GIMP vs. Adobe Express vs. Adobe PhotoShop

GIMP is great for anyone ranging from personal use to a small business. But, if you are a large business and have a sufficient budget, I would recommend you to opt for an expensive paid software like Photoshop, that would provide not only great features but also public recognition. Its great for beginners wanting to start editing photos, there is a small learning curve that could be gotten used to in no time.

Incentivized

Every team I work with gets the Express welcome and walkthrough and becomes a permanent Adobe Express user. I have my own workflow when creating content for social, and it is great when others I am working with can hop on and follow the same workflow. We can collaborate on projects, schedule posts, and manage brand assets easily from our own devices. As long as we have access to the same files, we can build campaigns faster and more easily, onboard new designers, and scale our impact on social media.

Photoshop is a useful tool for everything from creating social media graphics to editing and sizing photos. There is a bit of a learning curve, so you need to have a bit of experience to master it and use it for a variety of tasks. You also need to have a good sense of file organization so you can find files quickly without losing track of them.

Incentivized

• GIMP has a large number of tools at your disposal for manipulating any type of image and exporting in any necessary format.
• GIMP does a great job of making everything intuitive so that even a new user can layer images or make an image transparent in little time.

Incentivized

• I have used Adobe Express to help maintain my creative catalogs and files, brand management by saving my color scheme palettes, to have full access to its free assets and huge template library.
• The main business issue is brand consistency and accessibility, and Adobe Express helps greatly with both of those by providing an option to create brand libraries for various projects, and it has a huge Adobe font catalog to accommodate basically every brand and project scope.
• I like how I am able to create a project folder for storing various iterations of a graphic or logo, and being able to view thumbnails of each iteration below the current graphic that I am working on. Plus, it also allows for easy thumbnail rearrangement for exporting selected images in the order of my choice. And it has many editing tools such as a generative AI tool using prompts to help create original art, and both the Effects and Animation tools have many options for colorations and animations. Plus other awesome and easy to use tools such as the Quick Action tool that easily removes backgrounds, and other tools like the Resizing, Quick Replace, Translate, Bulk Create.
• Another feature of Adobe Express that I like is its ability for video creation and editing which is available via a mobile device or desktop computer. The footage editing process is very easy and allows for only one track for both video and audio.
• Adobe Express allows for the project assets to be either imported via ones on file systems or straight from the Adobe Royalty-Free assets which includes; videos, audio/music, graphics, photos and even a voice overs capability using a "Text-to-Voice" option. And after the video has been created Adobe offers its very easy "Download" option, where you can select what file type that you want the project to export as.

Incentivized

• The fact is that you may quickly pick things up on your own by spending time without using any other resources.
• It is the program that brings the phrase "to make PhotoShop" to almost all languages. It's not just a photo editing program.
• Practical and beautiful results are filtered by filtering the desired work without drowning in details.

Incentivized

• GIMP should make the font tool more intuitive. Make it easier to change fonts during edit process without resetting the typeface selection.
• Build in selection/move ability within tools like the typeface tool... I.e. don't require toggle between selection tool and typeface tool when wanting to move a line of type within a layer. Likewise with shapes, etc.

Incentivized

• It could have a search bar which searches through other Adobe products (esp for Stock images, videos, audio) from within Adobe Express.
• It could make it so switching between Adobe products from within Adobe Express almost like a tab function is smooth.
• It could partner with other companies to allow for company specific events in exchange for valuable products or programs.

Incentivized

• The effect applying time could be faster.
• There could be a smarter way to make mockups using smart objects, maybe by directly selecting an area, and generative AI can automate a few steps.
• If Photoshop can suggest the right stock imagery in case the generative AI doesn't get the right answer.

Incentivized

Capability, open architecture, compatibility with Photoshop plugins, wide platform coverage; To me, as an open-source, freely available application, it's the nest-in-class.

Incentivized

I foresee Adobe Express becoming the "go-to" platform for everyone except professional, high-level designers. It is a relatively easy-to-use tool that allows users to create a wide variety of visuals quickly. Because it is a template-driven tool, the in-house design team has the ability to make brand kit available to keep visuals on point

Incentivized

We get a lot of use out of this software. It's vital for work with production in our industry and has a lot of cross-functionality - creating social media images, retouching photos, editing photos, creating gradients, and more. It's pretty fuss-free in that we haven't had to reach out to support and the program hasn't crashed on us. We are trained on the software (so again, this isn't for beginners), but for detail-oriented designers and creatives like ourselves - it's a no-brainer.

Incentivized

I interface GIMP with other software--I need to. I generally use the major calculation, CAD, word processing, and photo editing programs. In my office, my use of this software is not limited to computer-aided design. However, I am sure that if I needed this software for other purposes, it would have no interface problems.

The user interface is pretty straightforward to use. It has easy to navigate navigations, and the canvas UX is also pretty good. One thing i would like to add it to use shortcuts to add elements on canvas. Like if I am on canvas and I press 'T' on my keyboard the text box should be added automatically

Incentivized

Adobe PhotoShop is a professional-grade tool that requires months/years to get a grasp of how to use it well. Even then, after over a decade of using Adobe PhotoShop both casually and professionally, I feel like I'm still unfamiliar with a large percentage of the available tools. Without a dedicated training program, it can be extremely overwhelming and/or you may not get good use out of it. That being said, once you do get comfortable with it, the layout and workspace are excellent with myriad shortcuts that speed up your workflow exponentially. Put in the time to learn it, and you'll love it.

Incentivized

Adobe Photoshop is very reliable, but is never 100%. There have been times when Adobe Photoshop has had trouble opening, but nothing a little computer restart couldn't fix. I use Adobe Photoshop on a Mac for both work and at home on a daily basis, and I would be lost without it.

Speed can be an issue when you are dealing with large files for large format printing or billboards. When working on web images, speed is not an issue.

We have never needed to use the support functions for GIMP. Any queries we have or had about whether GIMP could complete a task we have used Google and YouTube. There is a wealth of information, guides, and forums dedicated to GIMP and how to perform certain tasks with the application.

Incentivized

Overall, the Adobe Creative Cloud Express is worth a try and may be a good fit for many organizations and businesses. At a monthly rate, the cost is not prohibitive, but the tools are somewhat limited and not necessarily worthwhile when compared to standard applications and software that are often available free or through a package of services commonly found on workplace computers.

Incentivized

While I never contacted Adobe directly, there is so much content out there in the form of YouTube videos, Lynda/LinkedIn learning that almost any issue, including bugs, can be worked around (and this method is generally faster as there's no turnaround time involved).

Incentivized

So, I received the training at the HQ and it was train the trainer training. A good time, I spent a week at their campus

As simple as can be. Download from GIMP website and install.

Incentivized

I took a course so it really helped. I didn’t take the course until much later after beginning to use it, so I wish work would have sent me right off the bat. It would have alleviated a lot of frustratinon

Incentivized

Online services like Canva are fine for quickly designing brochures and marketing materials, videos, etc. They're user friendly and fast if you have a good connection. But if you're in production mode and need to do a lot of photo manipulation at once, without being connected to the web at all times and just want to focus, GIMP is the go-to product for you

Incentivized

I think Adobe Express is a bit behind Canva, but as an Adobe Community Expert, I try to provide as much feedback as I can to help improve Adobe Express. ADobe Express does a better job than InShot and a few other apps, but isn't quite there against Canva, I'm sorry to say!

Incentivized

[Adobe] Photoshop offers the best photo editing as well as content creation. The layer-by-layer approach of [Adobe] Photoshop helps to work between two apps or even two PCs of entirely different Creative Cloud apps seamlessly. The stability and the speed of the tools in photoshop make it even better to make a canvas of creativity.

Incentivized

Adobe Creative Cloud Express is included with an Adobe Creative Cloud account. Our company has a corporate team membership so it is nice to have a professional and powerful tool that anyone on our team can use for free. The pricing structure of giving the tool away for free will be fundamental to users utilizing the tool. Similar tools, such as Canva, cost significantly more but do not offer the same features

Incentivized

It seems expensive compared to the free/cheap programs now available

Incentivized

The professional services for Adobe Creative Cloud Express is top notch and should be highly commended. I am thoroughly impressed with how far Adobe has come. In the past, I had several issues with how something were handled, but in the past few years things have been better than ever and they get no complaints from me

Incentivized

• GIMP is freeware, which allows organizations that are not graphics-centered to use the powerful toolset without spending money on very expensive alternatives
• GIMP is fairly easy to learn and does not require extensive user training (especially, if used for basic tasks)

Incentivized

• Positive: Time and working for a nonprofit with minimal staff this is essential.
• Negative: There are certain features that I need to find in other Adobe products like layer masking.
• Positive: It makes content creation less intimidating for our newer staff.

Incentivized

• Adobe PhotoShop in general is a great time saver.
• It does take a long time for the program to start up, however
• The most difficult task is onboarding new employees into Adobe PhotoShop who don't have experience with it. It's an investment for their future so we see value in it.

Incentivized