Due to the huge popularity of many Adobe applications, certain groups of more casual and less professional users resort to those applications for simple stuff – or at least what they consider as simple. And to be honest, some actions which used to be complex before have become quite simple, thanks to innovations based on new approaches and Adobe's expanding artificial intelligence (e.g. cutting objects from their background. It even results in questions like this recent one in our community: "I expected to be able to import my website into XD, make edits, and put it back"... How's that for simplicity ? That's why many heavy-lifting Adobe applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere and After Effects have been urged to add a layer of simplicity on top of their vast arsenal of features and options. Which conflicts with the routine of most more-demanding professionals, or at least confuses them. Think in Illustrator of the restricted toolset, and re-re-rethought Pen tool, or the numerous ways to scale, rotate, and duplicate objects. Or in Photoshop, the automatic conversion of placed imagery into a Smart Layer, turning Adjustment commands like Levels and Color Balance into Smart Filters. Simple services like Canva and Adobe Express will cater for those users. Mobile apps like ProCreate, Fresco, Illustrator and Photoshop on iPad can cloak all ancient methods of a larger application and display new approaches more prominent, while keeping compatible file formats. Big applications can still offer complexity to advanced users. Figma, although it operates preferably as a web tool, is definitely a heavy-lifter and not a simple service. Fortunately, in contrast with tools for photography, print, and audio/video media, Figma largely deals with smaller files and light-weight processes, hence very feasible with web technology. In all aspects of their own creative tools, it seems as if Adobe has always been (and still is) fighting against HTML, both as an underlying technology and as an output format. And again, Adobe needs to acquire another company to "take them out, dancing", as it was said during the acquistion of Macromedia...
... View more