What is Adobe Creative Cloud?

Here at Armada, we’re regularly asked by clients about training on ‘Adobe Creative Cloud’, which invariably leads to a longer conversation about which Creative Cloud app or apps are relevant to the work our client needs to carry out.

It’s not as simple as just learning Adobe Creative Cloud (often shortened to Adobe CC). Adobe CC is a subscription-based suite of applications and services that includes over 20 desktop and mobile apps, as well as some optional cloud services 😲. Together, these applications provide a broad range of tools used for graphic design, video editing, photography, web development, and much more! But most people don’t want to carry out all of these tasks – typically just one or two.

What makes up Adobe Creative Cloud?

There are lots of different ways you could organise the different Adobe CC applications, but I think that you can realistically break them down into four key categories:

• Design & layout
• Video & motion
• Web & UX/UI Design
• Supporting apps & services

Below, I introduce the apps in each of these categories.

Design & layout

 Photoshop
It’s all about pixels with Photoshop… if it’s got pixels, Photoshop can manipulate it. Since its inception, Photoshop has very much been the go-to app for photographers, graphic designers and artists wanting to create, edit and enhance images. It excels at photo editing and manipulation, digital painting and detailed artwork.

 Illustrator
Illustrator is all about vector graphics. It’s the application to use for logos, icons, and other designs that need to be resized frequently without losing quality and stay sharp no matter how much you zoom.

 InDesign
Often thought of as the publisher’s best friend, InDesign might not be as famous as Photoshop or Illustrator but it’s a vital tool in the publishing world. It’s purpose-built for creating multi-page documents and layouts, such as: magazines, brochures, books, eBooks, flyers and newsletters.

  Adobe Express
Formerly known as Adobe Spark, Adobe Express is a simplified, all-in-one cloud-based tool used to quickly professional-standard social media content and other designs.

  Lightroom
Most commonly used by Photographers, often in conjunction with Photoshop, Lightroom is a powerful photo editing and organisation tool.

  Acrobat
The most popular application for creating and working with PDFs. You can also use it to collect e-signatures and create secure documents.

Video & motion

 Premiere Pro
Adobe’s video editing software, Premiere Pro is used to create and edit footage, organise clips, create visual effects and split-screen video. It’s audio capabilities let you include background music and speech.

 After Effects
After Effects is a pretty cool application. It’s used to create stunning motion graphics, visual effects and other animated content.

 Audition
Commonly used alongside Premiere Pro, Audition is Adobe’s audio editing and mixing application. It’s used by sound engineers, podcasters, video editors and musicians to create, clean up and enhance audio.

 Animate
Formerly known as Adobe Flash, Animate is a little bit like After Effects, in that you create animations and interactive content. It’s built on vector graphics and so is more commonly used to create 2D animations, web banners, app development and games.

  Premiere Rush

A more basic and user-friendly desktop and mobile video editor that comes free with Adobe Creative Cloud.

  Media Encoder
Converts your video and audio files into various different formats. Can be used as a standalone application, but is more typically used as a companion to After Effects and Premiere Pro so you can continue working whilst your output is generated.

Web & UX/UI Design

 Adobe XD

XD is short for Adobe Experience Design. This vector-based design tool is used primarily to create user interfaces and prototypes for web and mobile apps. It’s being phased out by Adobe, with no future developments planned.

  Dreamweaver

A traditional web development tool. Used to create, design, code and manage websites that support HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Supporting apps & services

  Bridge

Your central hub for organising and managing your creative files. Bridge works seamlessly with the other Adobe CC apps, allowing you to open and place files directly into the key applications for improved workflows.

 Adobe Fonts

An enormous library of professional and high-quality licensed fonts.

  Adobe Stock

A library offering 1000’s of photos, vectors, videos, audio files and more. Some are free, others are available to purchase.

  Adobe Firefly

Provides generative AI for creative production, with capabilities including text-to-image and text-to-video. Firefly is incorporated into several Creative Cloud apps such as Photoshop (to provide Generative Fill functionality), Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Adobe Express.

  Creative Cloud Libraries

Used to store and organise your assets, and share them across all Adobe apps and devices.

  Creative Cloud Storage

Used to store your work safely in the cloud. The amount of storage you get depends on your plan; anything from 2GB to 1TB is available.

Summary

As you can see, there’s a huge variety of Adobe CC apps available that really do have you covered no matter what creative work you’re looking to do. The question isn’t whether there’s an app available to do what you want, but more…which application is right for me?

I’m in the process of writing another blog post ‘Which Adobe CC application is right for me?’, in which I delve deeper into the five key Adobe apps that are most commonly used: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Premiere Pro. Watch this space!

Armada offers training in the five key Adobe apps to both beginners and existing users.