After Effects vs CorelDRAW: Which Software is Better?

People often compare After Effects vs CorelDRAW to select an intuitive software suitable for professionals and beginners. Read this detailed comparison to decide which of them is easier to master and choose the most suitable option for your budget and needs.

After Effects allows adding ready-made animations, video, and 3D content to your projects to get stunning visual solutions. Thanks to its simple and powerful tools, it’s perfectly suitable for beginners and experienced designers.

CorelDRAW is used for creating drawings, logos, illustrations, and vector graphics. It can be used even by those people who have never used graphic design software before. This software is suitable for creating high-quality designs.

After Effects is a professional software for producing animated graphics and visual effects. You can use it to create any type of design. After Effects is widely used for creating images, movies, animations, and all kinds of graphics. It’s also suitable for those who need to animate overlaps, work with keyframes, and use motion-tracking features.

With the help of this software, you can create animated movie credits, intros, and transitions, remove objects from clips as well as animate logos and characters. You can animate characters using raster images created in Photoshop. In this After Effects vs CorelDRAW comparison, I will tell you about the key differences between these programs.

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Easy to use. This software is perfectly suitable for beginners. There is no need to have any special skills to use this program. With the help of the Content-Aware Fill feature, you can remove unwanted objects from the frame, such as microphones or people from live concert recordings. Besides, you can quickly add visual effects to your animated characters.

Quick creation of all types of content. After Effects allows you to create high-quality visual effects and animated graphics. You can control animated objects, create effects for 2D animation and compositing, perform motion tracking, remove objects, use modeling and particle effects. The program also lets you create templates, perform color correction, and edit your photos.

Convenient tools for working with text. Using this software, you can animate credits and lower thirds. You can either use the available presets or create a design from scratch.

A wide choice of effects. With the help of this motion graphics software, you can apply a variety of free After Effects effects to your animations, add moving objects, and fully transform the atmosphere in the frame. Besides, it allows you to perform selective color adjustments and use a variety of presets and effects for speeding up your workflow.

Compatible with СС and other software. Thanks to the integration with Creative Cloud software, you can easily use the best After Effects tools in other programs. It’s compatible with other software that supports spatial interpolation, such as Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Pro X. Besides, it integrates with 3D animation software, such as 3Ds Max, Maya, and Cinema 4D.

For instance, you can create credits by importing a file created in Adobe Illustrator and editing it with the help of Cinema 4D Lite.

Easy and useful tutorials. Thanks to detailed comprehensive tutorials, you will easily learn how to create visual effects, add titles, and keyframes, blur unwanted elements and use chromakey effects with the help of 3D Camera Tracker. By following these tutorials, you will learn how to create 3D models, add light sources, or create camera fly-through animations with the help of the compositing tools available in After Effects.

Available only for users who pay for a subscription. You can’t pay for After Effects once and use it forever. Since it’s included in the Adobe CC package, you can use it by paying for a subscription. You just need to pay a fixed monthly fee.

High hardware requirements. Since After Effects comes with a variety of tools and features, this software is very resource-consuming. You might need to wait until your edits are applied.

CorelDRAW is a professional graphic design software that comes with powerful editing tools. You can use it to adjust colors and tones, remove defects, correct the perspective and perform various adjustments with the help of advanced layer-based editing tools.

This software has AI-based options for creating stunning photos with an extended dynamic range. It supports RAW files. After comparing CorelDRAW vs Adobe Illustrator, you will see that the latter is more suitable for professionals, while the former was created for beginners.

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Intuitive interface. If you compare CorelDRAW vs Photoshop, you will notice that the former is mostly used for creating graphics. Besides, it doubles as a logo maker. What makes it a bit similar to Photoshop is that it has AI-based tools and supports a variety of file formats.

Advanced tools. CorelDRAW comes with powerful vector illustration tools that allow you to use simple lines and shapes to create complex objects. You can create curves with the help of many universal drawing tools. It lets you add creative effects to your vector images using such tools as Contour, Envelope, Blend, Mesh Fill, and more.

Non-destructive editing. You can easily apply and adjust various effects without changing a source object. The program allows you to enhance your images by adding several effects or changing their order in a few clicks. If you decide to fix something or undo your edits, you can easily restore your source image.

In-built font library. It enables you to organize and manage your font library using Corel Font Manager. In CorelDRAW, you can filter fonts by various criteria. For instance, you can select only italic fonts, find fonts for a specific language or style, adjust thickness, etc. Thanks to the in-built smart features, you can quickly hide duplicates, turn on and off selected fonts.

Convenient typography tools. You can use it as a typography app. It allows you to make your text more visually appealing using a full set of typography tools. You can add shadows and various effects to your text, use contour tools, adjust fonts, etc.

Cooperation tools. If you don’t know what software to choose, After Effects or CorelDRAW, keep in mind that the latter allows you to speed up your workflow by using cloud features for collaboration with your colleagues and clients. Thanks to them, you can work on your projects with your team in real time. Your colleagues can leave their comments and annotations. Besides, CorelDRAW supports reviewing features.

Slow when processing large files. The speed depends on your PC and the size of your files. You need to have a powerful computer to work with CorelDRAW, otherwise, it might take you a lot of time to edit your images.

Doesn’t integrate with other software. After Effects is compatible with other Adobe software, which is why you can quickly import a file from one program to another. CorelDRAW doesn’t allow you to do it, since it’s not Adobe software. It makes it less convenient to use since you need to create the same design several times.

To use After Effects, you need to pay for one of 2 plans:

Adobe After Effects - $20.99/month. This plan includes professional approval tools, shared-access options, and 100GB of storage. It’s suitable for those who want to work on 5 projects at a time. You can use this license for two users.

Creative Cloud After Effects - $54.99/month. It includes all the features covered by the After Effects plan. Besides, you will get access to more than 20 Adobe products, 160+ million free images from the Adobe Stock collection, over 20,000 licensed Adobe Fonts, and 100GB of storage.

In addition, you may use a 7-day free trial.

CorelDRAW includes 2 plans:

CorelDRAW One-Time Purchase - $1,030.00. This license covers creative templates, advanced local adjustment tools, shared access options, etc.

CorelDRAW Annual Subscription - $439.00/annually. Besides CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, you will be able to use all the recently released features and updates of other software.

You can use a 15-day free trial.

If you compare After Effects vs CorelDRAW, you will see that both programs are suitable for beginners and have extensive sets of useful features for creating designs. However, the former has more tools for creating illustrations and animations.

After Effects allows you to create impressive infographics and optimize your workflow using special plugins. You can also use it to create advanced 3D animations. It comes with a set of powerful tools. The program is compatible with CC software, which allows you to save time thanks to the synchronization between different programs.

CorelDRAW is perfectly suitable for creating designs for printed materials, illustrations, and logos. You can use it to work on your projects together with your colleagues thanks to its shared access tools. However, this software might occasionally freeze or slow down if you don’t have a powerful PC.

To speed up your workflow, make sure to download and use these advanced cinematic LUTs. They will help you edit your footage more effectively. With them, you can perform one-click color correction. These LUTs are also suitable for making your footage more detailed and removing an overexposure effect.