Adobe Creative Cloud is an industry favorite for creatives when it comes to producing and rendering designs. The Adobe CC Suite features more than 20 apps and services for photography, graphic design, web, video, UX/UI, and more – and can be accessed via desktop, tablet, and mobile apps. You can access all applications with a monthly subscription and this all-access pass includes Adobe Fonts, libraries, additional storage, and even a portfolio hosting website. This package is great for individuals or teams that are working on a wide range of projects and need access to a variety of tools from photo editing to developing vector-based graphics or even interactive animations.
Adobe CC offers individual licenses too so you don’t need to feel pressured to buy the full subscription. Need to make motion graphics and animations? Buy a license for After Effects. Do you need to edit and composite your photography? Check out a Photoshop license!
Each package offers additional features like storage, bundles, and access to other Adobe services. Price quotes include monthly, yearly, student, and team discounts too. Still unsure of what package is best for you? Adobe’s Creative Cloud Plan Options page will help you discover the perfect option for you.
The Fundamental Trio: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
If you start by purchasing individual licenses, consider starting with the fundamental trio – Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. These three programs are the most widely used across creative industries and they are popular for good reason. The three together are some of the most straightforward programs to learn within the Creative Suite and all three cover primary bases when it comes to the breadth of design. These three programs are really the foundation of any graphic design skillset, and you should be fluent in all of them before expanding into programs like Adobe XD or After Effects, which are considered more intermediate and advanced programs.
Photoshop
Since Photoshop works primarily with raster images, or images made up of pixels, it is an excellent tool for photo editing and retouching. Think of a pixel as a tiny square – thousands of little squares make up one raster image. With Photoshop, you can enhance colors, adjust lighting, add someone in, or even take some out! If you have a portrait of someone, you can remove blemishes, smooth skin, and adjust the lighting to take your photo from great to exceptional. If you want to isolate your subject in order to change or remove the background, you can utilize the program’s Pen Tool, Quick Selection tool, Properties Panel, and Layers panel to create a transparent background.
In addition to editing photography, you can use Photoshop to create digital art. Yes – paintings, illustrations, drawings, and animations can be created in Photoshop! You can start with an image you’ve created yourself, like a photograph, and add in artistic filters from the program’s extensive Filter Library. Or, you can start from a blank canvas and use Photoshop’s extensive brush library to paint or draw stunning creations.
Illustrator
A huge benefit to the Adobe CC Suite is the cross-collaboration of its programs. Many programs collaborate easily with one another, like Illustrator with Photoshop. Adobe Illustrator allows you to create precise designs, illustrations, and vector graphics. Unlike raster images, vector graphics are created with paths, so no resolution is lost when a graphic is resized. This is particularly important for creating branding assets because a logo will need to be implemented across a variety of mediums and platforms in a range of different sizes. With Illustrator, you can create one logo for use on stickers, billboards, t-shirts, and other products.
InDesign
If you edit your photos in Photoshop, and you’ve drawn your logo and illustrations in Illustrator, what can you use to put it all together in a book, magazine, poster, or other layout designs? Adobe InDesign is your answer! The program is packed full of typesetting and layout tools to help you develop a clean and consistent design. While it can be used to develop a one-page poster, InDesign really shines with multi-page spreads. Functions like Master Pages and Style Sheets ensure that your aesthetic is consistent across all pages and makes editing styles a breeze.
Building off the Fundamental Trio
Once you’ve gotten the hang of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, you can start to broaden your horizons and skills! Adobe XD and After Effects are two robust Adobe programs that allow you to create stunning UX/XI assets and motion graphics.
Adobe XD
Interested in creating websites, mobile applications, UX/UI assets, and creating real-time prototypes? Adobe XD is a great program for wireframing and prototyping. Its preset artboards make creating screens for iPhones, Androids, laptops, and tablets a breeze. Whether your project is a few screens to hundreds of screens, Adobe XD’s Symbol Tool allows you to make one edit and implement that change across all screens. What a timesaver!
One of the best features of Adobe XD is the prototyping tool. You can test your interactions in the program or even live on your phone. Using the interaction and prototyping tools available in the program, you can create prototypes that users can tap, swipe, or scroll through. If you are designing as a team, XD even allows multiple users to collaborate on one file.
After Effects
After Effects is an industry favorite for developing motion graphics and visual effects for video, TV, and web. It’s primarily a post-production tool and its extensive effects library can help you manipulate and animate text, graphics, and a combo of the two. It can be a very challenging but rewarding program to learn.
If you are feeling more comfortable with the applications in the Adobe CC Suite and want to keep practicing a variety of skills, you can find some helpful tutorials on YouTube. They feature some awesome techniques and give you step-by-step instructions to create stunning effects and assets using many of these programs.
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