Making music artwork. Alternatives to Adobe?

[pekbro]

After Effects is, er... well used to be, last time I used it, an old school compositor. Pinnacle Commotion was similar, but that's about it afaik. They're quick and far less complicated than something like nuke. Nuke is cool and all, but it's also overkill a lot of the time. Ae is pretty much literally, Photoshop over time, it works and feels exactly like that. IME anyway... Shake was another cool one that I liked a lot.

[Tiles]

There is also still Natron. Open Source and free. Hasn't gotten any signigicant updates in the last years though ...

https://github.com/NatronGitHub/Natron/ ... tag/v2.5.0

[eLawnMust]

Any of you who tried ChaSys 'yesterday' what for 5-10 minutes? What a joke... Take an honest week then give an opinion... A friend did that several years ago & replied "It's an ocean of possibilities" which was correct as it's pretty deep uses modern & ancient formats, PS-PSP-GIMP brushes inside it, animated brushes the list goes on forever... What is so advanced in PS that ANYONE on here is making that can't be done in many other app?... Please show me.

[pekbro]

Here's a pic of PS running remotely via web browser, editing an image that it completely generated on it's own at my request. *It's only remote, because Ps is not installed on 'this' computer at all.

Screenshot 2025-05-24 112008.jpg

For professionals, adobe makes a lot of sense, the sub will pay for itself. Even the full sub, is not
even 1 hrs work pay-wise (monthly). I barely use it, and it still pays for itself.

[BONES]

The serious competition in compositing is Nuke. Its so serious it'll make your nose bleed.

But it won't do motion graphics. Realistically, the two applications are very different, used for different things. The last time I saw After Effects being used in VFX was in 2003 or so, when Zoic were doing VFX for the re-born Battlestar Galactica. I've never come across anyone using Nuke in broadcast.

(And there's also DaVinci Resolve.)

A better fit but it's still not going to get you a job in most places. Adobe is just too firmly entrenched and nothing else out there can do what After Effects does quite as well. The last thing that threatened it was Combustion, which Discreet/Autodesk thoroughly f**ked over in the most amateurish display of product management I have ever seen. Even Microsoft aren't that f**king hopeless. They released it at $3500, then put it up to $5000, then dropped it to $1000 after they realised that making the entire development team redundant a couple of month out from Version 2's RTM had been a huge mistake for the product's reliability.

What is so advanced in PS that ANYONE on here is making that can't be done in many other app?... Please show me.

Generative AI. I can cut a subject out of a photo with a single click. Sometimes it needs a bit of manual cleaning up afterwards, but less and less, which means a task that might have taken me an hour three or four years ago, to do to a minimal standard, can be done in a few seconds to a much higher standard today.

Then there is free access to Adobe Stock, which not only saves a lot of time but also a lot of money.

Oh, and it can get me a job.

[30pinsimms]

There are dozens of free options. Use google, pick one and make stuff.

[mjolnir]

http://photofiltre.free.fr/ has been helping me get stuff done for over 10 years now.

[rj0]

There is no serious competition for Adobe AE in both commercial and free world.

The serious competition in compositing is Nuke. Its so serious it'll make your nose bleed.

(And there's also DaVinci Resolve.)

Agreed.

I've had minor experience with each (Nuke & Resolve/Fusion, while much more experience with AE), but getting one's head around node-based compositing is more than a touch challenging.

[eLawnMust]

OK, Nobody presented anything, No actual artist work just 'generated crap'... OK I get it, just like the music app same with graphics "Don't wanna waste time learning anything or developing a skill let's just have AI generate it for us in order to prove that we have no worth"... Just talk & as far as 'cutting objects out' plenty out there that are pretty fast in 'offline' mode... I would never pay for something that has to be hooked to the internet to work... BUTT opinions vary I guess...

If you wanna PAY for digital graphics editor than Project Dogwaffle would be at list tops very underrated...

http://www.thebest3d.com/howler/features/index.html


















As for other good freeware there's>>>

Krita-

https://krita.org/en/

MyPaint-

https://www.mypaint.app/en/

LazPaint-

https://lazpaint.github.io/

PhotoDemon-

https://photodemon.org/2022/09/08/photodemon-9-0.html

If you like the GUI of older JASC Paint Shop Pro then LView is very similar & quite powerful & free 32-64bit-

https://www.lview.com/

[mixyguy2]

OK, Nobody presented anything, No actual artist work just 'generated crap'... OK I get it, just like the music app same with graphics "Don't wanna waste time learning anything or developing a skill let's just have AI generate it for us in order to prove that we have no worth"

I'm no AI fanboy, but I wasn't aware that a musician had to also be a graphic artist to "prove they have worth."

[zerocrossing]

OK, Nobody presented anything, No actual artist work just 'generated crap'... OK I get it, just like the music app same with graphics "Don't wanna waste time learning anything or developing a skill let's just have AI generate it for us in order to prove that we have no worth"

I'm no AI fanboy, but I wasn't aware that a musician had to also be a graphic artist to "prove they have worth."

I'm no fan of AI art. In fact, I hate it, but one thing that Photoshop does that is amazing is being able to remove and fill in spots using context. For instance, I was working on providing screen shots of our game to marketing, and from time to time there were things in the frame that didn't work for whatever reason. Back in the day, I'd have had to sit with the rubber stamp tool and manually remove and repair the issue. It's time consuming, tedious and not what you'd call creative. Sometimes, impossible to get something natural looking. Now I can make a selection and click a button and that's it. I get an AI imagined "patch" that's seamless and looks good or great most of the time. Might take a bit of touch up, but the time saved is huge. I'm unaware of any other software that does this as well as Photoshop.

[vurt]

OK, Nobody presented anything, No actual artist work just 'generated crap'... OK I get it, just like the music app same with graphics "Don't wanna waste time learning anything or developing a skill let's just have AI generate it for us in order to prove that we have no worth"

I'm no AI fanboy, but I wasn't aware that a musician had to also be a graphic artist to "prove they have worth."

i dont listen to any musician, who doesnt craft their own instruments, from their own bones, or use their own blood and other bodily fluids, to paint their album covers.
you have to have standards in authenticity, or we get the sex pistols again

[pekbro]

He didn't ask for artwork, he asked about PS features.

btw: all those landscapes by dogwaffle are generated, albeit with math instead of AI.
I've been using Dogwaffle since it was first released, off and on. PS is better by a lot,
even if it doesn't generate height fields.

Dog waffles is written in Visual Basic btw. I'd explain the implications of that, but no
one would get it probably...

[mixyguy2]

I'm no fan of AI art. In fact, I hate it

Me too - but we aren't talking something that will hang in art galleries (hopefully). We're talking about an album cover. If it looks good, it would be nice to hear that the musician or perhaps a family member/friend made it, but I don't much give a flip in the end. And I'd rather a good-looking AI cover vs a crappy "authentic" one (Billy Joel River of Dreams, need I say more).

[whyterabbyt]

I'd explain the implications of that, but no
one would get it probably...

of course not, you're obviously the only one round here who would be able to understand something like that.