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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Adobe PhotoShop

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AAdobe Photoshop is the best known graphics product on the market.

    $20

    per month

    Painter

    Score9.9 out of 10
    N/APainter is a digital art and painting application, from Corel Corporation.N/A

    Inkscape

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AInkscape is a free and open source vector drawing app for Windows, MacOS & Linux, available for download free under the GPLv3+ license. The tools aims to support illustrators, designers, web designers or anyone wanting to create vector graphics.N/A
    Pricing
    Adobe PhotoShopPainterInkscape
    Editions & Modules
    Single App
    $20.00
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Adobe PhotoShopPainterInkscape
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details———
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Adobe PhotoShopPainterInkscape
    Considered Multiple Products
    Adobe
    Chose Adobe PhotoShop
    [Adobe] Photoshop has much more features and abilities compared to its competitors, and often is the first to create a new feature. There is a large learning curve for Photoshop, but for folks that spend years learning Adobe products, it ends up being the most intuitive …
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe PhotoShop
    Other tools are really just trying to clone the success that Adobe Photoshop has held. I've tried others in search of cost savings or unique features, but I always come back to Photoshop. It just feels more solid and works with me so much smoother. And the gimmicky features …
    Incentivized
    Corel Corporation
    Chose Painter
    Like I already mentioned Photoshop is so much more pleasant to work with. Though out of the box Photoshop definitely has a lot fewer brushes; you can definitely download bushes often for free, or otherwise a small fee (you have to pay to add more brushes with Painter as well). …
    Incentivized
    Open Source
    Chose Inkscape
    It is free.
    Easy to install
    Easy and simple to use and master.
    Incentivized
    Chose Inkscape
    Inkscape is the standard if you want a free product that can produce high quality vector based graphics, there may be other products that can do it better but they are very very expensive. The experience you will get from expensive commercial products will be better but if you …
    Incentivized
    Chose Inkscape
    Adobe Illustrator is also used in our company sometimes however, Inkscape is used most considering the fact that it is completely free while Adobe Illustrator has to be bought through monthly/annual subscriptions that are expensive. For that reason we always opt for Inkscape. …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    98%
    Would buy again
    152 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    140 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    154 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    130 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    99%
    Implementation went as expected
    132 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Adobe PhotoShopPainterInkscape
    Small Businesses
    GIMP
    Score8 out of 10
    GIMP
    Score8 out of 10
    GIMP
    Score8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Adobe Illustrator
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Adobe Illustrator
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Adobe Illustrator
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Adobe Illustrator
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Adobe PhotoShop
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Adobe PhotoShop
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Adobe PhotoShopPainterInkscape
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.2
    (211 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.6
    (6 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (31 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.2
    (36 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (54 ratings)
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    4.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Adobe PhotoShopPainterInkscape
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Adobe
    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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    Corel Painter does have a lot of great brushes, and they do emulate real art supplies very well. Especially the thick paint is well done. But unfortunately there are so many functional and UX bugs that overall it is just horrible to work with. When contacting customer support about it, they really seem clueless about the seriousness of the situation, and clueless about what proper UX is in general. They have tried to make it work a bit like Photoshop, which is a good move but then some things are absolutely not intuitive at all and they are definitely missing the mark horribly with so many issues. I would highly recommend using Photoshop instead, though you'll have to download them separately; it also offers a lot of great brushes nowadays and works much much smoother without all those aggravating bugs of Painter. The price of Corel Painter is just not at all worth all these horrible bugs.
    Read full review
    Open Source
    I would 100% recommend Inkscape to anyone starting out with graphic design or illustration, as it isn't that difficult to get the hang of on the first day of using it. I am not recommending Inkscape for beginners alone, even experts in the field can use Inkscape professionally as it cuts of the expense of needing to buy a paid graphic design software which provides almost the same features. Inkscape is also great for beginners because it can be treated like a stepping stone to move onto a paid graphic designing software like Adobe Illustrator, so Inkscape can be used to test the waters before making the leap. Inkscape and Illustrator are almost the same so there wont be any difficulty in switching later on.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Adobe
    • 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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    • Watercolor Compatible
    • Multiple variety of Brushes and shapes
    • Captured Dab Library
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • Creating mockups using all kinds of graphic elements together.
    • Creating Video thumbnails and thumbnail templates.
    • Online 'how to' resources help a great deal.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Adobe
    • 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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    • Way too many functional bugs, makes it hard to work with
    • Bad UX and usability, too much unintuitive behavior, makes it particularly hard to work with
    • Overall looks and behaves as if it was coded in the '90s, it really needs a complete UX overhaul
    • Did I mention the many bugs yet? Yeah? I'll mention it again because it's bad
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • Can be tricky to get the hang of at first
    • UI is not always naturally intuitive but generally it is good
    • May require reading documentation and watching tutorials to skill up before using it efficiently
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Adobe
    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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Adobe
    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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    If it wasn't quite clear yet, I'll state it again: the usability of Corel Painter is, simply put, horrid. And I am not talking about rendering, lagging, etc., it is not even all that bad there. I am talking about the weird issues like being unable to move a brush into a custom brush palette when you work on a second screen, like being unable to move the software onto the second screen in the first place unless you separate all the palettes and the windows (and if nobody tells you upfront there is no way of knowing because the manual doesn't state this at all), and then having to drag all your separate windows and palettes over one by one every time your computer wakes up again, and they won't really want to move to the other screen but only through a tiny corner of your screen, and the fact that you have to scroll through lists and lists of fonts but can't search and when you apply this font, add another piece of text the font jumps back to the default font of all the text already applied even when you haven't selected any of the text. Just to name a very small few.
    Read full review
    Open Source
    It is very good in general, but there are steps that I wish could be eliminated as they seem to be "duplicative".
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Adobe
    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.
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Adobe
    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.
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Adobe
    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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    It was really hard to get them to understand what I was having problems with. It was hard to get the message through that Painter has an unacceptable amount of functional and UX bugs. When I finally talked to someone who was easier to communicate with, he was very stoic about the situation, like they didn't really care about the awful amount of bugs.
    Read full review
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    In-Person Training
    Adobe
    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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Adobe
    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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Adobe
    [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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    Corel Painter has support to multiple OS and across all the devices. Coloring and multi layer imaging works very well. The new enhanced brush settings and the redesigned brush libraries.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    It is free. Easy to install Easy and simple to use and master. I find it as the best solution to do simple things without spending much time loading the API and trying to find the menu necessary to do the job. It produces vector graphics which is very well suited to illustrate research papers.
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Adobe
    It seems expensive compared to the free/cheap programs now available
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Adobe
    • 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
    Read full review
    Corel Corporation
    • Customer support could be improved in my opinion.
    • Multiple bugs while working with layered designing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Open Source
    • fast, efficient illustrations
    • inexpensive (donation based) enough for a tiny business
    • now can make custom labels for test products using our in-house printer
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots