Adobe Express: AI Photo Video Reviews

by Mandogfish

I updated AdobeExpress, which automatically changed it from Spark Post to CC Express and noticed right away that Adobe screwed us. Let me start off with this, they took away the ability to resize a graphic after you have started the project unless you pay for their premium membership. Before, you could do this extremely simple task without paying anything. They also ‘added’ a menu bar at the top of the home area that allows you to select a category of templates to select from when you start a project, which isn’t actually new. All Adobe did with this update is remove the ability to resize a graphic in the middle of the project without paying them $9.99 a month, and changed the name of Spark Post. It’s probably a good thing that they changed the name because now I don’t have to associate a once great product with whatever garbage this is now called. The sad part of this is that there are plenty of teachers and other people who work in education who used the Spark Post app because it was mostly free. I can’t see this happening going forward if this trend continues.

If you can avoid updating from Spark Post, then hold off as long as you can!!!!

by Pinkschool

I love AdobeExpress. I love adobe. I think it’s amazing for creatives and I praise AdobeExpress and its possibilities. HOWEVER, i’m tempted to stop using spark because of it’s major bug issues that have become detrimental to my business. I go one day from it working to another day telling my client that we’ll have to delay posting because AdobeExpress keeps telling me to renew my subscription, yet when i try to renew it, the options come up blank. So I spend hours trying to fix the problem, resetting my phone, redownloading AdobeExpress . Its EXHAUSTING. Especially because I probably do this once a month. And every few months it just decides to turn the images black, keeping only the texts when i try to download or post. And when i do the reset, redownload, it deletes all the work i’ve just put in. Spark has been a life saver. But it I catch it on a bad day, it can ruin everything, setting me back by at least a day. Please, please, PLEASE fix these issues. I don’t want to stop using this wonderful app but if this continues I might have to.

by Alfrodo The Revenge

Well, I’m saddened and Glad at what I have read so far with latest reviews to the newest update. Adobe, why fix something that isn’t broken? My heart sank when I read about your “new” and “improved” version. Spark Post is by far the best app that I have come upon in years. Best, that I was willing to shell out the yearly subscription fee, which isn’t cheep. I just paid for the subscription over a month ago and now I get to deal with a broken app? No thanks! I’ll will refuse to update my app until you address all of the issues I am reading about, which is larger than what has been reported. Now that I think about it, I tried emailing my projects from Spark Post this morning and all of a sudden they aren’t delivering to my email…. Very strange… Consumers, it’s time for all of you to speak up if you are unhappy with what is being done here. Let the developers know that they messed up. Be very suspicious of the two to three word reviews after the newest update to what ever they are calling AdobeExpress now saying how great AdobeExpress is. Whole thing smells pretty stinky to me.

by Proteus846

I use Adobe Spark Post to make Instagram story promos for my youth program’s events. It is very easy to make a great-looking promotion with AdobeExpress, taking minimal time and effort, and it’s a lot of fun to use. But that’s when it works.

Every once in awhile, AdobeExpress seems to forget that my paid Photoshop plan includes the premium version of Spark. When this happens watermarks appear, my branding is inaccessible, and I can’t duplicate posts made using premium features. Signing out and back in doesn’t fix it — usually I just need to wait for it to fix itself with an update.

I make a promo image WEEKLY using Spark. I need it to work, or I need to make something manually in Photoshop which takes more time and is less convenient [because I can’t do it from my phone wherever I am in five to ten minutes]. As of this writing, I can use premium features on the website but not in AdobeExpress … so there’s a workaround, but this is an issue that needs to be fixed. I have access to Spark Premium, but it’s not reliable — and that’s a problem.

If they were to fix this issue, I could definitely recommend Spark Post. As it stands, I can only tell you “it works great when it works, but sometimes it doesn’t for weeks.” That’s not exactly a sparkling recommendation.

by Charlieheartsmatt

The thing I think I find most disappointing is that AdobeExpress lacks some of my favorite features from the Over app.

1. There isn’t a way to add basic shapes and “add icon” is a mediocre substitute. In the Spark templates they often cheat to make shapes by typing letters and then making the font and font shape the same color. This is ridiculous. Just add some shapes. And snapping is usually not accurate for the icons so they look misaligned unless you nudge them around.
2. The size snapping is often more harmful than helpful. And there’s no way to type in the specific size you want so you end up endlessly bouncing from too big to to small. It’s infuriating.
3. There’s no masking feature. I miss this the most. It’s the thing that makes the most difference between “I did this on my phone” and “I’m a professional.” PLEASE ADD THIS
4. You can’t zoom in to see where things are actually lining up.
5. Nudge seems to move things based on a percentage of the size so getting equal spacing on different sized elements is pretty much impossible.
6. There are no gradients. Which could be a part of the shapes. You can do this, I believe in you.

I really want to make this work because I already paid for it. I’m sure developers use other apps to see what’s going on elsewhere, but if they don’t, you really should.

by KayMich

Overall, AdobeExpress is great! I love how versatile it is. You can make just about anything for your graphic design needs.

I find the pre-made color themes to be helpful, & it’s great that they can easily be tweaked to suit your needs. I also love that some of the font faces can be changed to bold, italic, thin, etc. And the availability of logos, stock photos, & patterns is quite vast, making it fairly simple to find what you need.

Here’s what I think could be improved:

- I am subscribed to the premium feature, which was working on here, but is now only working on the spark video & spark page apps. This doesn’t end up being a big deal, because I just remove the spark logo, but it would still be easier if I could have this issue fixed.

- There are a good number of fonts to choose from, but I’d like to see a few more added, OR the ability to easily import new fonts.

- I LOVE the inspiration pages & that they’re organized by category! However, if there was a search function, it would make things even easier to navigate & find what you’re looking for. For example: if I’m looking for inspiration on a flyer, it would be helpful if I could search the term “flyer” to find different flyer designs.

by Terranceblakelyartist

Loving AdobeExpress so far having experience with many design projects. Really creates a peace of mind when needing to run through multiple iterations of a design because you know what you want once you see it, and not having to stop the creative flow to draft new thumbnail mock-ups, grab more paper, or even shuffle through needed layers.

Literally the only problem I’ve ran across multiple times is when saving the file size even at the recommended dimensions for any content I decide to post on social media it results in a pixelated image on the desktop version while appearing clear and crisp on the mobile versions. I’ve tried uploading the image that gets saved directly to camera phone and then viewing it on the desktop version and it still comes out pixelated and not as crisp. And just for comparison I also tried saving the finished project directly to google drive and then downloading the image on a desktop and then uploading the image from the social site on the desktop and yet the Image still resulted in the same quality. At the moment it has been only good to design for smaller screen content. As it seems the resizing feature doesn’t seem to actually effect the resolution even though the info on the desktop changes, when you need to scale a design up for desktop view. Still giving a 4 though.

by TCollinsG3

Posted my first attempt with Spark to Facebook, tried an animation with a fairly subtle zoom-out effect that looked very nice, but on Facebook the video kept looping repeatedly—it was about 3 seconds long. I found that there were limited options with text, with font point size missing altogether. (Most would agree that’s a pretty basic function, one would think.) You could change the relative size of text by enlarging or reducing the size of a text box or adjusting line spacing, but these were pretty awkward and unpredictable ways of doing so.) I wanted to italicize the title of the book from which I was quoting, but couldn’t find a simple way of doing that either—even though the font I used had a designed italic, I found I could not mix the two in the same sentence, after repeated tries of selecting and trying to format individual words.

That said, the font selection was very good and quite tasteful, making any post created in Spark deliciously gorgeous and a cut above any typical meme-maker. As I mentioned in my post, I found the placement of the Adobe Spark logo at the bottom intrusive and lacking in subtlety or nuance. This needs to be addressed—I am not using the software primarily to create ads for Adobe. Still, because it can produce such beautiful results, I’m giving Spark four stars out of five.

by NHArtShop

Apri 2022: Thank you for the reply. Yes, the new version with more quality stock photos is much better. Previously, if you held down on the photo it would appear larger to see more detail. This would be an excellent to add that feature back in. And, please, please add a drop shadow to the remove background. I use AdobeExpress all the time and it’s great I can pick right up on my last edits on my computer.

Dec 2021: Removing the free stock uses right before the holidays is a mean grinch thing to do! Ugh!!! Post was my go to app for quick social marketing, and what am I getting for the price now? Very frustrating and disappointed. Edit: Still hoping Adobe will add drop shadow to the Remove Background option to make this a Five Star rating. Each upgrade keeps getting better and better. I find I use Spark often for quick editing on my phone. The remove background works really well, except sometimes for objects with any white near corners it grabs too much of the object. Otherwise, it works great on other colors. The ability to add or to keep in the shadows with the remove background option would make AdobeExpress nearly perfect!!

by AshhKatt

I absolutely love AdobeExpress! I use it constantly for my Etsy and Facebook pages and could use it even more if I had the time. Because it’s so easy, I change my pages and banners frequently - following seasons or announcing sales, or just so much fun, etc. I use the free templates as backgrounds and never fail to find something for the occasion.

There are only two things that would make AdobeExpress perfect for my needs: 1). The 5% opacity often leaves a text box shadow when using a font effect such as outlining or shadow - 0% would solve this problem. 2) Resizing using social media templates and background templates crops the image but will not reduce it to fit. I’ve even tried other apps to do this but it’s a nuisance. So much better if a image resizing capability could be included in Spark Post.

With the addition of these two capabilities I would rate AdobeExpress with 5 stars - and 10 if it were possible! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟x2

by RP3n

Whether it’s a witty meme, an image to send to friends and family, laughter, or a tool that allows you to create professionally created images for your business, AdobeExpress is almost perfect.

I would even go as far as saying Adobe apps are a game changer. I can produce high quality images on my telephone. As an artist, I can create images for my business to promote my work online or small print.

AdobeExpress helps you create stunning, modern, and eye catching material.

The downfall of this particular app is the logo imprinted on images, unless you pay $9.99 per month for a premium version. Granted, Adobe access to a tremendous amount of technology through their apps, free of charge. That’s what makes this particular fee seem like it’s trying to nickel and dime customers.

You can make your image a little larger, and then crop their logo, or you can use another app to place your logo over AdobeExpress logo in the final image. It’s an extra step, but easy enough to do, so I don’t see a reason to pay for a premium version.

One of my favorite features is that AdobeExpress allows you to size images for specific social media platforms. The exact image may vary from one platform to the next, but I maintain the same theme and branding.

This is really a game changer. I remember starting as an artist, and technology was so different. Advertising seemed out of reach at times. Now, it’s like I’m my own advertising department.

by Riocchi

Typically I’m too proud to do anything the easy way. I sometimes feel that if I didn’t build something completely from scratch, I didn’t build anything at all. But Spark Post helps me to work smarter, not harder—to feel that using intelligent design tools doesn’t make me less creative, but instead helps me to clarify and realize my vision faster. It helps me to focus my energy on making better content instead of on unnecessarily fussing over the presentation of a simple social media post that will disappear in 24 hours and that is meant to communicate a message rather than be my magnum opus.

The only thing about Spark Post that disappoints me is that, in its attempt to make things easy and auto-intelligent, there are certain key features missing for those of us who like more control. For example, paragraph styles and spacing don’t exist—you need to create a new text box. Resizing text boxes forces the text, the shape, and the border to resize together rather than allowing you to alter each style independently. This makes matching text boxes difficult. To make more precise edits, I could take my graphic into Illustrator—but the point of Spark Post is one-stop editing for quick and easy social media posts. It would be nice to be able to get under the hood of your design with more advanced options.

by Simplyjess49

When i first downloaded Spark it was awesome. It still is. I love what it has to offers, especially for free. However it has been crashing SO much, 9/10 times deleting my projects I’m working on which inquire a lot of work. I run an online business and use spark to make my promotions. Today, i tried going on; crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash - it will not open!! Very frustrating!

Update: since AdobeExpress has had a few updates since, it’s running hella better AND they have added new features which has me OBSESSED!! App is easy to use, easy to navigate and stores every project you do which is SO convenient since i use it for business and personal use

by Aprilmaeward

Spark post is a great tool to have to create great simple social media posts that truly stand out from the rest. No matter what you’re using it for it’s great for sharing memories marking a special occasion but is a powerful tool especially for those who use social media to promote their business, website , cause or purpose. Easy to use and allows you to use stock templates and a huge selection of unique imagery or also upload your own images or content. Allows you to size your images with pre- sized templates for every platform you may need. I use it for many different things. The application is forever adding new useful pictures and the ability to make fully customized designs can take a bit to learn but trust me it’s worth your time.

by Alim Kinte

As a creator, I've explored many apps that can help make the process easier, and Phonto has been my right hand man in that process. I didn't see anything new or particularly special about Abode CC Express, but I was working on a album cover and I discovered this tool called "Style" and essentially what it is is a rolodex of various computational outputs of style that your words can take. It mixes in font, color, and other details like letter and word placement. And all you have to do is just turn the wheel and the font changes right before your eyes, I mean I've never seen something so fluid and brilliant. Did Kanye help design it? No I'm kidding, kudos to the mind that saw that as a good thing to add because it's reaal good.

by Jennross76

Yes, I like AdobeExpress enough to take my personal time and scratch out a review! It’s worth it. Most things “Adobe” are. (Except that awful camera app) 🤷‍♀️ This one is super easy to use and learn as you go. No need for tutorials and classes to get going on your project. It’s like a super power packed mini version of their overwhelming and difficult to navigate regular apps. It has enough features to create amazing stuff, without being totally confusing and off putting. I just jumped right in and spent time having fun with my creativity.. the flyer I made came out unbelievably perfect. It didn’t take forever since the commands to get each little detail and elements of all types into a look your happy with, seem to be very obvious and extremely difficult to mess up. Plus there is the well love “back button” for any mistakes that are made. It’s really a fun and useful app! I’ve made slides for a presentation, created a flyer, insta posts, Face Book posts- it has all the preset sized canvases for each platform, so no guessing or research necessary. Alright, enough of this- they should pay me!!! Lol. Get it! It’s a dream.😁

by Dj Jon Bates

As a 30-year creative director, head of user & consumer experience (UX+CX), digital strategy executive and visual communicator, I learned three things early on:
1) Great art comes from great artists, not tools.
2) But if you’re a pro, you know and work with Adobe tools.
3) This isn’t artwork. It’s a professional’s work. Use Adobe.

This mantra has loosened a bit over the years, and Adobe has disappointed us in some recent product decisions that left us with unstable, bloated, laggy and crash-prone versions of the tools our business runs on:

Photoshop. Illustrator. Lightroom. Bridge. Acrobat Pro. All have added resource-hungry bloats (3D in PSD) that diminish the power of stalwarts like Photoshop by making them sluggish, unpredictable and burdened with new features that keep the software from providing the core value and stability we can’t operate without.

****
With this is mind, I’ve used Adobe Spark’s apps since the early betas. The triumvirate of apps under Spark has finally settled after a bit of confusion over each app’s purpose and relation to the others, and the initial technical problems with app crashes seems to be resolved.

by ThebestnicknameEVR

I’d started having trouble with AdobeExpress after a few weeks of using it without issue, I felt blown off when I contacted help, I continued trying to use AdobeExpress but complained about the issue here. A few days later seen I was asked to contact support again but I figure letting them know about the issue is enough - so I wait it out. It’s now been over a week and I haven’t had anymore issues. I’m back to loving AdobeExpress but worried it’ll change after I update my review. Not necessarily based on a lack of trust in Adobe but businesses in general. I’ve always been a fan of Adobe and been a creative cloud subscriber for years and happy about it for 99.9% of the time. Which is why I was so flustered by the issue with AdobeExpress but it seems to be fixed now so- yay! 👍🏼👍🏼

by Yrrej0819

Spark Post is a great content creation tool. The learning curve isn’t daunting which is greatly appreciated. However, there are plenty of advanced tools like: animations, alternate font styles, etc. This application should accommodate most use cases, and the software has most if not all of the typical integrations you would expect which allows for easy content sharing on different platforms. I personally love the resizing presets for different social media sites. Most importantly this part of Adobe’s family of applications which ensures great user experience/interface, constant updates, and the introduction of new features over time. If you are a user who needs to brand your content there is an in app purchase that will allow you to do that as well. Can’t say enough good things about AdobeExpress . Keep up the great work Spark Post team, I always look forward to the new features you introduce!

by Heleva

I create a lot of visual content for many Non-Profits I volunteer for who have honest Grass roots budgets. Adobe Spark Post and Video have been the tools I use to capture and create In-the-Moment visual digital content of events and programs for these organizations. I have loaded brand colors and logos and have even managed to create quick concept art for further development in my other Creative Cloud tools at board meetings.
AdobeExpress has helped me keep my prolific productivity on schedule and on point.
I have other products but they just do not fit into my creative workflow as seamlessly as Adobe Spark Post and my Creative Cloud suite.
From print graphics like programs, books, flyers, and posters; camera ready art, to dynamic content for video and social media I am getting my money’s worth with Adobe Spark Post.

by Mimistär2425

I am doing a project for my reading class and i use the microphone as i do my project. Every time i use the microphone it’s always so laggy and slow and it always freezes up every time i try to talk or speak. I tried it on multiple devices but it still doesn’t work. The other problem is that when I use a picture for one of my slides it always glitches onto the slide that comes before the current slide. It would once in a while repeat and sometimes do it on different devices. I have restarted, refresh, and logged out of my account to try again but it does the same thing! And everytime when i use the microphone it always merges my 2 recordings to another slide. Sometimes delete them and make me start over. I hope that you will fix this problem and that it would not cause major problems for others.

by Sonic3483

Kind of like AdobeExpress that I wish I could use it on my window pc too. It is simply designed and very fast in organizing simple posts.

One thing I want to point out is that after keep using AdobeExpress the ‘documents and data’ keeps getting higher even though I deleted every former projects that I’ve made, and I know this issue is not that new to almost every iphone apps. However, I hope I can control over that ‘documents and data’ files or at least delete it right on AdobeExpress. It is an app carrying precious projects and I don’t want to delete AdobeExpress and reinstall continuously due to the memory issue. I want every adobe apps to deal with this problem.

by Long Time Adobe User

I have a full subscription to Adobe CC and use AdobeExpress on my desktop and iPad. So I get the premium features to add my logo to a post, which is nice. But once in a while I try to use AdobeExpress on my iPad and it tells me I have to subscribe to get the premium features. I ALREADY pay the full monthly subscription price for the entire CC suite of applications. I don’t need to subscribe to Spark again. There’s no place to fix this. I tried quitting and opening up AdobeExpress , but still get same problem. Getting very annoyed! I opened a previously created post that had a logo on it and when I went to open it up to edit it, the logo disappeared and AdobeExpress tells me I have to subscribe. 😠

by Universal Article

Been using this for 3+ yrs now and it’s my go to for everything from a social post, invite, product ad and even a portfolio in little time. After a mishap with my actual work, I designed and presented my entire portfolio on Spark thru an iPad the night before. Blew them away, got job too! When combined with other apps such Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Rush, PixelLoop, and others, the results are endless.

Features I would love to see in the future is more motion options for type and ways it could interact with the background? More editing options for images would be huge too?

Overall, I love Spark Post, Page, and Video! Really great tool to get things done quickly. Recommended!

by MT Tombs

I’m not a big review writer but in this case, I’ll make an exception because I hope adobe might read these..
This is a wonderful app for creating a quick meme or laying out graphics for any type of formal announcement you could imagine. It has implemented some great features but also, inexplicably, took a few away. I feel like AdobeExpress used to have a kerning feature so we could adjust the width and spacing between letters in words, this would seem an obvious option for an app dealing with TEXT. It would also be nice to wrap text round circles or shapes. Just add a few more features and AdobeExpress is perfect, Adobe - until then 3-Stars.

by MonkWise

There is no history for editing videos. I started a video edit on phone and wanted to add logo. (you can’t add logo from phone, dumb) I added logo on desktop. In the process of this it automatically added a bunch of slides, like from power point, between my video clips. It also didn’t bring over all of the clips. When I went back to phone some of the video clips were missing. I waisted 30 min. editing a video how I wanted to have it dismantled because it forced me to work in 2 environments and it’s not stable enough program to do that. - yes I waited, yes I exited out. I read all advice. It’s just not working as advertised.

by HEIDI-123*

I prefer to design from my phone because it’s so simple and flexible with my busy lifestyle. I can design in a parking lot, while grocery shopping, waiting on food in a restaurant, at my kid’s sporting event, or waiting for my car to get serviced. I can make a change anywhere I am to a graphic or quickly whip up a new concept or design.

Adobe offers so many beautiful templates that it’s easy to be creative and look professional for any setting. I really really appreciate how they have taken creativity and design to the masses through this friendly, inspiring, and easy to use app. Thank you for your iPhone app Adobe and nothing compares 2u!! ❤️

by Hanky S

This is literally one of the best apps I’ve ever downloaded on my iPad due to the ability that create beyond what you thought was possible. I’ve created numerous successful advertising campaigns with much ease. But....

Over the past month or 2, Spark has the propensity to crash while performing simple tasks (adding photos is the most common). It’s to the point that I account for the fact that it WILL crash and try to prepare my resources accordingly ahead of time.

I really see this as a staple along with Fix and Mix, but in a short period of time I may have to delete it altogether.

by Spinmaster85

Giving this one star since AdobeExpress is no longer working on iPhone X after latest update 2 days ago.
It’s working now. Not sure what was happening or why but it’s back to its awesome self again! Hence I have revised my rating.
Thank you for responding to my concern.
FYI - the issues specifically was that when I would attempt to open up AdobeExpress it would start to and the screen was just black. It wasn’t the entire phone. Just AdobeExpress itself. I tried it several time’s and it did the same thing, even after a reboot.
Several hours later it started to work again without me taking any other type of action (i.e. reinstalling AdobeExpress ).