Graphic design is key in catching the audience’s attention and showing them what your company is about. All brands require graphic design software that creates stunning designs that speak to the target crowd. Whether you are interested in starting a blog or creating amazing photos for an eCommerce site, you must choose the best graphic design software to take your design efforts to the next level.
This comprehensive guide will help you choose the best graphic design platforms today. Stay tuned for more information!
Best Graphic Design Software: Top Picks
-
Adobe Photoshop
It is one of the most famous graphic design software that is used by millions of designers across the globe. Whether you want to create top notch photos, banners, websites, posters, or logos, this best graphic design software can do it all. From small edits to complicated designs, Adobe Photoshop has powerful tools for every creation. If you are a graphic designer who wants illustrative designs, it helps you to draw or paint anything you like.
Along with image creation, you can design naturalistic artwork and composition with the help of Adobe Photoshop. Moreover, you can even define the size of your canvas, remove elements from backgrounds, build custom brushes, create 3D images, and do much more.
Features:
- Add text to images.
- Change colors on any image.
- Choose borders with ease.
- Make incredible images from scratch
- Quickly organize photos
Pricing: $20.99 per month
-
Adobe Illustrator
This graphic design software is best for the tracing of photos into vector Graphics. With the help of Adobe Illustrator, you can create artwork, icons, posters, logos, etc. Plus, the designs created using Adobe Illustrator can be used in business cards and from smartphones to 8k resolution screens. You can use this software to create spectacular draw, mixes, and designs.
To draw, you can make use of the shaper tool and design vector shapes. Geometric shapes can be added to outlines and can be moved, scaled, and reshaped. Even the fonts can be manipulated as per your needs by adjusting their size, slant, or width. For beginners, Adobe offers professionally designed templates that help save time. Furthermore, Adobe has introduced a mobile version, also called Adobe Illustrator Draw, which is one of the best graphic design apps available.
Features:
- Mathematical graphic creation
- Tools for making advanced vector graphics
- Access to millions of stock images on the creative cloud.
- Adobe font integration.
Pricing: $20.99 per month
-
AE Juice
If you’re looking for great plugins to use with After Effects, then you should use AEJuice.
AEJuice is a motion graphics company that develops animation tools. They offer easy-to-install plugins and presets to video editing professionals. With millions of users worldwide, it is undeniably the most popular tool that caters to the needs of motion designers, video editors, and VFX artists. One of AEJuice’s best sellers is the “All in one bundle,” which contains EVERY single pack of AE Juice combined into one huge plugin. Read AEJuice Review using this link to know about it in detail. 
AEJuice develops plugins for users of Adobe After Effects and those who want to improve the quality of their videos. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, AE Juice provides plugins that are user-friendly for creating professional-level visuals and effects. They provide a large number of plugins that will help you to create some very interesting effects. With AEJuice, you can create professional-looking videos quickly and easily.
Features:
- Easy to use, drag & drop concept
- Doesn’t slow down your loading speed
- Lets you edit videos in a short time
- Replicate effects made by professionals
- All effects are customizable
Pricing: One of AEJuice’s best sellers is the “All in one bundle,” which contains EVERY single pack of AE Juice combined into one huge plugin and costs $149.
-
Lunacy
Lunacy is a popular free graphic design software for UX, UI, and web design. It has everything you get in other similar apps and goes beyond. With Lunacy, you will save a lot of time that you usually spend searching for graphics. Thousands of icons, photos, and illustrations are available on this app. What’s more? Lunacy comes with handy AI-powered tools to automate tasks: background remover, avatar, image upscaler, and text generators.
Besides this, most of Lunacy’s features work offline. If you want online collaboration with fellow designers, this graphic design tool makes it possible. Moreover, the user interface of the Lunacy is available in 21 languages.
Features:
- Free for commercial & personal use
- Works both online and offline
- Available on Windows, macOS, and Linux
- Minimum learning curve
- Built-in graphics & AI-powered tools
Pricing: Free to use
-
Canva
If you are new in the design field and you’re looking for something very easy, then Canva is your perfect ally. This free online graphic design software allows you to create designs effortlessly. There are a ton of templates, fonts, and images that bring photos to life. Canva works on the drag & drop user interface, where you only need to pick the elements, drag them to your work area, and finally customize it.
As mentioned previously, Canva is a beginner-friendly platform, so it does not include advanced features like Photoshop. It, however, solves a beginner’s design requirements who doesn’t want the process of learning and buying premium software. Canva is helpful in creating graphics, presentations, posters, and logos. Best part! It is available on Apple and Android devices, so you can design images while on the go.
Features:
- Thousands of pre-built templates
- The ability to include text to videos
- User friendly features
- Highly customizable
Pricing: Starts at $12.99 per month
Final Words
It can be quite daunting to select the best graphic design software. However, there are a few essential points to consider before making any purchase decision. These are as follows:
- Budget: As you have seen, there is some software with the best features that are very expensive. Keeping this in mind, you must strike a balance between features and price.
- Features: Go with the features that you require to create your perfect creations.
- 3. Collaboration and use: You must see if the files are easily shared online and can be used for web as well as print purposes without sacrificing quality.
If you are looking for graphic design for once-off editing, free software like Pixlr will work best for you. If you work online and store your files on storage sites, go with graphic design software such as Vectr. Lastly, if you are a professional graphic designer, then Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop should be in your design arsenal.
