS Catalina v10.15 or later.

With the Premiere Rush app, you can import photos, videos, files, and audio to your projects. Even from a smartphone, you’ll have a video timeline with a scrubber to easily edit the video, and you’ll find common tools like text, graphics, effects, color, speed, transform, audio, and more. You can change the timeline and menu views, and you can also capture raw footage to add to your project.

9 Lightroom Photo Editor

Edit your photos on-the-go

This is the mobile app version of Adobe Lightroom, but you don’t need the pricey subscription to access it. It’s available for iOS, iPadOS, and Android platforms. Lightroom has some great AI features, which feature in the Lightroom Photo Editor app, too; however, the AI tools are for subscribers only.

Lightroom mobile’s free tools offer great photo editing options. If you shoot your smartphone photos in RAW format, you can edit those for free in Lightroom’s mobile app — but to edit imported RAW images, you will need a premium subscription.

You can edit your photos using sliders for lighting, presets, color, blur, effects, details, optics, and profiles — all of which have free options as well as some premium options. Some users can get periods of time to use the Premium options for free, although it’s not guaranteed.

8 Adobe Acrobat Reader

Read and fill in your PDFs

The free Acrobat Reader doesn’t provide as many complex tools as Adobe Acrobat (the full version), but for free, you can do plenty. Acrobat Reader lets you open, save, and share PDFs online or locally. This includes sharing the document tor feedback and comments using both the 'Share' function and the comment ability for direct annotation.

While you can’t edit PDFs in Acrobat Reader, you can actively fill out and sign documents. This is helpful when you’re sent PDFs that need information filled in, and saves you from printing it out to complete by hand or adding non-matching typography in badly aligned spaces.

7 Adobe Firefly

AI tools with no AI prices

Adobe Firefly is the internal AI model used in most Adobe products — alongside Adobe Sensei machine learning — but you can also access Adobe Firefly as a standalone tool via the browser.

When using Firefly from the browser, you don’t need to be an Adobe subscriber, just have an Adobe account and be logged in.

You’ll have access to the generative AI text-to-image tool, which uses Firefly Image 3, where you can generate four image variations at a time, with a host of different style, composition, and reference options to get what you want.

The other features in Adobe Firefly’s free offerings change, seemingly on rotation. Sometimes, you can test upcoming beta tools before they hit Adobe’s software, but they often get removed from the free Firefly tool once approved. This is a fun tool to test out incoming AI features before they become part of subscription-only software.

6 Adobe Color

Navigate project colors with ease

Although Adobe Color is implemented in Adobe Express, it also sits as its own independent tool accessible from the browser.

Its main uses are for creating color palettes and themes. It has a built-in accessibility checker to ensure your color palettes are accessible and work well for anyone with vision differences. You can create new color themes, explore existing palettes in the library, see trending color themes from different categories, and use the lab to recolor your SVG graphics with new color palettes.

Just for fun, Adobe Color even features a color game. You have to remember the color sequences and recall them correctly. Highest score wins.

5 Adobe Aero

Create AR in the palm of your hand

This phone app feels like a bit of fun for someone who doesn’t know much about augmented reality (AR), but it is equally a serious handheld app for those who do know a thing or two about AR creations. You don’t even need to know how to code in order to utilize it.

You can import your own 3D elements made in other software or ones you’ve downloaded from third-party sites, but you can also use the 3D models provided in the Aero app (although these are simple elements like 3D letters). You can also turn your PSD files or 2D illustrations into 3D masterpieces, including adding audio.

You can easily share your AR creations by sending a QR code. Your AR interactive elements are viewable without the recipient even downloading the app.

Adobe Aero is available as a smartphone app for iOS users, and it’s currently in public beta mode for desktop macOS and Windows users.

4 Adobe Photoshop Express

Photo manipulation in your pocket

Adobe Photoshop Express is like a mobile version of Photoshop. Photoshop Express is implemented in Huawei phones, but as an app, you can get it for both iOS and Android devices easily. It's also available on tablets.

While you can get Photoshop for iPad, Photoshop Express has slightly different tools. It's made with mobile editing and sharing to social media in mind, allowing you to quickly edit and export your images, collages, or photo manipulations. There is a premium upgrade, but free users can access presets and effects, text and graphic tools, and photo editing tools before easily sharing your images online directly from the app.

3 Adobe Capture

Capture the world around you for your art

Adobe Capture is a lesser-known smartphone app, which is free to use, but can easily connect to an existing Creative Cloud account for seamless integration into your projects.

Capture allows you to use colors, textures, and imagery from the world you see around you and directly transform them into artistic elements or inspiration boards. Simply take a photo of something that you like, maybe a flower, for example, and Adobe Capture does the rest. It turns one image into multiple creative options such as a color palette, multiple texture types, patterns, brushes, and other creative elements.

You can share your new creative elements through the Creative Cloud, if you do subscribe, or you can save them individually for use elsewhere if you’re using other creative software.

2 Adobe Fresco

Direct competition against Procreate

Adobe Fresco is a drawing app available for tablets, and it gives Procreate a run for its money. Not only is it a free tool, but it also runs on Android tablets as well as the iPad (whereas Procreate is exclusively available for iPad). To top it off, you can also draw with vectors for scalability, which isn’t possible in Procreate.

Fresco features a similar interface to most other Adobe tools, letting you use the layers and blending modes that you know and love. Not only can you draw using its vector brushes, but it also provides raster art brushes and other features, so the options are endless.

1 Adobe Express

Adobe’s do-it-all app

You can find Adobe Express as a browser-based tool or a mobile and tablet app. While you don’t require a pricey Adobe subscription, you do need an Adobe account to use Express. You can make an account for free at Adobe. The tool has some premium features locked behind a subscription, but the free offerings are great.

Adobe Express has built-in AI tools, such as Generative Fill, 3D Text Effects, text-to-image generators, animate with audio video tools, and even more. Using Express lets you create anything from static images to animated social posts or short-form videos. Even with just the free tools here, you can create so much.

To access Premium, you can upgrade for $10 per month, or if you already subscribe to a Creative Cloud plan, Adobe Express is included in most plans.

Using Adobe doesn’t have to cost a thing

Although many of the free tools Adobe offers will work better or have more options available under the premium plans, you can create and edit a lot without the costly Creative Cloud subscription. Some lesser-known tools like Adobe Capture, Adobe Color, and Adobe Aero can let you be dynamic with your creative work. You may still need access to Creative Cloud or free alternatives to create large projects, but for small hobby creations, Adobe's free tools offer even more than most people need.