Very similar Adobe alternatives, the ArtCraft apps

redhed17

redhed17

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I just saw a video on YT showing alternatives to a lot of Adobe suite programs, that have been recreated, to a seemingly astonishingly degree, the Craft apps. :jawdrop:

There are various different Adobe match ups, PhotoCraft, LightCraft, and FilmCraft are like Photoshop, LightRoom and Premiere. There are other programs too, VectorCraft, DesignCraft, EffectCraft and PdfCraft.

the video says this has seen updates within days of appearing. And the rate of improvement seems massive from the screenshot shown in the video. This could be a major blow to Adobe depending on how these progress. :thinking:

 
This has a good chance of working to a good extent. Replicating firefly functionality is where it will almost certainly get stuck. If you want that is a different question.

Adobe should now not sleep at the wheel, and while it already feels like they are vibe coding the latest version of their apps, they should now take it more seriously.
 
I'm surprised I've not seen much discussion about the *craft apps here. For me, I think there's a lot of potential for them to be disruptive for a significant number of people; that might be new users who already pay for an Adobe subscription or users who didn't want to. As a LightRoom and PhotoShop subscriber, I'm certainly keeping an eye on the apps as they develop over the coming months.
 
DigitalRelish said:
I'm surprised I've not seen much discussion about the *craft apps here. For me, I think there's a lot of potential for them to be disruptive for a significant number of people; that might be new users who already pay for an Adobe subscription or users who didn't want to. As a LightRoom and PhotoShop subscriber, I'm certainly keeping an eye on the apps as they develop over the coming months.
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I think this is the third or fourth thread I've seen on this software package here and I've also seen them on many other pages.

I've had a look at some of the software and the premise they're being offered under is extremely misleading, you're absolutely not getting Adobe packages for free and without subscription - if you look at Lightcraft for example (their alternative to Lightroom), it looks and behaves nothing like Lightroom. There are polished open source processing software packages already and more recently I've seen some concerns over who is the one pushing these supposed Adobe alternative packages.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I think this is the third or fourth thread I've seen on this software package here and I've also seen them on many other pages.

I've had a look at some of the software and the premise they're being offered under is extremely misleading, you're absolutely not getting Adobe packages for free and without subscription - if you look at Lightcraft for example (their alternative to Lightroom), it looks and behaves nothing like Lightroom. There are polished open source processing software packages already and more recently I've seen some concerns over who is the one pushing these supposed Adobe alternative packages.
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Yep, I installed Lightcraft and, within 10 minutes, I uninstalled it and grabbed a Lightroom / Photoshop 12 month deal on Amazon for £107.
 
I did a quick test using Photocraft and Photoshop this morning, to see how good it's object removal was compared to Photoshop (which I consider to be very good).

So for me, while it's heading in the right direction, it's not yet mature enough for me to consider using it as a complete replacement of Photoshop or Lightroom (using LightCraft).

Original image (or part of it)
2026-10-13 10.25.31.jpg

Photoshop (using the Remove tool)
2026-10-13 10.31.00.jpg

PhotoCraft (using the Remove tool)
2026-10-13 10.31.14.jpg
 
Hanley said:
I did a quick test using Photocraft and Photoshop this morning, to see how good it's object removal was compared to Photoshop (which I consider to be very good).

So for me, while it's heading in the right direction, it's not yet mature enough for me to consider using it as a complete replacement of Photoshop or Lightroom (using LightCraft).

Original image (or part of it)
View attachment 494958

Photoshop (using the Remove tool)
View attachment 494959

PhotoCraft (using the Remove tool)
View attachment 494960
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For software that is a couple of weeks old, and receiving updates all the time, for the cost, ;) I think it is very good.

I have Photoshop and LightRoom, but good to know there may be alternative options available. More alternatives will hopefully affect Adobes pricing, and maybe Adobe's quality of updating, both frequency and quality. :)
 
Hanley said:
I did a quick test using Photocraft and Photoshop this morning, to see how good it's object removal was compared to Photoshop (which I consider to be very good).

So for me, while it's heading in the right direction, it's not yet mature enough for me to consider using it as a complete replacement of Photoshop or Lightroom (using LightCraft).

Original image (or part of it)
View attachment 494958

Photoshop (using the Remove tool)
View attachment 494959

PhotoCraft (using the Remove tool)
View attachment 494960
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Have a look at this for removal options
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDfwoyEyDsQ
 
redhed17 said:
For software that is a couple of weeks old, and receiving updates all the time, for the cost, ;) I think it is very good.

I have Photoshop and LightRoom, but good to know there may be alternative options available. More alternatives will hopefully affect Adobes pricing, and maybe Adobe's quality of updating, both frequency and quality. :)
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Don't misunderstand me, I agree completely, it's not that bad against a very mature product.

Incidentally, I also downloaded the Word, Excel and PowerPoint equivalents, and so far only tested the Excel but it's bloody impressive, I was messing around with a few of my spreadsheets, testing formulas etc. and it handled everything, so I can see me ditching my £100+ annual MS plan when it expires next year :)
 
Hanley said:
Don't misunderstand me, I agree completely, it's not that bad against a very mature product.

Incidentally, I also downloaded the Word, Excel and PowerPoint equivalents, and so far only tested the Excel but it's bloody impressive, I was messing around with a few of my spreadsheets, testing formulas etc. and it handled everything, so I can see me ditching my £100+ annual MS plan when it expires next year :)
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The AI tools are so good at coding, it's a wake-up call for Adobe and the like. I can imagine a big industry shake-up is coming. Adobe probably have only a few months left before *craft apps are effective replacements.

And it's quite feasible to build your own. My most recent examples are culling and camera prep tools which have gone from an idea, to a working prototype in minutes, and with a few hours effort fully functioning Mac apps and for culling a browser based version that works on any platform Chrome works on.
 
My eldest son an IT guy tells me it's not just Adobe. Loads of others like Windows have had the same treatment.
I'm hearing the Philippines ( no idea why there) have copies off all sorts of things dirt cheap. Apparently these are just full blown working copies.
 
Hanley said:
Don't misunderstand me, I agree completely, it's not that bad against a very mature product.

Incidentally, I also downloaded the Word, Excel and PowerPoint equivalents, and so far only tested the Excel but it's bloody impressive, I was messing around with a few of my spreadsheets, testing formulas etc. and it handled everything, so I can see me ditching my £100+ annual MS plan when it expires next year :)
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On that note, why not just use a mature product libreoffice? If you need cloud and ai integration then google docs become hard to beat.
 
My Adobe runs out in January and I shall not be renewing as I really only use it to crop, adjust exposure, etc. basically anything that could easily have been achieved in a home darkroom in the film era; it just won't be worth the money, no matter what deals there are. I will definitely be looking for a replacement that is either free or can be bought outright, so I will follow these developments with interest.
 
artyman said:
I use Libre Office swapped from MS Office a few years back
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Me too. I had Apache Open Office for quite a long time but it is largely unsupported now so I've moved on to Libre.

I've often wondered what the people at Libre get out of giving away such a fully-functional piece of software, I mean, there are no adverts, no requests for money. My suspicious nature makes me wonder if they are spying on the things I write/draw/calculate/etc.
 
GetBusyLiving said:
Me too. I had Apache Open Office for quite a long time but it is largely unsupported now so I've moved on to Libre.

I've often wondered what the people at Libre get out of giving away such a fully-functional piece of software, I mean, there are no adverts, no requests for money. My suspicious nature makes me wonder if they are spying on the things I write/draw/calculate/etc.
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It is open source so you could download the code and inspect at any time, or ask your favourite si tool to do so for you.

I believe it is mostly goodwill and charitable effort. Writing a piece may also qualify you for a paid job opportunity, and I suspect they also had some grants
 
LongLensPhotography said:
It is open source so you could download the code and inspect at any time, or ask your favourite si tool to do so for you.

I believe it is mostly goodwill and charitable effort. Writing a piece may also qualify you for a paid job opportunity, and I suspect they also had some grants
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Not sure how I've never heard of it before, will definitely take a look :)
 
Libre office is good, but isn't a like-for-like swap for Microsoft office, and there can be a steep learning curve plus not everything looks the same. I still use LO occasionally, but not professionally.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Libre office is good, but isn't a like-for-like swap for Microsoft office, and there can be a steep learning curve plus not everything looks the same. I still use LO occasionally, but not professionally.
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To me, it has a slight feeling of Word Perfect to it, which is no bad thing.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Libre office is good, but isn't a like-for-like swap for Microsoft office, and there can be a steep learning curve plus not everything looks the same. I still use LO occasionally, but not professionally.
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They surely have a slightly different ui but once you get used to it, there is no reason to go back to proprietary version.

Interesting fact: ms office ui change so drastically since 2014 when I moved to libre, so much so I no longer am familiar with it! Google docs however feel perfectly intuitive despite very low usage
 
LongLensPhotography said:
They surely have a slightly different ui but once you get used to it, there is no reason to go back to proprietary version.

Interesting fact: ms office ui change so drastically since 2014 when I moved to libre, so much so I no longer am familiar with it! Google docs however feel perfectly intuitive despite very low usage
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Documents may not always display exactly the same, spreadsheets ditto. It doesn't matter for non-professional use, but when I need to show excel, word and powerpoint documents to a client I can't afford a mangled document. And TBH those applications are pretty darn good at what they do.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Documents may not always display exactly the same, spreadsheets ditto. It doesn't matter for non-professional use, but when I need to show excel, word and powerpoint documents to a client I can't afford a mangled document. And TBH those applications are pretty darn good at what they do.
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I get you, and MS office was pretty much this sort of nightmare when working on my thesis. Even between different PCs diagrams would shift, even a save would knock something out of place. PDF is where everything is locked down for good, and the next best thing is layout software - illustrator, indesign, inkscape, affinity - the whole lot of them.

If your work on things like spreadsheets is seriously good I would be bold enough to tell client to use open standard software including libreoffice to avoid formatting issues. It was MS who got dragged kicking and screaming to open up proprietary .doc mangle and use XML type docx, and same for the other apps
 
Well, I like Libre Office simply because it's what MS Office used to look like. I can't abide bloody ribbons and things. They are just clutter.
 
DSOTW said:
I like it because my data stays where I want it, on my computer.
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I use MS Office but I don't upload any of my files to OneDrive, they're all saved locally on my NAS.

Yes, Microsoft requires account information before I'm allowed to use it but that's no different to a lot of applications / services. Operational diagnostic data collection can easily be turned off as well.

None of your 'actual data' is uploaded to Microsoft if you don't want it to. I'm a Mac user so I'm not caught in the trap of MS automatically tying Documents, Pictures and Desktop to your OneDrive account, and when you save a file just ensure you're saving it locally.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
I get you, and MS office was pretty much this sort of nightmare when working on my thesis. Even between different PCs diagrams would shift, even a save would knock something out of place.
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As a heavy user of MS Office over 30 years, this has been my biggest frustration.

Oddly only in my final year of work, I have discovered the functions to switch off to ensure my charts don’t change whenever MS guesses I might want them to.

It seems MS believe that when we open their software we spend time setting up our default parameters, and that we’d therefore be grateful to MS for changing our charts as we reuse them. :headbang:
 
FWIW I use either 2016 or 2019 of office, rather than the subscription version, and that may make a difference. Office 365 as run at my last place of employment could be frustrating at times, mostly because it kept offering options that I didn't want, rather than changing behaviour.

If like me, you often need to embed graphs from Excel into word documents, it can be helpful to save them as images. Otherwise if the data used to create the graph is changed while both applications are open together the embedded graph will be changed silently.
 
GetBusyLiving said:
Obviously, when used for work and income, MS Office would be the way to go, but for amateur pratting about, Libre is fine.
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Hmmmmmm.

I've used Word - and then Office for 36 years.

Along the way there have been continual time wasting fights with it. It's only robust in the sense that it's established and people who push it hard put up with its foibles - and people who don't push it probably don't need actually need most of its functionality in the first place.

It's an incumbent ecosystem that we pay too much for.

As for LibreOffice -- just as imperfect and in places surprisingly unrefined. But (IMO) no less usable for the vast majority of people and if the Office ecosystem wasn't incumbent then it would actually be much more objectively appreciated.
 
Indeed, for most of us, a simple word processor is all we need, or even want; for my purposes, I find a lot of the features of modern word packages to be redundant. It's rather like Lightroom, they come up with this feature and that feature, but I hardly use any of it (and won't be renewing this time around); I'm a simple girl from simpler times. I miss my FM2n, but film was such a drag.
 
GetBusyLiving said:
...I miss my FM2n, but film was such a drag.
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It's sad that no one managed to get "electronic film" devices to work properly.

I'd have paid a fair amount to have had something I could just drop into my Leica M3 or Nikon F!
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
It's sad that no one managed to get "electronic film" devices to work properly.

I'd have paid a fair amount to have had something I could just drop into my Leica M3 or Nikon F!
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No point doing it now, but I think it's probable that modern tech could do it these days, and quite easily.
 
Just my two cents as a lay person, these apps are more likely going to affect smaller software companies than larger ones. Adobe will lose some customers no doubt but any professional business is very unlikely to leave Adobe. Someone has to maintain the software and deal with any legal issues. Would any proper business use a piece of software that someone just created at home? It could be risky from a security point of view or even if it crashed during important times. It’s more likely that Adobe will have to balance what they charge and what they offer more carefully, it now makes it easier for largish software companies to catch-up without having to make labour intensive investments, that helped Adobe become the market leader.
 
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