Professional designers, retouchers and photographers working with Adobe products face the necessity to create online portfolios and often hesitate which program to choose when comparing Adobe Spark vs Portfolio.
Adobe Spark is a set of three programs: Post, Video and Page. To create a portfolio, you may use the latter one, and in approximately 15 minutes you will have impressive portfolio web pages at your disposal. You can insert short videos in your portfolio and enhance it using different in-built, customizable tools that include logos, themes, templates, texts, design filters, animations, icons, voices, etc.
Adobe Portfolio is good if you need a website with your projects but don’t have much time to work on it. It allows you to quickly create a web-site portfolio to demonstrate your creative works and photographs. It comes with elegant themes optimized for shooters, graphic designers and even illustrators.
What Is Adobe Spark?
Adobe Spark is a program that helps create “visual stories” on any gadget and for any gadget. It’s simple enough to be used even by complete beginners.Spark Post is used to create images optimized for social networks. You provide the text and images while the program will take care of the design.
Spark Video is a simple video editor that allows overlaying text, adding your voice and background music.
Spark Page is a program that connects two previous ones and allows creating long reads and simple web pages with your photographs and videos. If necessary, you may add videos, for example, the shooting backstage or time-lapse of your work with the editor.
Adobe Spark: Strengths and Weaknesses
Downloading of images directly from the Creative Cloud Libraries. Using the CC Libraries, you will not only get your favorite illustrations but also save much time. Moreover, it is very easy to place photographs or illustrations in your Libraries directly into your web pages.
Templates to create posts for social networks. Download Adobe Spark and you will get numerous options to create thumb-stopping social media content and projects for Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Fully customizable templates. Choosing a template you like most, you can alter the wording, select different fonts, alter the line and character spacing, and use resize and rotate features.
You may also change the order of items using a slider. In such a way, you can place objects in front of others. Moreover, there is an Opacity slider so you can make some objects transparent. Among other useful functions, you will find the possibility to add shapes behind text boxes making them more distinguished.
Color palette with useful options. This tool allows you to select two colors complementing each other or a group of individual selections that would look nice together.
However, it doesn’t mean that you should necessarily use the color selected by Spark. You may customize all colors as you like but I have to admit that it is very convenient when the service suggests you some color options; it helps get the best results in the shortest time possible.
Many tools to create a web page. The page you work with is divided into sections, and you can add photos, text boxes, create a photo grid or a slideshow, even add a video or make a section with a split layout.
Convenient video editor. The program provides trimming tools to choose the section you need and you may choose from four different types of slides. One type offers your clip the full screen, another splits the screen between the video on the left and the text on the right, another one allows you to place an animated caption over the screen, and the last option enables you to add a static title with an animated subtitle.
Like in Webpages, you have rather limited possibilities here. You can’t select the font and access to the full-color palette is not available. You have only five choices available, depending on the chosen theme.
The style wheel is a little disappointing. This tool allows spinning through a large number of various styles for the text box. By turning the wheel, you make Spark offer you new options that enable you to change the font, color, shape, etc.
It seems like fun to turn the wheel all the time and see what the program offers but mind that you can’t turn it back to reverse the selection. You will just get more random options, and that’s it. Fortunately, Spark has an undo function accessible via a computer’s usual keyboard shortcut. However, it would be more convenient if the program could tag styles you like or you could go back to the original selection.
The watermark in the free version. In case you decided to download Adobe Spark for free, be ready to have the Adobe branding on all your projects. If it is a problem for you, you may get a paid subscription or choose among the Adobe Spark alternatives available.
What Is Adobe Portfolio?
Adobe Portfolio is a great platform to establish a professional public face online that is suitable both for amateurish and experienced shooters. Since professional galleries are the best way to show your creative skills to a wide audience, Adobe Portfolio is a decent program to manage your content and use cool design features, create eye-catching galleries, etc.Adobe Portfolio: Strengths and Weaknesses
Possibility to instantly see image edits in Lightroom. Image editing is a long process, and sometimes you have to re-edit projects again and again. As a rule, in most website galleries, you have to remove an old edit if you want to create a new one. However, Adobe Portfolio is not like the rest.
All the edits you apply synchronize to your Adobe Portfolio and may be updated on your website in a matter of seconds.
Images are automatically resized. Although RAW files are synchronized to the Adobe Cloud, image resolution is automatically reduced for optimal loading and viewing. In such a way, you don’t have to research for optimal DPI, web color space and pixel widths to export images to the web.
An unlimited number of collections. If you work in Adobe Portfolio, collections function as a page on your site. You may create as many pages as you like, as this number is not limited. Therefore, you get really flexible possibilities to implement your creative ideas; for instance, you may create some specific collections, like for an individual wedding or a species of animal, and have personalized galleries for each one.
12 different themes available. All Adobe Portfolio templates are compatible with mobile devices and feature adoptive galleries and styles. In other words, your portfolio will successfully run on any mobile gadget. It offers a fine design. However, you will not get as much space for on-page customization as you might expect. Moreover, you can customize only gallery types and text blocks.
You may choose a full-width style, create several catchy galleries and Lightroom albums simultaneously. Thanks to seamless import options and social media integration, you will easily upload your collections and share them with other users.
Impossible to sell images. If you are looking for a platform to sell your pictures, Adobe Portfolio is not a perfect solution. Technically, you can hyperlink your image to a sales page but you are likely to lose the shopper as a result. That is why it’s recommended to find a service that specializes in selling projects.
Non-customizable templates. With Adobe Portfolio you don’t have access to CSS or other mechanisms to customize them. Of course, you can change the color of the theme but you are extremely limited in this choice.
Adobe Spark vs Portfolio: Prices
Although there are a few restrictions on access and preferences, users may download Adobe Spark for free. Speaking about Portfolio, the program has a free trial version without noticeable restrictions that is active only for a week. Premium versions of both programs can be purchased in the form of a monthly or annual subscription.
- Adobe Spark Individual Plan – $9.99/month – includes Adobe Spark for web and mobile, Adobe Fonts.
Adobe Portfolio is integrated with Adobe Creative Cloud. In other words, if you are a CC subscriber, you may use the platform for free. In case you still don’t have an Adobe subscription, you may buy any Adobe Photographer package you like. Check out available Creative Cloud Photographer plans below:
- Adobe Portfolio Starting Plans - $9.99/month - Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC and 20GB of storage.
- Adobe Portfolio Advanced Plan - $19.99/month - Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC and 1TB of storage.
Adobe Spark vs Portfolio – Who Wins?
Adobe Spark is a great tool to create landing and branding pages. Moreover, you may use it to make promotional images, like flyers or other printed products that can be used for marketing purposes such as a business launch, sales, awareness campaigns, etc.
As for Adobe Portfolio, it is a powerful tool that will help you create a complete website and host it on the Adobe servers. What makes it look more beneficial in the Adobe Spark vs Portfolio competition is that it allows creating multi-page sites.
When you use Adobe Portfolio, you feel like you use an online website builder from a certain hosting provider. It is very convenient since the platform is open when it comes to uploading your content. If your Portfolio website is your main site, you may link it to your own domain (instructions are provided).
