PicMonkey, from the company of the same name in Seattle, is an application designed to help users create standout visuals for Insta posts, Facebook covers, YouTube thumbnails, web pages, holiday cards, posters or anything with a visual, offering graphics and templates, unlimited stock photos and features to support illustrative presentations.
$7.99
per month
SketchUp
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
SketchUp is 3D modeling software with an emphasis on usability. SketchUp is a Trimble product.
$119
per year
Pricing
PicMonkey
SketchUp
Editions & Modules
Basic
$7.99
per month
Pro
$12.99
per month
Team
$33.99
per month
Free
$0.00
per year
For Schools (free with G Suite or Microsoft education account)
I would definitely recommend PicMonkey! It is diverse for the average person or the business professional. If you need to edit pictures, create graphics, or implement marketing media this is the tool to use! It may not be enough for someone who needs something a bit more advanced like Photoshop, but in my experience it has covered everything I need.
SketchUp is great for individually studying options for building design. It is an awesome conceptual tool to be able to quickly model and manipulate a building to study different designs. It is not good for complex geometries, especially curves. Surfaces have a hard time registering and cutting into one another. It also eventually needs to go into Revit to be more realistic as it is not good as a documentation tool
Quickly exploring solutions in 3D: We get a lot of "what if" and "what would that look like" questions. While hand-sketching and hand-drafting can be fairly quick, SketchUp allows me to quickly create 3D and 2D views of a detail or solution, change dimensions and materials in a flash, and show a client or installer the plan in minutes.
Creating professional design documents in LayOut: Projects of any scale need good documentation. Using a combination of SketchUp and LayOut, I can create a Design Intent Set, plans for permitting, a set for mechanical trades to mark-up, etc. Having clear, appropriately-scaled drawings with dimensions or notations is a must, and we don't always have the time or budget to get an architect involved!
Using live files to guide discussions: Not all clients are "visual" people, so opening their model and orbiting around their space in real time has been extremely helpful. Clients and trades enjoy the perspective views so much that we often include them in the full-sized drawing sets to give a good "overall" view of the project intent. For complex or tight spaces, sometimes un-rendered plans and elevations just aren't enough!
We typically wait a few years in between renewing, as even older versions are powerful tools for modeling, and we make sure the amount of feature changes are worth the re-investment.
PicMonkey's usability is outstanding! I was able to learn how to edit my photos and create graphics in a short period of time. Between the tutorials and the amazing user interface, I felt like a pro! PicMonkey is very detailed but not so overwhelming that you miss out on great features.
It is very user friendly and easy to learn. It's simplicity allows for a low learning curve so more people can learn it faster. The downside is that most schools are no longer teaching it, so many younger professionals come out of school not knowing it and knowing more complex software and they have a hard time "dumbing down" their skillsets
I personally never really need support with PicMonkey. It works great, and I can find what I need. There may have been a few times when I've Googled for an answer related to PicMonkey, but I've not had a question answered.
Sketchup is so intuitive; I can't recall ever looking for official support. However, there are many user forums online that can answer more questions. The usefulness of the online forums is, however, tempered by the fact that there have been many versions of the software under different ownership and support regimes, and thus finding the right information for the right version of the software can be a challenge.
Adobe Photoshop is a better service with many more options, but for basic image manipulation for someone who is a beginner, PicMonkey is superior. There is almost NO learning curve. Canva has much better templates and design options, but not as many photo editing options. I like to use a combination of PicMonkey and Canva for my small-business marketing needs.
We have not evaluated any other competing software to this one. I heard about this software from a friend who teaches how to use it. She showed me in just a few minutes and I was HOOKED. I saw immediately the possible help it would be to my business. Thank you.