2024 Adobe Express and the Free Gateway

It has been a while. How many changes since 2021?  Too many. And there are more to come. Now that everyone is a content creator and some of that population is cribbing from generative A.I.

I thought I didn't have anything more to say about media creation.

I was double checking some things and I came up on the blog again.  A lot of people still check out prior posts. Solidarity to those of us that have camcorders that export in the .MOD format.

If that critter still works, use it! 

Or be brave and record in Standard Definition. I think there is still a place for it.

Story for another time.

Now, back in the day the program I knew as Adobe Creative Express had a free version that was limited in what it could do. If you wanted more features you had to pony up some cash.

This was way before Canva. 

Canva put a hurting on Adobe. Changes had to be made.

And they were, somewhat.

If you have an Adobe account, you have access to the current freemium version of Adobe Express.

You can create content for almost any social media platform and you have access to new tools as well.

So let's say you need to make a Instagram square post or a Facebook post. You can do it using a template or create from scratch.

You can use a free template or if you see that crown in the lower right portion of the template, you need to pay for it.

You have access to some of the assets of Adobe Stock media, some of the elements and other doo-dads.

It does not take long to make a simple audiogram cover or Youtube thumbnail.  Especially if you can use one of the free templates, you can knock something out in less than five minutes.

And that is the thing. If you keep it simple, you can get a lot of work done at Adobe Express. There is a learning/tutorial section to help you out if you get stuck. I stress, keep it simple. The more you want to do the more frustrated you will get because of the reminders that will pop up when you access a premium feature.

Convert to Another Format

Well... I don't have every file format but let's work with what I've got

• AVI - Nope. There were dozens of variations of AVI so not too bummed about this.
• MOD - Nope. Couldn't even get it to show up as a file format.
• MOV the old school kind created for Windows - Yes but it might take a while, depending on the size of your video. Maximum file size is 1GB. 
• MPG - Yes, shockingly it did it. It is a one minute video and it took about 4 minutes or so.
• WMV - Nope

They have a bunch of doo-dad that if you have a use for them like converting an image or two into a .gif then go for it.

Not going into the A.I. features because I am still learning how to write an effective prompt. A necessary skill. 

So, What is the Catch?

Now as I am found of saying, free is not free. Adobe would very much like you to buy the premium subscription plan. You would have access to all templates, assets and storage for your projects.

If you like the interface and the access to Adobe Stock then the monthly subscription is $9.99 a month. You probably should do the free trial first to really confirm that this is the bees knees for you and your needs.