Free Open Source Alternatives for Adobe Creative Suite

This is a thread on Open Source Matthias.
Commercial and Quark don’t qualify.
:wink:

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I thought so, that’s why I asked first :wink:

Thanks for sharing this after the forum was upgraded. In honor of the 10th anniversary of this post, I’ve decided to update the list of free and open source software (FOSS) recommendations.

As it has been pointed out previously, these “alternative solutions” could bring some professional workflows to a grinding halt. For anyone currently making a living in the design industry, it is in your best interest to use the software mandated by your client/vendor/employer.

All suggestions are free, open source, and available on Windows, MacOS, and Linux platforms. Happy downloading!

DESIGN APPS

Replace Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Photoshop Elements with…

Replace Adobe Illustrator with…

Replace Adobe InDesign with…

Replace Adobe Dimension, 3d Studio, or Maya with…

Replace Adobe Photoshop Sketch, Adobe Illustrator Draw, or Corel Painter with…

Replace Adobe Acrobat DC with…

Replace Adobe Bridge with…

WEB & UX APPS

Replace Adobe Dreamweaver with…

Replace Adobe XD with…

PHOTOGRAPHY APPS

Replace Adobe Lightroom with…

VIDEO & AUDIO APPS

Replace Adobe Premiere Pro with…

Replace Adobe Animate with…

Replace Adobe Audition with…

Replace Adobe AfterEffects with…

Replace Adobe Media Encoder with…

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SurfPark!!! Helloooooo old friend! Welcome Back!! :beers::taco::taco::beers:

So great to see you and thank you so much for the updates :heart:

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Nice app! But when it comes to photo filter. I prefer Skylum. It provides dozens of creative ways to enhance photos. What’s important this tool is easy to use. There are filters that beginners can overlay on their photos and tweak further with manual controls for various effects. I think it will be useful for newbies as well as professionals.

@willyflew, Sketchbook is free, but not open source. Thanks for the suggestion though.

@russel_sherman, thank you for the suggestion, but the app you’ve mentioned is not open source (it is a freemium model) and available only on MacOS.

I removed it…

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Define Opensource?Opensource says you may access the code freely. Did you construct a version of this code?

Sorry Rafa this thread has been annoying the crap out of me. I have been running a linux system on my laptop for years…I run a number of opensource shit. more importantly I paid to support the code writers

Sorry if a post bothers you. I just hope someone will find a post useful.

I must say that for the user’s point of view it has little sense to “limit” the list for open source. The point is to have some good free programs to work with. I doubt the vast majority of users will touch the source code ever. The point of asking Open Source on this thread is just that implies “free”.

Some other programs other user posted like Fusion and Davinci are not open source either.

One thing about Linux users is that I think they are a bit more autonomous, so I would think most are used to search from the software themselves if a windows user finds a program useful I don’t see why you complain. But you are free to do so! (but not open source!)

Just as a reminder this thread is for

Free Open Source Alternatives

@Rafa

I haven’t looked up the whole list, I don’t have time … but Sketchup is NOT free is is NOT open source. I also can’t find anything stating that Hit Film Express is open source. Just a free version of the Pro model.

When I have time I’ll go through the list.

Anything posted here that is not Free Open Source Alternatives will be removed.

So let’s all keep in mind the thread you are posting in. If you have some great software you love that you want to talk about … start another thread.

Thanks :slight_smile:

You can delete all threads if you want.

SurfPark posted about Davinci and fusion which are not. Just saying.

And Sketchup has a free version, but nvm. Post deleted.

And Sorry to spam the thread. The original post 10 years ago was:

I found that throughout my college years and early in my career, I did not have the funds to obtain the Adobe software. Even purchasing the educational version of the software was beyond my reach. Adobe’s monopoly in the creative software market has always bothered me. While their products have always remained strong, the lack of competition has created high price points. I also thought it was well beyond the reach of most artists or children that simply wanted to dabble with digital art.

Now it turns out to post Only Open source, instead of Free. But, again ok :o)

I think you misunderstand this thread. It’s not Free AND Open Source. It’s Free Open Source.

If you want to start another thread of free software go for it. :slight_smile: Just make sure it’s actually free and not a trial version… because that is just a pain in the butt :wink:

We try keep this list up to date. If a program has changed and is no longer open source, we will check it out and update accordingly.

This is great, thanks! I hope we have an opensource PROJECT FILES (.psd, .psb, .ae, .idd etc.) template sharing. Cheers!

I’ve only worked with gimp a few times. Aside from the obvious fact it’s free, the user face takes a little getting used to, but some of the general advantages I would say are 1) it’s updated more often than PS. 2) Being open source, it’s very customizable, and there are always new user-developed plugins & tweaks & twerks being released.

I personally use Photoshop with XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro display drawing pad . It’s the best thing I ever did for photo editing. It’s seriously amazing.

now that my MacBook Air can type without a Bluetooth keyboard nestle on the base, Krita just does not compare to Adobe’s Photoshop or Illustrator. Krita is good though and can do many graphic tasks but the overall use and functions are weak, which show in the designs i created this autumn. Even Microsoft Expressions does not compare to Dreamweaver for overall use.

Farging Artists. Pass all the info they don’t understand to the printer so we can have the conniption.

Glad I checked this list. Just got done using DaVinci on a small video editing project and I found it so much better than what I had been doing with iMovie. Thanks for compiling all these! :pray:t3: