It is hardly possible to plan a successful marketing strategy without considering promotion through social media as a small business owner. As social media platforms are becoming more and more popular, the demand for digital content grows. Therefore, many people find themselves in a situation where they have to create digital content but do not necessarily know how to use tools meant for doing it. Of course, you can find plenty of free resources on the internet to learn tools like Photoshop or video editing programs, but who has time for that? And is it even worth it to spend several hours learning to edit a few photos properly?
Having recognized that more and more people need a tool to make digital content without very complex functions, Adobe, a company behind programs like Photoshop or Premiere Pro, created Adobe Cloud Express. This app provides users with a highly intuitive user experience and all the functions they need to develop and edit basic content like illustrations, photos or even a video.
What you can do in Adobe cloud express?
Within the app, you can choose from pre-designed templates for different purposes like a Facebook post, an Instagram story, a YouTube thumbnail, a restaurant menu and many more. After selecting a template, you can adjust all the features within it with various fonts you can use, adding layers, many pre-designed illustration elements to choose from or more complex editing functions simplified to easy procedures.
What are the costs?
You can use Creative Cloud Express for free with:
Basic editing and photo effects.
Access to a limited collection of design assets.
2 GB of cloud storage.
However, for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year, users can get access to:
the entire collection of design assets
premium “Quick Actions” like Refine Cutout and Resize
the ability to convert and export to and from PDFs and other file types
100GB of cloud storage
and more.
My opinion
As a user of Adobe products, I had to try this weird but yet how interesting new tool.
Of course, You have the option to start your own project, but after logging in with my account, I’ve begun exploring the templates they supposedly offer, and I have to tell you there is plenty of them. However, to use most of them, You have to have a premium subscription. The first con I’ve noticed was the lack of precise filters while looking for a suitable template, besides the type of graphic ( youtube thumbnail, Instagram story etc.). I think this type of filters boost efficiency significantly while searching, at least they do when you look for a specific font or plugins for other Adobe products in their cloud.
I’ve chosen the template, and the work after was a piece of cake. Everything was so intuitional, from selecting the colour to adjusting the sizes, that my 8-year-old sister would probably meet the challenge. I did not even have to look on the internet for the most optimal file sizes for a specific platform before saving the file because it was already adjusted in the type of the template.
Nevertheless, one thing bothered me while working in this program. There is no function to hide layers, which, in my opinion, is crucial to trying new things while editing a digital file. Maybe it is because people who have not worked in this type of tool would not recognize the need for it, but from the perspective of a frequent user of photoshop and Indesign, I have to say that it gives the user a lot of freedom.
In conclusion
Adobe Creative Cloud Express is a straightforward and intuitive tool, which offers a great variety of templates and pre-design elements to choose from. The templates allow you to not worry about all the technical aspects of a particular file like resolution, width or length and focus only on the esthetical part of your work without many skills in graphic design, photo or video editing. I think this tool is a game-changer for content creators on social media and the internet and will surely make it easier for anyone to get into this topic with no skills making it relatively affordable.
In the end, I present you the graphic I did while testing this program (it took me about 3min).
