In a typical week, I use Adobe products most days. I use Photoshop daily to crop and resize my images for articles. I usually use Illustrator and Adobe Express to create illustrations and social media posts for an organization I’m part of. While my Adobe workflow isn’t too heavy, I have been relying on it for quite some time, and I'm looking to move away from Adobe. I tested my workflow to see how easy it could be to switch from Adobe Creative Cloud to non-Adobe products, hoping I can finally break my subscription and live an Adobe-free life in the future.

Photopea lets me do the same as my Photoshop workflow

There’s minimal change for me (and it’s free)

While Photoshop has some heavy features for complex manipulation, I typically use its basic features. Most days, I use Photoshop to resize, crop, and color edit my images for the articles I write. It’s not heavy work. It definitely doesn’t warrant paying a $50 per month subscription.

Switching to Photopea from Photoshop is great for many reasons. I can follow my exact workflow — for cropping, resizing, and recoloring images — in Photopea without changing anything. The interface is almost cloned, the tools and shortcuts are very similar, and all my Photoshop steps are exactly the same in Photopea.

For my average week’s workflow, I can easily switch from Photoshop to Photopea with no detrimental effects or compromise in workflow.

Photopea is a free browser-based tool that runs on ads. The only major difference is that ads are next to the artboard, unlike in Photoshop. I always save my files locally rather than through Creative Cloud using Photoshop, so this part of my workflow also stays the same.

Replicating my illustrative design workflow

It’s hard to fill this gap

There are many alternatives to using Adobe Illustrator. Whether you’re looking for open-source options, free options like Vectorpea, or other proprietary tools like Affinity Designer, there’s plenty of choice.

I wasn’t sure which tool to replicate my Adobe Illustrator workflow with, so I tried a couple of them to see which is best.

Switching to Inkscape is more time-consuming

Inkscape was my initial choice for replicating my Illustrator workflow. It’s often top of the list for open-source vector-based design work. Although I’ve used Inkscape a little bit, I’m not incredibly well-versed in its setup, tool options, or general use case. It’s vastly different from Illustrator.

The layout is so different from what I’m used to with Illustrator. Even the shortcuts are mostly different, except for the Text Tool (T). This meant I spent a lot of time failing to use shortcuts and then hunting down the tool I wanted to use.

Although Inkscape’s tools offer mostly the same abilities as Illustrator, it feels disheartening that the process is so slow initially. The layout feels more cluttered, and it’s frustrating that every file or project opens in a new window rather than a tab in the same window. This makes it a little more difficult to work on projects requiring multiple files and assets, but it’s not impossible.

Vectorpea does most simple tasks the same

Vectorpea is another free alternative to Illustrator. The browser-based tool is the sister site of Photopea. Similarly to the cloned version of Photoshop, Vectorpea is very similar to Illustrator in its layout, tool offerings, and shortcuts. However, it’s much simpler. It doesn’t quite have all the bells and whistles of Illustrator, but largely, I don’t need them.

The Text Tool doesn’t quite provide all I need. It doesn’t let you add a stroke to the text or turn it from live text into outlines to ensure font legibility. Vectorpea lets you add local fonts to your system, which is helpful, but it only lets me do this from Google Chrome and not my usual Safari browser.

Despite importing a grouped .ai file, Vectorpea wouldn’t keep the elements grouped. Every time I tried to move the entire asset, it would separate the elements. I also had difficulties copying and pasting this element, but dragging it from its existing artboard over to the new project tab worked instead.

Vectorpea can be a little slow, whether that’s due to internet speed or trying to open or create large files within it. I needed to practice my patience a lot using this tool, but ultimately, if waiting isn’t too much of a problem, it works for most of what I need from a vector-design tool.

Social media and animation without Adobe

Canva almost comes to the rescue

I typically use Adobe Express to create designs for social media or marketing purposes. These designs might include animation, but often I just find it easy to make a design and resize it for all my different social media sizes or printed stationery needs.

Since I am an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber, Adobe Express Premium is included in my subscription. This gives me a few extra features like the Resize option and more animated options.

Canva is the most obvious choice when replicating my Adobe Express workflow. Both Canva and Adobe Express are very similar, with many duplicated features. However, I don’t have a Canva Pro account, so I can only use the free tools.

Due to only having a free Canva account, I cannot access the Brand Kit feature or use any local fonts on my system. This creates a barrier for the work I need to do, which requires branded elements and typefaces.

My workaround is to upload my brand assets onto the design. This way, I can duplicate them onto my Canva project. There’s no workaround for the font since it’s not available in Canva, and only Canva Pro members can access local fonts.

Canva’s animation features are similar to those of Adobe Express; however, only Canva Pro users can change the animation timings. The Resize option in Canva is also only available to Pro users, so I can’t benefit from making one design and simply resizing it for different purposes.

Using Canva means more workarounds for the same results as Adobe Express, with some missing features entirely. Ultimately, however, it works well as an alternative tool.

It’s harder to replicate my workflow than I thought

Is Adobe here to stay?

I’d like to move my creative workflow elsewhere and give up Adobe products. I know it may take some time to assimilate to Inkscape’s complex interface or get used to Vectorpea’s slow speed, but there are some features that simply aren’t available without Adobe. Although if I saved money by not renewing my Adobe subscription, then I could still pay less by subscribing to Canva Pro and purchasing an Affinity license, both combined, offer almost the same features available across the Adobe suite for much less money. There’ll be less forced AI and constant updates, and I’d feel more secure in my data and content.