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Adobe Illustrator Vs. Procreate (Pros, Cons, Features, Pricing) 2024

Adobe Illustrator Vs. Procreate (Pros, Cons, Features, Pricing) 2024

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With so many digital drawing apps available in the market, it seems difficult to choose the right one for use. Adobe Illustrator and Procreate are the two most famous design websites and have unique features for ease of usability.

In order to help you decide which software you should choose, we bring you Adobe Illustrator Vs. Procreate, we’ll be comparing these two apps in this article.

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Adobe Illustrator is a digital art and graphics program used for creating illustrations, drawings, and artwork. On the other side, Procreate is a design platform that focuses on real-life drawings and hand drawings. For this purpose, a stylus is used. Both programs are different, and they solve different purposes.

However, deciding which software is right for your use can be tough. So, let’s now compare these two design platforms and see which one you need the most or if you need both.

 

What Is Adobe Illustrator?

Adobe illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a digital design and art creation application that is mainly used for vector designs. Unlike Procreate, this platform requires minimal hand drawing and helps customize various designs, posters, logos, etc. It is a professional program and is popularly used in different industries.


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This design software enables you to create your own designs using different colors, shapes, typefaces, and effects. You can create customized effects, add new colors to your artwork, convert sketches or raster images to vectors, modify curves and lines, and perform many other activities using Adobe Illustrator.

It is a powerful and user-friendly design tool and is very helpful for creating new things. This application supports drawing tables allowing you to create illustrations according to your needs. Because of this reason, Adobe Illustrator is popular in web design, fashion, advertising, and print media industries.

 

What Is Procreate?

Procreate

Procreate is a popular design software that is used on iOS devices. This application is the right choice for creating natural designs digitally using your creativity. Basically, it is a painting software and includes various painting tools to let you create different artworks, textures, sketches, etc.

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Procreate is particularly focused on creating hand-drawn designs on iPad using a stylus or Apple Pencil. This design software makes your iPad an outstanding design tool and enables you to make different designs depending on your needs. It has a huge collection of Procreate brushes and a simple user interface so that you can make unique designs.

It is very easy to understand this application, so beginners can also use it with no hassle. But Procreate is not an industry-standard application like Adobe Illustrator. Also, it works on iPad and iPhones.

 

Adobe Illustrator VS Procreate: User Interface

Adobe Illustrator User Interface

Adobe illustrator user interface
Image credit: Graphic Society/YouTube

Adobe Illustrator has a user-friendly interface consisting of many tools and menus for an efficient design experience. Moreover, the application has various windows that can be accessed through the workspace. With many unique features, Adobe Illustrator lets you create various designs as per your needs.

Procreate User Interface

Procreate user interface
Image credit: luma_llama/YouTube

The user interface of Procreate is very simple and allows you to create your design works efficiently. You can focus on your designs when using the Procreate app. Also, the multi-touch gestures allow you to use this software with no hassle. Overall, Procreate is an easy application to use.

 

Illustrator VS Procreate: User Interface

Adobe Illustrator Features

Adobe illustrator features

Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based program that can be linked with other assets. You can combine this application with photoshop to create animations. However, it can’t create animations on its own. When creating designs, it makes layers for every object and allows you to arrange them in groups.

The curve tool and pen tool let you create lines and curves with ease. Apart from that, this software also lets you adjust everything according to your requirements. The snap and grid feature allows you to adjust the alignment of the object automatically. Another unique thing about Adobe Illustrator is that it can be connected to Adobe Typekit so that you can use more than 1000 fonts in your designs.

It has several custom tools to let you design logos, graphics, and different vector arts. You can connect it to Adobe portfolio to upload your new designs to your website automatically. Adobe Illustrator has brushes to enable you to modify your designs with ease. This way, Adobe Illustrator is an excellent tool for creating everything related to vectors.

Procreate Features

procreate features

Unlike Adobe Illustrator, Procreate is raster-based, and it houses many tools and brushes to let you create digital paintings. Specifically, there are 190 brushes, and you can also add photoshop brushes to the platform. However, it doesn’t support vector arts and converts them to pixels.

The Animation Assist feature allows you to create frame-by-frame animation on this platform. The loops and frames per second of the animations can be adjusted. Also, you can share the animation video as MP4, GIF, or PNG. You can share your creations with the community to get feedback by connecting to the Procreate folio.

Procreate allows you to edit the thickness, opacity, toggle, and grid size through the assisted drawing feature. You can add text to your designs and customize them as required. Overall, all features of Procreate are useful and help you create creative digital paintings.

 

Illustrator VS Procreate: Costs & Pricing

Adobe Illustrator Pricing

Adobe illustrator pricing

Adobe Illustrator costs $20.99 per month, which can be accessed on iPad and desktops. With this plan, you will also get 100GB of cloud storage. You can also get Adobe Illustrator by purchasing the complete plan of Adobe Creative Cloud, which includes all Adobe apps and costs $52.99 per month.

Under this plan, you will get access to more than 20 creative cloud apps, including Illustrator. It also includes 100GB of cloud storage. For teachers and students, this plan costs $19.99 per month. Adobe Illustrator costs around $250 a year, which is too expensive.

Procreate Pricing

procreate pricing

Procreate has a one-time cost of $9.99 at the app store. Further, all future updates of the app are free. Therefore, it is a simple and easy-to-use application with no monthly subscriptions. Procreate is a great choice if you need a digital design app at an affordable rate.

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Illustrator VS Procreate for Logo Design 

Adobe Illustrator Logo Design

adobe illustrator logo design

Adobe Illustrator is an excellent application for designing logos and other vector-based arts. It has many tools to help you design your logo in the desired way. This application allows you to combine different shapes using the shape builder tool and create a design according to your needs.

Being an industry-standard tool for logo design, Adobe Illustrator allows you to create unique design logos. So, Adobe Illustrator is the perfect tool for making different kinds of logos.

Procreate Logo Design

Procreate logo design
Image credit: Make It Mobile/YouTube

Unlike Adobe Illustrator, Procreate is a raster-based app and can be used for logo design. For this purpose, first, you need to create logos in Procreate, which are raster images. Then you have to convert these images using different vector-based programs. So, it is time-consuming to create logos in Procreate.

 

Illustrator VS Procreate: System Compatibility

System Compatibility

Adobe Illustrator Compatibility

Adobe Illustrator is compatible with Mac, Windows, iPad, and desktops. In October 2020, the iPad version of Adobe Illustrator was released, but it has some limitations compared to the desktop version. So, the iPad version of the Illustrator for your designing works is not great.

Also, you can use this app with other Adobe applications such as Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Adobe Fresco. Adobe Fresco is an excellent alternative for Illustrator for iPhone. Adobe Illustrator can be used on different types of devices irrespective of the type of operating system.

Procreate Compatibility

Procreate is available for iPad and works with Apple Pencil. This means that this application can be used only on iPad, and you can also use it with Apple Pencil for a better experience. This is a down point of Procreate because Windows users can’t use this app.

For iPhone users, there is a separate version known as Procreate Pocket. But it has no desktop versions.

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Illustrator VS Procreate for Illustrations

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe illustrator illustration
Image credit: ARVSHRT/YouTube

Creating drawings or designs in Adobe Illustrator gives a unique feeling. It lets you create designs using shapes and lines. The image trace feature of Adobe Illustrator converts your image to a vector drawing. You can create a sketch and convert that into a vector drawing in Adobe Illustrator.

It has a variety of brushes such as pattern, scatter, calligraphic, art, and bristle brushes. They are not like traditional brushes, but each of them is used for different purposes. For example, pattern brushes are used for creating repeating patterns, and art brushes are suitable for creating real-life or hand-drawn designs. But Calligraphic strokes are made by calligraphic pen.

For shading effects, scatter brushes are used, and the bristle brush functions as a natural bristle brush. Illustrator lets you blend between objects or use the mesh tool for the same. In both methods, gradients are used while the mesh tool creates real-life objects.

You can choose different colors using the color picker and hues using the color slider. Also, color palettes can be saved for use in specific designs. This way, you can use Adobe Illustrator by learning about it.

Procreate Illustration

Procreate illustration
Image credit: Brave the Woods/YouTube

Procreate is a simple app with plenty of brushes. Even it allows you to import custom brushes and photoshop brushes to increase the number of brushes. They are categorized into different mediums such as drawing, sketching, painting, artistic, inking, airbrushing, and calligraphy.

Apart from that, Procreate allows you to customize the brush according to the requirements. It lets you design the brushes precisely. Procreate allows you to blend using different effects or the smudge tool. This tool is powerful and an excellent option for mixing colors and blending harsh objects.

Its color feature is versatile and lets you switch between the traditional color wheel, palettes, and other options. Also, you can import colors or create a palette from a photo. There is a Harmony tool in the colors panel to allow you to find colors using different settings. This feature is outstanding for creating an outstanding look for your designs.

There are many options available in Procreate for design drawings. It has many customization options for brushes, colors, and blending activities allowing you to create digital drawings efficiently.

 

Illustrator VS Procreate Learning Curve

Adobe Illustrator

Because of the vector-based platform, Adobe Illustrator is tough to learn compared to Procreate. First of all, working with vectors is a difficult job. Further, Adobe follows a different technique than traditional drawing. So, it makes the platform difficult for new users to use.

The vector-based designs are usually made using mathematical and geographical commands, so it will take some time to learn the technique completely. However, it will be easier to use by learning the concepts of anchor points, fills, paths, Bezier curves, etc.

You can learn how to use the app using the tutorials available on the app online. Further, Adobe provides step-by-step instructions and video lessons, allowing you to learn how to use the platform. You need to learn from basics to advanced techniques to use Adobe Illustrator perfectly.

Procreate

Procreate mainly focuses on making the digital painting job easier for users. It is available only for iOS devices and can be used with Apple Pencil. The user interface is very simple and clean and provides an excellent user experience. Also, it hides all additional features from the view so that you can focus on your work.

There are plenty of resources available for learning about Procreate. The Procreate handbook is available online, which includes everything about Procreate. You can also ask questions on the community forum of Procreate to get answers from Procreate moderators and other Procreate users.

There are video tutorials and online guides where you can learn about different brushes, colors, and effects used in Procreate. Compared to Adobe Illustrator, it is easier to learn and use Procreate.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Procreate exclusive to iPads?

Yes, Procreate is a fantastic program for digital painting and drawing that is exclusive to the iPhone and iPad; it is not available for Android devices.

What is required to use Procreate?

An iPad, an Apple Pencil, and the Procreate app are the three major components needed to use the program.

What are Adobe Illustrator's greatest advantages?

With Adobe Illustrator, you can make a wide range of images, including logos, intricate illustrations, brochures, web page designs, and much more. Unlike Adobe InDesign, Illustrator is mainly for producing graphics and artwork and lacks the capability to manage documents with numerous pages.

 

Illustrator VS Procreate: Bottom Line

Both Adobe Illustrator and Procreate are the best in their own way. So which application you need depends on your needs. If you need to create vector designs or graphics that need to be resized, you should use Adobe Illustrator. It is a professional design app and is ideal for creating logos, illustrations, vector arts, etc. It is not really worth it to use a raster-based program to create your logos and convert them using a vector-based platform.

But if you want to make digital paint, you can choose the Procreate app. Whether you are a new user or a professional, this platform is very easy to use for everybody. Further, it costs only $9.99 one-time, which is very affordable and provides value for money. This app comes with many useful features that allow you to make various designs with ease.

However, you can consider using both applications if you need to make both vector-based and raster-based designs. Having access to both of these apps will enhance your creativity.


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