Adobe Photoshop is the industry standard software when it comes to editing, retouching, and prepping up photographs and ambiance attributes.  In fact, the uses of Photoshop in real life are limitless. At PGBS, we have a proficient fleet of seasoned creative artists who can deftly harness the limitless potential of Photoshop software to create brilliant and literally unbelievable effects.

With changing times, the authority of Adobe Photoshop is being challenged by other image editing software that provides features that are powerful and utility rich. The rise in competition has not dented the popularity of Photoshop, as most companies and professionals still rely on it to accomplish their image editing related needs.

The advantages and disadvantages of Adobe Photoshop should be considered from a neutral perspective to understand the reason for its appeal among the masses and why it is experiencing competition from other contemporary software.

Adobe Photoshop advantages and disadvantages
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Advantages and Disadvantages of Photoshop – Quick Overview

Pros of Using Adobe Photoshop

Cons of Using Adobe Photoshop

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Advantages of Using Photoshop

  • The surplus of cutting-edge tools at one’s disposal

    Adobe Photoshop offers a range of tools that help in the creation of compelling graphic designs for web platforms as well as handheld devices. The responsive graphics can be created through an inbuilt interface that makes editing images a cushy job. Further, a wide array of tools is available and gets continuously added to its repertoire, which enhances the creative capability of the artists and helps them stretch their imaginations optimally.

    Some of the tools to mention are the pen tool, selection tool, spot healing brush tool, zoom tool, ruler tool, and crop tool.

  • Photoshop offers unparalleled editing features

    Photoshop has come of age. It has no longer restricted its editing capabilities to images only. In addition to photo post-processing, you can easily work on video content and carry out the intricacies of editing with flair. Photoshop brings on its platform the features of best video editing tools with its new releases. You can also work with the free mobile app available on subscription to extract maximum value from the software.

  • Creativity can be unlocked fully with integrated stock library

    Most of you who are acquainted with Photoshop know that free stock images are not readily available. One has to toil hard to come across free images that can be used for creative processing. Further, relevant images may not catch one’s attention. Photoshop has alleviated this problem with its own integrated stock library, from which you can retrieve the desired picture or video to let your creative juices flow. Syncing libraries with Photoshop’s interface helps you glide through various tasks simultaneously.

  • Trivial editing can be pulled off with ease

    With Photoshop, you can make numerous smaller changes to an image that, although they may not require much effort to carry out but the tools for the same are not readily available with other editors. You can alter the skin tone, render an ordinary image into high resolution, fine tune the brightness, remove the smudge, or pull off other sorts of retouching with relative ease in Photoshop.

  • Ease of editing different image formats

    This is yet another Photoshop advantage. This software allows, under one roof, the editing of all available and popular image file formats without requiring any expensive plugins. You need not invoke other editing software to carry out partial editing in it before importing the image into Photoshop for final editing. A single Photoshop file is enough.

    Supported file formats: RAW, PSD, JPEG, PSDC, TIFF, PSB, HEIC and PNG

  • Ordinary images can be transformed into professional ones with ease

    You cannot take the liberty of posting ordinary looking shabby images for your professional purpose as your reputation, brand image and professional identity would be at stake. Photoshop offers a plethora of tools to help you transform substandard images into spectacular, aesthetically pleasing and shipshape pictures.

  • Branding related graphics can be designed meticulously

    Photoshop lets you create compelling graphic design for a variety of purposes, like book cover designs, brochure designs, flyer designs, promotional stuff and brand building materials. With a little effort, one can easily master the use of tools designed to bring out the artist inherent in him.

    • Website related graphics: From the perspective of website, you can create gripping landing pages, site designs, sales funnel, product depictions, logo design, icons for various purposes, call to action lever, connect request forms etc.
    • Promotional graphics: Newsletters or emailers that your brand sends out to customers can also be designed with Photoshop.
    • Social media graphics: You need to shine on the social platform? Just take to Photoshop and chisel out the perfect look for the image you are going to post. It would grab appreciative eyeballs easily.
    • Print graphics: Business cards, flyers, brochures, event backdrop, stall design, and packaging designs can be designed easily.

  • The program would allow you to create stamp-sized or passport-sized images.

    You can get passport/stamp-sized images created in Photoshop for getting printed versions and using in job applications.

    Related Article: Tips for perfect photo printing in Photoshop

  • Ability to edit video or animation layers

    Apart from editing images, Adobe Photoshop has also included the feature to effortlessly edit videos and animations. This can be done by editing the individual frames of video or animation layers.

  • Easily transfer of files between different programs

    Photoshop allows the user to transfer the image files from one program to another with ease. The process is carried out with the help of a Creative Suite which doesn’t affect the image quality.

  • Take advantage of versatile features

    You can explore Photoshop’s versatile features to create awesome designs, instill new effects, and conduct batch processing of images. You can use the creative features of Photoshop to deliver the highest standard of outcomes.

  • Make use of readily-available Photoshop Templates

    Several websites offer ready-to-use Photoshop templates that can be customized easily using Photoshop. All you need to do is to open the image in Photoshop and modify the existing layers. The final outcome will look extremely professional as though you took several weeks to create this high-quality outcome.

  • Make your cropping and resizing tasks easier

    With Photoshop, you can resize and crop images very easily. This comes especially handy if you are managing social media accounts, which come equipped with a scheduling tool that demands all images to have a size of 10MB or even less. You can resize even high-resolution images with a higher degree of perfection in order to create platform-specific image versions.

  • Single click delete option for any object

    Using content aware fill option, you can remove any object from the image.

  • Integration of AI features

    Adobe recently introduced Generative Fill and Adobe Firefly into Photoshop to make photo editing and designing easier and faster. Adobe Firefly is a family of creative generative AI models directly accessible in the Photoshop desktop (beta) app (as of May 2023). 

    To help you create stunning visuals with greater ease, Generative Fill has been integrated into every Photoshop selection tool. With Generative Fill, you can add content, remove or replace portions of an image, or extend its edges through prompts.

    Additionally, the tool creates a new generative layer type, so the AI’s edits are non-destructive. Generative Fill is also available as a module in the beta version of Firefly.

Disadvantages of Using Photoshop

  • The interface may prove to be difficult-to-use for beginners

    Mastering the Photoshop with all its’ intricacies can prove to be a daunting task for seasoned users as newer updates and migration to Creative Cloud has added a slew of tools which are difficult to remember and use. The learning curve is consequently steeper for greenhorns. One has to devote the significant amount of time to learn the usage of all relevant tools and use the same for retouching images.

  • Photoshop occasionally releases untested beta versions or updates

    The software no longer launches a newer version annually which is a major Photoshop disadvantage. Instead updates are released at frequent intervals. This has made the software vulnerable to bugs which can be annoying for the user. You can report about them to the Adobe support team and they would quickly fix the same. But if you have a tight project schedule to adhere to and you are not prepared for such unwarranted bugs, it can cause real problem grappling with the bugs.

  • Some tools lack progress monitoring facilities

    Although it cannot be termed as a drawback of the software, but it can interfere with the productivity of the user who has become accustomed to seeing the progress bars in analogous photo editing software for similar tools. You may be in a fix trying to figure out if all the essential steps needed to accomplish the desired output from a tool have been successfully completed or not. This can sometimes take its toll on users’ nerves.

  • New input features may not have an appeal for everyone

    Photoshop has been in existence since long. As such, it has numerous ardent fans who have remained loyal to this software over the years. They may find it difficult to adapt to newer input tools like touch and stylus. Those of newer generation who are well acquainted with the utility of these input devices and may have used in games or for other purposes would welcome them.

  • Photoshop is expensive

    Adobe Photoshop comes with an astronomical price tag which may be affordable for organizations and institutional artists. But small-time users who resort to this software for minor image retouching and editing would find the price a major roadblock in its use. They would instead use relatively inexpensive and fundamental software which would allow them to carry out nominal image-related processing with ease.

  • Less support for vector graphics

    Overall, Photoshop does not provide support for vector graphics. There are some versions of Photoshop which can be used to work with vectors. However, it can only be used for minor designing.

  • Full functionality may not be utilized by every user

    Apart from experienced photo editors it is not beneficial for other users as they cannot utilize the software to its maximum potential because of their lack of knowledge in finding the advanced functions.

  • High-quality graphics are difficult to render

    There is a difficulty in rendering graphics file with large size as it consumes more time for loading and editing. Therefore, it results in a decrease in the work performance and efficiency of users.

  • The program consumes a lot of space

    Photoshop takes up a lot of space in your system’s hard disk. Even Photoshopped images consume a lot of space too in your machine. Therefore, you should keep this program stored in a large hard disk that has a lot of memory space.

  • The toolbar is less-detailed

    Photoshop’s basic features and tools are easy to use as they are easy to locate too. Beginners can readily use the features related to cutting, re-dimensioning, and painting. However, a vast majority of the features are difficult to master especially because of the fact that the toolbar is not intuitive or detailed. So it really becomes a time-consuming process to understand which button accomplishes which task. One needs to use several online tutorials to get familiar with Photoshop’s advanced features.

  • Discontinued 3D design feature

    Photoshop discontinued their 3d design features for the latest versions. If you still need to use the 3d design feature, you should have Photoshop 22.2 version. Additionally, Adobe has released new tools – Substance line of 3D products – designed to help you in each step of the 3D model-making process.

What is Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop is a popular software program for photo editing and image retouching.  It is available on Mac and Windows and has numerous features for enhancing and creating images. Aside from images, it can also help with editing illustrations, artwork, and videos.

You can carry out a variety of tasks in Photoshop, be it changing the photo background or imitating a real-life painting. It also allows you to edit pictures individually or in large batches.

Photoshop is available in several versions. It includes Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop CC, Photoshop Express, and Photoshop Elements. Furthermore, there is also a separate version for iOS users. But, it may not contain all the features of the original version.

Coming to the availability of Adobe Photoshop, it has a subscription of its own that incorporates Photoshop Lightroom. Besides, the subscription itself is a part of the Creative Cloud subscription offered by Adobe Corporation.

Who uses Adobe Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop is mostly used by all types of creative designers that include print media designers, photo editors, UI/UX designers, web designers, and 3D artists.

What are the uses of Adobe Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop is mainly used for photo editing and graphic designing. The raster graphics editor is enriched with numerous functions, filters, and tools to make the editing tasks easier for users. In case you are looking for other reasons, we have discussed a few more purposes of using Photoshop below.

  • Photo Restorationused for photo restoration

    Photoshop can help with the restoration of damaged or old photographs. For minor damages, you can use the tools and filters available in Photoshop.

    For example, to remove blemishes or spots, you can use the Clone Stamp tool. To eliminate noise and dust, you can use the noise reduction filter. In case of major damages like filling up a missing section, you can use the function, Vanishing Point.

  • Editing, Creating, and Painting 3D Textures

    Many 3D artists use Adobe Photoshop to edit textures in 3D files or create new ones for their 3D models. Textures can be imported as 2D files and appear grouped by map type (diffuse, bumpy, glossy, etc.) under the 3D layer.

    You can then use the brush and adjustment tools to edit the textures in a 3D file or create new textures.

    Photoshop also allows you to paint 3D textures.

  • Resizing/ Croppingused for image resizing

    Resizing and cropping images is one of the popular uses of Photoshop. You can resize your picture by simply selecting “Image” from the “Menu” option and then clicking “Size”. A dialog box will appear, from which you can change the pixel height, width, and resolution.

    To crop your image, choose the Crop Tool from the Toolbar. Now, trim it to the size you want. The cropping technique is widely employed by the printing and publishing industry.

  • Animationused for creating 2d animations

    Photoshop is also a powerful tool for graphics animation. You only have to create frames in the form of layers. Once you are done, activate the Animation panel from the timeline. Now, choose “Make Frames from Layers” to create your animation and finally, export it in GIF.

  • Website Graphicsused for creating website graphics

    Apart from photo editing and animation, Photoshop can be used to design graphics for your website layouts. For example, you can use the Shape Tool and set it to “Fill” for creating a simple button shape.

    You can also use the function, FX to add depth to the button. A few functions you can use are “Drop Shadow” and “Bevel and Emboss”. There’s also a Text Tool that can help you add a name to the button.

  • Websites Layoutused for creating website related graphics

    In addition to creating graphics, you can also use Photoshop to create web page layouts. You only have to create and assemble the different elements of a web page the way you want it to look.

    Now, select the Slice Tool for dividing the picture into different parts of the page. It may include your banner, navigation button, etc. Finally, save and export the document by using the function, Save for Web or Devices.

To conclude

Despite suffering from the handful of disadvantages, Photoshop continues to dominate the mainstream graphics editing market with its powerful and contemporary tools. The advanced tools may be reserved for the enlightened few, but the basic tools are for everyone to use with confidence.

PGBS helps you accomplish your professional or individual photo editing services need through prudent Photoshop services by harnessing the potential of this robust software.