Overview

Adobe Photoshop

Stacks2.3K

Followers1.5K

Votes56

Zeplin

Stacks1.0K

Followers633

Votes22

Adobe Photoshop vs Zeplin: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Adobe Photoshop and Zeplin

Purpose and Functionality: Adobe Photoshop is primarily a graphic design software used for creating and editing images, while Zeplin is a collaboration tool designed for developers and designers to work together on user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) projects efficiently. Photoshop offers a wide range of design tools, filters, and editing functions, while Zeplin focuses on streamlining the design to development workflow by providing specs, assets, and code snippets.
Exporting and Sharing: In Adobe Photoshop, the design files are saved in various formats such as PSD, JPEG, PNG, etc., making it easier to share and export designs. Zeplin, on the other hand, allows users to upload design files from software like Sketch, Adobe XD, or Figma, and then seamlessly shares design assets with developers through a web-based platform. Zeplin generates style guides and assets automatically, reducing the manual effort required for exporting and sharing designs.
Collaboration and Feedback: Adobe Photoshop lacks built-in collaboration features, requiring designers to rely on external tools or platforms to share and gather feedback on designs. In contrast, Zeplin offers real-time collaboration functionalities, enabling designers and developers to work on the same project simultaneously, leave comments, and make design changes collaboratively. This enhances communication and speeds up the design iteration process.
Code Generation and Integration: Zeplin provides an integrated platform for designers to generate CSS, Swift, Android, or React Native code snippets directly from design components, facilitating a smoother transition from design to development. Adobe Photoshop, while offering extensive design capabilities, lacks automated code generation features, requiring manual handoff of design specs and assets to developers, which can lead to discrepancies in the final product.
Prototyping and Interactive Design: Adobe Photoshop allows for creating interactive prototypes and animations through its features like Artboards and timeline animations. On the other hand, Zeplin focuses more on static design and collaboration aspects, lacking advanced prototyping capabilities. Designers using Photoshop can create clickable prototypes and preview user interactions, providing a more dynamic representation of the design compared to Zeplin.
Cost and Licensing: Adobe Photoshop is a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, which involves a subscription-based model with varying pricing plans based on usage and features needed. Conversely, Zeplin offers both free and paid plans, with the free plan catering to individual designers and small teams, while the paid plans offer additional features and support for larger design and development teams. The cost factor and licensing model of both tools can significantly impact the choice of software based on the budget and requirements of the users.

In Summary, Adobe Photoshop and Zeplin serve different purposes in the design and development workflow, with Photoshop being a comprehensive graphic design tool, and Zeplin specializing in collaboration and design-to-development handoff features.

Advice on Adobe Photoshop, Zeplin

Marte

Digital Designer

Feb 11, 2021

Needs adviceon

Zeplin

Avocode

Hey,

We are a diverse group of in-house UX/UI-designers who currently work in different software; XD/Sketch/InVision and so on. We need an efficient way to manage our workflow to build, share, and maintain a consistent yet dynamic design library and a smooth, less time-consuming developer hand-off. There are lots of things to consider, and where we're at the moment, it's "design in your preferred program, but joint library and handoffs should happen through Zeplin or Avocode." Which one of these two should we go for? Any other solutions?

Thanks!

182k views182k

Comments

Bobby

Feb 14, 2020

Needs advice

Hello, I want to start an unlimited graphic design service. (yes, yet another one, but bear with me)

It’s the second week that I’m working on this project, my goal is to test the market as soon as possible.

One element that is missing is the solution to handle communication between the clients and the designers.

• Mandatory: it needs to communicate instructions, progress/status, and design files (exported from Adobe Illustrator or similar). • Optionally it would also display the design inside the app so the files don’t need to be opened. • Optionally it would let the client easily mark the design where he wants revision.

• Mandatory: it needs to have unlimited clients and unlimited projects (I’ll have hundreds of clients and each will have at least one project) • Optionally it would auto-assign a new project to the first available designer, or let the designers choose themselves which project they want to work on • Optionally it would have groups (corresponding to a subscription plan) with different clients and different designers in each • Optionally it would communicate with other apps so that client and designer management tasks (access, payment, etc) can be automated

I’m open to all suggestions, not just the selection above. Ultimately I guess I’ll have a custom app developed on a no-code platform, but to begin with I need something simple and ready.

Reminder: it is only for graphic design, between my designers and my clients

169k views169k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Adobe Photoshop	Zeplin
It is the best in the world of graphic design and image processing software that will realize any of your ideas. Create and enhance photos, illustrations and 3D graphic objects.	Collaboration app for designers & developers. Supports Sketch and Photoshop (on beta!).
Stroke Smoothing; Brushes from Kyle T. Webster; Better Brush Organization; Color and Luminance Range Masking; Access Lightroom Photos; Quickly Share Creations; Quick Share Menu; Variable Fonts.	Connected Components; Bring development context to designs
Statistics
Stacks 2.3K	Stacks 1.0K
Followers 1.5K	Followers 633
Votes 56	Votes 22
Pros & Cons
Pros 14 Powerful 14 Photo editing 11 Layers 7 You can use it for anything related to graphics 4 Magic wand Cons 4 Heavyweight 3 Memory hungry 2 Steep learning curve	Pros 7 Avoid the insanity of extract this info from Photoshop 7 Free 2 CSS 2 HTML 2 Works with lots of devices Cons 8 SVG
Integrations
No integrations available	Sketch Slack

What are some alternatives to Adobe Photoshop, Zeplin?

Figma

Figma is the first interface design tool with real-time collaboration. It keeps everyone on the same page. Focus on the work instead of fighting your tools.

Sketch

Easily create complex shapes with our state-of-the-art vector boolean operations and take advantage of our extensive layer styles.

Adobe XD

A vector-based tool developed and published by Adobe Inc for designing and prototyping user experience for web and mobile apps.

Blender

It is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation.

ProtoPie

It is the easiest tool used to turn your UI/UX design ideas into highly interactive prototypes for mobile, desktop, web, all the way to IoT. ProtoPie runs on macOS & Windows and the player app is on iOS and Android.

Readymag

Readymag—an online platform for website creation focused on design & creativity. Advanced typography. Powerful animations. Code injection & third-party tool integrations.

Inkscape

It is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. This software can be used to create or edit vector graphics such as illustrations, diagrams, line arts, charts, logos and complex paintings.

Affinity Designer

No bloat, no gimmicks, just all the tools you need, implemented how you always dreamed. It is a stripped back, pro-end workhorse that will always get your job done. It was created to thrive on the electric pace of the latest computing hardware. Live, responsive and incredibly fluid, it’s simply a joy to use.

Affinity Photo

It is born to work hand-in-hand with the latest powerful computer technology, it’s fully-loaded photo editor integrated across macOS, Windows and iOS.