Adobe Photoshop is the best known graphics product on the market.
$20
per month
PicMonkey
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
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.
I use Adobe PhotoShop to do practically all of my business from my home in Turkey. Many customers find the cost of Adobe PhotoShop to be prohibitive, thus they turn to substitute alternatives and illegally downloaded pirated software. Regulations like torrents, sales, and price increases lead to a number of financial issues. Change can be advantageous.
It's great for a small- or medium-scale social media manager or graphic designer. I'm not sure if I'd recommend it for larger-scale projects or editing images with detail as I think it is missing some capabilities that something like Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator may possess, but it is a great tool to create professional-looking graphics with ease.
Brush customization. There are many available brushes for illustration, and each can be customized to fit the needs of your specific style.
Integration with other Adobe products. It is essential that the images I create be accessible in Adobe Indesign and Illustrator, and [Adobe] Photoshop can be placed and edited easily within those programs.
Advanced editing. The possibilities for editing photos [are] endless, with new features being added constantly.
Expensive - It is too expensive to buy Photoshop alone, and hence leading the user to purchase the entire Creative Cloud Package though he/she is not even aware of half of those apps.
High System Spec - Requires high system specifications to run the application smoothly, and to use it at its best.
Process lag - When it comes to large-sized files, the application becomes laggy taking much time even to render a single layer.
I think that PicMonkey could have more opportunities for raving fans (like me!) to act as affiliates for their products and services.
I think that PicMonkey could make it more apparent on how to save themes. The Hub is great, but I think it is easy to allow that area to become messy and disorganized.
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud 2014 is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud family of software products. Therefore, when you get a license to use Adobe Photoshop for a monthly fee, you are constantly up-to-date on any upgrades or new releases of the software. So, if you are using the product, you never have to renew and you are always using the latest version of the software, for perpetuity.
I've used it for a long time and would consider myself a Pro user at this point. I know where everything I need is, have custom actions set up to make common actions faster, and have my workflows automated so much that everything is easy. Occasionally, a new version of Photoshop will change a common usability feature which will slow things down for a short time before I'm able to adjust, but generally I really like my setup. However, if you're new to Photoshop, it is likely going to take you a while to figure out how you can best use the features.
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.
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.
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).
To be fair, I have not had to use customer support, but I have found the website materials/instructions at PicMonkey.com to be easy to understand and the website (mostly) simple to navigate. As someone who is not the MOST tech-savvy in any room, I find it accessible and not intimidating; it gives me confidence to create the images that I know will be most effective for our purposes.
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
Every software has its kind of users, and Photoshop is ranked as one of the most competitive softwares and is used mainly by professionals. Figma is great for working in collaboration and designing Ui/Ux interface. Illustrator is great for vector-based work, such as logos and branding. InDesign works best if one is building large documents that require a lot of text formatting.
PicMonkey better suited my needs than Canva because it was easier to complete multiple items within one editing template. As a busy professional, I have to find time in between clients to push content out on Social Media or to email graphics to potential clients and PicMonkey has allowed me to create what I need very quickly without losing quality.
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.
