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My Adobe resignation. Anyone else packed it in with them?


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On the fonts tangent, DaFont is my favorite for free fonts as a hobbyist, but for commercial fonts I like Fontspring's site, which is easy to sort and search, without a lot of distracting graphics.

I really like creativemarket.com for fonts plus vectors and other graphics.  In fact, I have found some of the same fonts as offered on Fontspring at lower prices on CM (but usually because of a more restricted license or from having fewer of the fonts included in the pack).

Back to the Adobe rebellion, recently I saw some Illustrator-specific brush sets (AI format) that had me considering subbing to Illustrator (at $20/month!) -- but after a few days I came to my senses and realized I could learn to make similar brushes for Affinity Designer.

P.S. to @SrPx -- someday I will spend a little time skimming through your posts to see what I might learn, so please don't trim too many of them!

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On 8/4/2018 at 4:45 PM, αℓƒяє∂ said:

The most cost effective is, of course, to ‘buy’ the freebies from wherever. That aside, Fonts.com and MyFonts.com frequently have special offers on individual typefaces, as well as discounts on bundles that they put together.

As Alfred said. MyFonts.com has regular discounts on bundles, like Monotype bundles etc.

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Whooow i like what i read here.
a bit of input for who it may or will help.

What i did is simple: Remove everything Adobe on my computers (everything ... included Acrobat).
Prepare my brain and focus to react on Affinity products only for my works (yet now making ready for Publisher to make my outputs even better ...)

Just use the money yould invest to pay Adobe registration monthly to buy/pay for Affinity training available on Udemy from really good Designers who made the switch, believe me the cost of a standard course is less than the USD19 you would pay by month for Adobe it has unlimited access (from what i read there); not only that, by paying/buying the course you help someone to help you become even sharper and better.

At the end, the money you save by leaving Adobe (if you really want to) is the seed you to invest in your personal growth/skill improvement.
Well, hope this formula will help one here.

Never be the Same Again !
---
Dell Optiplex 5090 SFF
Intel Core i5-10500T @2.30GHz with 12GiB 2666MHz DDR4
Intel UHD Graphics 630 for 10th Generation
M.2 2280, 512 GB, PCIe NVMe Gen3 x4, Class 40 SSD

Windows 11 Pro x64 22H2 + LibreOffice 7.5.3

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/11/2018 at 7:56 AM, Wazitano said:

FYI For All Looking To Jump the Adobe Mothership:

It has taken me 2 years to unfold, but here is my current Adobe-free workflow..
(All do 90% of what each Adobe package does, and stunningly a WHOLE lot more that most of the Adobe packages DONT do)

1. Obviously Photoshop and Illustrator swapped for AP and AD
(this is working surprisingly well, and is a dream once youve gotten used to Affinity's way of doing things)
(a couple of things, like new image settings automatically sizing to what's in the clipboard, would be nice for some extra efficiency, but those are finer bells that will come with time)

2. Acrobat Pro?
Foxit PhantomPDF is far and away the best of 6 software alternatives I have tried, and far cheaper than Adobe... and so far has done EVERYTHING that Acrobat Pro did for me and more - (including formula embedded form fields, signatures, etc. - and a couple of things I never got from Acrobat - can you say Remote File Security features!)

3. Premiere and After Effects?
These have always been a wrestle in my opinion, and the need to move from one to the other has broken not only many a schedule, but sometimes a project or two.
I have just reached video editing nirvana with the latest DaVinci Resolve 15 beta (which now incorporates Fusion etc. into the already integrated Audio and Color Grading elements in ONE software package) - which is faster, slicker and in my opinion far more powerful to use - and FREE (with pretty much all the basic features most prosumers would need) - it has a $250 purchase price if you have a specialist production requirement (in which case that price is certainly reasonable)

4. Dreamweaver?
There has been a glut of Free/Cheap alternative HTML/Site/Script editors emerge in the last couple of years.
I am currently still settling between two, so I wont name names yet, but I'm already finding both of them to be a much smoother dream to weave.

I am finally feeling free of the Adobe tentacles!
(and I have been a professional Graphic Designer, using both Mac and PC versions of most Adobe suites since Photoshop came on floppy disks)
(I used to be an avid fan, but how big has the snow ball rolled.. that they now need far too hungry a vacuum-based business model to maintain their inefficient and archaic structure)

This is the natural cycle of things - time to start getting in early on the next generations of software.
Hope this helps someone else find freedom, choice and a heavier wallet once again.

Thanks for your homework! I've done a bit too and have swapped to AD and AP, also just uploaded the Beta of Affinity Publisher - yet to have a play around with it, but definitely on the list for the next couple weeks. I also bough Quark again after ditching it for InDesign many years ago - think I should have waited til APublisher came out, but was a bit infuriated with Adobe at the time of the EOL announcement of Muse and dived into replacing everything as quickly as possible.  

I recently contacted Adobe about my horrendously expensive subscription and after many tedious and frustrating conversations with their sales people, managed to get a cheaper subscription for the next year with three months free! I haggled (moaned at them!) pretty hard! I'm keeping it for one more year so that I know I can switch over to more affordable options - thankfully Affinity are providing that so far. The only thing I'm really going to miss is Bridge - if the Affinity guys could come up with something to replace Bridge I will be a very happy designer! Anyone had any luck finding something to replace it yet? 

Good luck all with your missions to ditch Adobe! It's possible - we just have to stay determined.

Cheers,
Cathie

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46 minutes ago, CathieLive said:

The only thing I'm really going to miss is Bridge - if the Affinity guys could come up with something to replace Bridge I will be a very happy designer! Anyone had any luck finding something to replace it yet?

Why do you need to replace Bridge, now that it’s free for everyone? :/

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Just now, αℓƒяє∂ said:

Why do you need to replace Bridge, now that it’s free for everyone? :/

One reason might be that Adobe thinks it is fine to run other software in the background that carries on monitoring you. I installed Bridge as a standalone and was surprised (not) to find at least 1 (and possibly 3) other Adobe linked licence monitoring software running in the background.

Licence monitoring for free software? 

As Bridge won't run with it blocked I uninstalled it.

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XNView MP is not enough? I don't have really need for a DAM or even an image browser, but usually that one would have sufficed for me... but I am not a photographer.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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5 minutes ago, SrPx said:

XNView MP is not enough? I don't have really need for a DAM or even an image browser, but usually that one would have sufficed for me... but I am not a photographer.

I have used it and it is good for editing EXIF data etc and it is certainly better than Windows for management of images :D

However, it means having at least 3 pieces of software, so I am currently looking at Affinity Photo and ON1 Photo RAW (which has a DAM built in). Affinity is missing a trick by not cracking on with their own DAM. They have been promising for a while now.

 

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I've been using Photoshop for about 15 years I think, so I'm very used to it. Now I work in game development and I've been paying for photoshop CC for years for personal use at home. I mostly use it for texture authoring and general stuff like splash screens or GUI etc. I'll always be using photoshop as work but for home use I've decided to look for alternatives to expesive software.

As such, I've swapped photoshop for Affinity Photo and Max/Maya for Blender. I own All the other software I need so Substance designer/painter and Zbrush aren't a problem while Unity and Unreal are free anyway. I own Quixel Suite but that's now made redundant by switching to Affinity Photo since it heavily relies on photoshop.

I have found some issues after switching to Affinity though. For starters the lack of TGA support is awkward, since for Unity you can just use TIFF format but Unreal you cannot. TGA is supported by all the software I use so building up a library of images as TGA is pretty much the standard. The other issue I came across was for modding  old (20 year old) games and I'll admit this is niche but lack of indexed colour mode support makes using Affinity useless for this.

I'm sure I'll come across more quirks trying to use Affinity Photo and I'm hoping the devs will listen about the image format issue but it does worry me that they say TGA file format isn't used anymore... Only by most of the game development and TV scene... But until then if I stick to Unity only I'm fine. I'd prefer to use Unreal but with Affinity Photo that's really not so easy.

All in all I think Affinity products can be the future just as soon as the softwares are more fleshed out. I hope after they're done with AP they stick to working on the three products for a while and expand their company. Right now Photoshop has possibly about 17,000 more employees than Serif. 

Thanks,
MattyWS

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2 hours ago, tilltheendofeternity said:

I have used it and it is good for editing EXIF data etc and it is certainly better than Windows for management of images :D

However, it means having at least 3 pieces of software, so I am currently looking at Affinity Photo and ON1 Photo RAW (which has a DAM built in). Affinity is missing a trick by not cracking on with their own DAM. They have been promising for a while now.

 

Ehm....sorry, I'm too dense today (or maybe everyday) ....If Affinity makes a DAM (maybe in five years, maybe later...), you know it will be also a third tool, right ? I mean, 3 tools for you, anyway... Maybe I just don't see the logic behind something. Wouldn't be the first time this week (or any other week). 

I'm a lot of a multiple tools user (in 3D is like 5, as frequent ones only....let alone the truck load for little things...in 2D, maybe even more...), although I see the advantage of compact solutions, too. But specifically, maybe is the fact that an image or resources browser  has been always an apart thing, for me : IE, wouldn't browse with photoshop and illustrator, and tho there is a Jump link in the PS menu, Bridge is actually an entire full blown app (which I always passionately hated by how it behaved.... No matter how much I have always loved PS)

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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Speaking of resources browsers.... I used that incorrectly, surely ( @Alfred ™ knows) , but I was referring to some rare beasts of utilities, not very common, that allow browsing images, but also 3D objects, rotate 'em , seeing them with different shading, etc. Now, THERE I see the advantage of a DAM... being a 2D/3D old grunt, that proves always to be super useful to me . It never opens super native files, but yep your average OBJ, or even simplified Max files.... Any one remembers (this is waaay back in time) 3D Exploration? From Righthemisphere, the ppl behind Deep Paint 3D... one of my most expensive purchases...I think Deep Paint 3D's painting mechanics were made by a very successful guy today, the author of Art Rage (and the kai powertools, and a bunch more) , I believe he created Deep Paint 2D,  a previous product (given for free at the end when the company closed)  if I understood one post from him at reddit.... 3D Exploration was a light, super capable browser for 2D and 3D assets, provided as a shareware, free use for non commercial. But then the company had to close (and I felt my 2k bucks in DP 3D were completely lost, as a non updated, not even to adapt to the next OS version, is like having nothing. (same with my XSI (Foundation, "only" 500). Sigh. Fantabulous shell dust collectors.  Well that's IT world,  )

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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3 hours ago, SrPx said:

Ehm....sorry, I'm too dense today (or maybe everyday) ....If Affinity makes a DAM (maybe in five years, maybe later...), you know it will be also a third tool, right ? I mean, 3 tools for you, anyway... Maybe I just don't see the logic behind something. Wouldn't be the first time this week (or any other week). 

I'm a lot of a multiple tools user (in 3D is like 5, as frequent ones only....let alone the truck load for little things...in 2D, maybe even more...), although I see the advantage of compact solutions, too. But specifically, maybe is the fact that an image or resources browser  has been always an apart thing, for me : IE, wouldn't browse with photoshop and illustrator, and tho there is a Jump link in the PS menu, Bridge is actually an entire full blown app (which I always passionately hated by how it behaved.... No matter how much I have always loved PS)

Not quite 3 tools :) 

At the moment both Bridge and ON1 have difficulty with .afphoto files, Bridge has issues with ON1 sidecar files. An Affinity DAM would at least be able to handle the .afphoto files and hopefully be more integrated with their whole suite of tools (Photo, Designer and Publisher). 

So, I'll go for 2 1/2 tools as a best compromise, but at the moment there is nothing that realistically covers Affinity Photo and ON1 adequately (though if someone does know, please, please drop me a line!). I suspect I will have to remain disappointed.

I have only been doing serious photography for about a year  and really need a catalogue tool. Win Explorer really doesn't cut it in that respect!

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Oh.... Oki, that makes sense.

If you are willing to be able to open the Affinity native files with a DAM, yep, only Serif can provide that.  ( I very selfishly prefer that AP an AD keep getting the polishing priority, tho, hehe )

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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8 minutes ago, SrPx said:

Oh.... Oki, that makes sense.

If you are willing to be able to open the Affinity native files with a DAM, yep, only Serif can provide that.  ( I very selfishly prefer that AP an AD keep getting the polishing priority, tho, hehe )

To be fair, that is more or less what they have said. They also want to get Publisher running too (The beta ain't bad). I can still hope though.........

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I packed in it with Adobe yesterday! But I was still using Photoshop CS6, never upgraded to their Creative Cloud because their contract was awful. While I was hugely relieved to see that CS6 still worked with macOS Mojave, I know that eventually it won't. So I decided to make the jump to Affinity Photo. I used Adobe Photoshop since Version 2, so it's not an understatement to say that using it is second nature to me. So a bit of a learning curve with Affinity Photo, but I was pleased to see how the app has many of the same keyboard shortcuts and uses similar terminology to PS. 

Now I just have to figure out how to get clean cutouts when I remove something from a background, so far I haven't been able to get close to what I can with Photoshop, either because I'm not doing it correctly in Affinity Photo, or I've hit some kind of bug.

Other than that, I've been super impressed with Affinity Photo so far! Will probably get Designer, too. 

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On 9/26/2018 at 11:56 PM, TomHu said:

I packed in it with Adobe yesterday! But I was still using Photoshop CS6, never upgraded to their Creative Cloud because their contract was awful. While I was hugely relieved to see that CS6 still worked with macOS Mojave, I know that eventually it won't. So I decided to make the jump to Affinity Photo. I used Adobe Photoshop since Version 2, so it's not an understatement to say that using it is second nature to me. So a bit of a learning curve with Affinity Photo, but I was pleased to see how the app has many of the same keyboard shortcuts and uses similar terminology to PS. 

Now I just have to figure out how to get clean cutouts when I remove something from a background, so far I haven't been able to get close to what I can with Photoshop, either because I'm not doing it correctly in Affinity Photo, or I've hit some kind of bug.

Other than that, I've been super impressed with Affinity Photo so far! Will probably get Designer, too. 

Dear, i simply ditched Adobe product and created a new workflow because i didn't wanted to spend time over thinking this or that, let me put it before you:

1- Adobe illustrator CC 2018 > Affinity Designer latest release on both MacOS & Windows
2- Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 > Affinity Photo  : latest released on both MacOS & Windows
3- Adobe Lightroom CC 2018 > Luminar 2018 : will move to Luminar 2019 as soon as available (it will offer photo library)
4- Adobe Premiere CC 2018 > HitFilm Express v9already on latest version which runs much faster and uses less RAM than previous version.
5- Adobe Media encoder > Wondershare Video converter Ultimate : here i think i will find another tool or simply use HitFilm Express as a Media Encoder
6- Adobe Acrobat DC > PDF Element Express 0.6.2 : it use less memory and load faster than normal version of the same software
7-
Adobe Muse > Rapid Weaver 8 : Offers better library of themes and load faster, uses less memory but ... you won't really deal with code (only if you want)
8-
Adobe XD > Sketchapp 51.3 : this only until Affinity Designer make it possible to do prototype and better web Design but also because inVision is browser based (Bandwidth is a threat in my country so won't move there unless i travel in the U.S, Japan or Germany :D)

Well ... you may not do the same but there are stuffs that work and could replace and help you feel in less constrain and better stand ... still you will need to change or upgrade your actual workflow.

Blessings !

Edited by Arnaud Mez
give more precision for each listed tools

Never be the Same Again !
---
Dell Optiplex 5090 SFF
Intel Core i5-10500T @2.30GHz with 12GiB 2666MHz DDR4
Intel UHD Graphics 630 for 10th Generation
M.2 2280, 512 GB, PCIe NVMe Gen3 x4, Class 40 SSD

Windows 11 Pro x64 22H2 + LibreOffice 7.5.3

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That's a nice list !  (even if I'd add Davinci Resolve for video (hitfilm is very good, too) and a bit of an After Effects replacement (depending on workflow needs! ). For Muse there are a bunch of other replacements, but this is like anything, whatever fits you, that's the right one. ). I think you have it more ironed that you sometimes seem to think.... ;) 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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On 9/27/2018 at 12:10 AM, SrPx said:

XNView MP is not enough?

It sure is!

XnView MP reads both .afphoto and .afdesign. It can be configured so right clicking the image and/or thumbnail > Open with - the files can be opened in Designer and Photo. In XnView both apps (and others) can be listed via Tools > Open with > Configure programs.

Not only, XnView can also read .svg files ... Adobe Bridge can't :)

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On 9/27/2018 at 11:57 PM, SrPx said:

That's a nice list !  (even if I'd add Davinci Resolve for video (hitfilm is very good, too) and a bit of an After Effects replacement (depending on workflow needs! ). For Muse there are a bunch of other replacements, but this is like anything, whatever fits you, that's the right one. ). I think you have it more ironed that you sometimes seem to think.... ;) 

Thank you @SrPx, well i tried to run Davinci Resolve Free version but ... i only have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) - 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 and powered by an NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256 MB ... running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 ... and you can simply imagine how "fast :P" is this machine for big projects processed with tools like DaVinci !
I would consider them if they release a light version with some pluggable things or if someone knows an eGPU technology that can help my MacBook feel better and not too old.

Blessings !

Never be the Same Again !
---
Dell Optiplex 5090 SFF
Intel Core i5-10500T @2.30GHz with 12GiB 2666MHz DDR4
Intel UHD Graphics 630 for 10th Generation
M.2 2280, 512 GB, PCIe NVMe Gen3 x4, Class 40 SSD

Windows 11 Pro x64 22H2 + LibreOffice 7.5.3

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On 9/26/2018 at 10:40 AM, αℓƒяє∂ said:

Why do you need to replace Bridge, now that it’s free for everyone? :/

Oh! Didn't know that. That's why I thought I needed to replace Bridge. Thanks for letting me know. Not exactly been advertised as such - guess that's why I didn't know. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Cheers, Cathie 

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12 minutes ago, CathieLive said:

Reading that other comment about the things working in the background of Bridge, I think I may still look for an alternative. Really not happy with Adobe and as soon as I can confidently ditch them completely I will. If anyone has an alternative, please share! 

Cheers, Cathie 

I've switched to ON1 Photo RAW as it has a DAM that is pretty good and use ON1 in conjunction with Affinity Photo as each does things the other doesn't (for me anyway)

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On ‎5‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 9:20 PM, douglasrthomson said:

I'd love to but there's no alternative to After Effects for me. I've replaced about 70% of my Illustrator workflow with AD and about 50% of Photoshop with AP.

I'm slowly getting there.

 

 

Serif doesn't have one (yet) but right now Blackmagic Resolve isn't too expensive and it toasts Premier and Affect Effects, although it has a fairly steep learning curve.

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On ‎9‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 3:46 PM, Arnaud Mez said:

Dear, i simply ditched Adobe product and created a new workflow because i didn't wanted to spend time over thinking this or that, let me put it before you:

1- Adobe illustrator CC 2018 > Affinity Designer latest release on both MacOS & Windows
2- Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 > Affinity Photo  : latest released on both MacOS & Windows
3- Adobe Lightroom CC 2018 > Luminar 2018 : will move to Luminar 2019 as soon as available (it will offer photo library)
4- Adobe Premiere CC 2018 > HitFilm Express v9already on latest version which runs much faster and uses less RAM than previous version.
5- Adobe Media encoder > Wondershare Video converter Ultimate : here i think i will find another tool or simply use HitFilm Express as a Media Encoder
6- Adobe Acrobat DC > PDF Element Express 0.6.2 : it use less memory and load faster than normal version of the same software
7-
Adobe Muse > Rapid Weaver 8 : Offers better library of themes and load faster, uses less memory but ... you won't really deal with code (only if you want)
8-
Adobe XD > Sketchapp 51.3 : this only until Affinity Designer make it possible to do prototype and better web Design but also because inVision is browser based (Bandwidth is a threat in my country so won't move there unless i travel in the U.S, Japan or Germany :D)

Well ... you may not do the same but there are stuffs that work and could replace and help you feel in less constrain and better stand ... still you will need to change or upgrade your actual workflow.

Blessings !

The only one I can't agree with here is Hitfilm (although it's free). There are some better FOSS (Open Source) apps. Hitfilm is geared to home users and that starts to show as soon as you push it into serious projects.

Closed source Blackmagic Resolve toasts Premier and After Effects although as a professional app it has a very steep learning curve.

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