Guide to Adobe Portfolio

Are you looking for a simple and fun way to showcase your photography and creative work on a personal portfolio website?

Luckily for you, an app called Adobe Portfolio could be the perfect solution!

In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at the pros and cons, some portfolio examples and even some alternatives if it’s not for you.

So let’s dig deeper on whether Adobe Portfolio is any good!

What is Adobe Portfolio?

 

Adobe Portfolio is a tool available with an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription that allows you to quickly and simply build a website to showcase your creative work.

How much does Adobe Portfolio cost?

Adobe Portfolio can’t be bought on its own, but it’s free with Creative Cloud. You need to have a paid membership with an annual commitment.

This means that you can have Adobe Portfolio in any of these combinations:

• AP + InCopy for $4.99
• AP + 1 single Adobe app (Lightroom, Rush, XD, or Express) for $9.99
• AP + Photoshop + Lightroom for $9.99 with the Adobe photography plan
• AP + Acrobat Pro for $14.99
• AP + 1 single Adobe app (Photoshop, Premier Pro, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Audition, Animate, Dream Weaver, or Dimension) for $20.99
• AP + Adobe Stock for $29.99
• AP + All Adobe Apps for $52.99

(All prices in USD.)

Should you use Adobe Portfolio in 2023?

Rather than writing a long-winded Adobe Portfolio review, let’s have a quick look at the pros and cons of using Adobe Portfolio to showcase your creative work.

Pros of Adobe Portfolio

• Up to 5 websites

With one account you can manage and publish up to five websites – each one with an indefinite number of pages and collections.

• Easy to setup

First, you need a Creative Cloud subscription, then you can quickly and simply build a portfolio website to showcase your work.

When you get started, you can choose whether you want to create a photo collection (multiple pages) or a single-page website.

Then choose a template – you can customize them by adding, deleting or re-arranging blocks. Finally, populate your site by uploading your content or import your Adobe Lightroom collection.

• Free with your Adobe subscription

Adobe Portfolio is a free tool included with any Adobe membership plan on an annual basis – even if you pay monthly. Instead, if you subscribe to a monthly plan you won’t be entitled to it.

• You can use your own domain name

To give a more professional impression, you can link your own domain name to your Adobe Portfolio website. You can use a domain name you already own by re-routing it or you can buy a new domain name.

If you decide to buy a domain name through Adobe Portfolio, it will be powered by Namecheap. You don’t need to buy an SSL certification as Adobe Portfolio already supports it.

• Clean design

All the templates offered by Adobe Portfolio have a clean and minimal design perfect for showcasing your work or organizing your photo library.

• Adobe integrations

You can easily integrate other Adobe tools and assets into your Adobe Portfolio. For example, you can import your photos directly from Adobe Lightroom. Also, it has integrations with Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark), Adobe Stock, Adobe Fonts and Behance.

• Automatically resizes your images

Regardless of the size and resolution of your uploaded images, Adobe Portfolio automatically scales it down to optimize the user experience according to the device. This also helps protect your images as they won’t be displayed in high-res.

• Disable right-click options

You can disable the right-click feature to protect your images from being downloaded without your permission. This also disables the drag-and-drop possibility to save on any device. It won’t defend against image copyright violation, but it’ll help deter the average user or bots from scraping your website.

• Supports audio and video

On top of photography, you can also use Adobe Portfolio to showcase your audio and video creations.

Cons of Adobe Portfolio

• No e-commerce

Most landscape, wildlife and fine art photographers rely heavily on selling prints of their work – this isn’t possible on Adobe Portfolio.

Other types of photographers may also suffer from the lack of e-commerce. For example, portrait or wedding photographers use this feature to book sessions or sell the prints from a photoshoot.

The only selling you can do is to offer your photos as stock images thanks to the integration of Adobe Stock.

• Not very versatile

While the themes are very easy to use and you can customize them with blocks or modules and mixing text with visuals as you need – the design is not very flexible.

• No blog

If you want to include a blog to drive traffic to your website, then Adobe Portfolio will fall short. It doesn’t support blogs and it’s not the best to handle a lot of text either – it’s mainly aimed to showcase your creative work.

If you absolutely need a blog, you may want to try SquareSpace or WordPress, then use one of the many plugins that help sell your photos online, manage photography clients or just create store your photos.

• You need a paid Adobe subscription

Before I mentioned as a pro that Adobe Portfolio is included with your membership – yes, that’s a good thing. However, it also means that you’ll lose it if you ever decide to stop using Adobe apps for your workflow.

If you choose to cancel your Lightroom subscription or terminate your Adobe membership, your Portfolio will stay online for a two-week grace period.

(Uninstalling Creative Cloud from your computer won’t have any effect, as long as you don’t end your subscription too.)

If you don’t renew your Creative Cloud Subscription plan, then the site will be taken down. However, you’ll still be able to access it through the editor.

10 Great Adobe Portfolio Examples

Here’s a selection of recent Adobe Portfolio examples by talented photographers and creatives from around the world for your inspiration.

You can see more ways people are customizing their Adobe Portfolio themes here.

What are the Alternatives?

• Pixpa – build a professional web presence with Pixpa’s easy, no-code website builder. Start for free here >>
• Wix.com – this is one of the most popular free website builders out there. However, to link your own domain or remove Wix ads you need to have the paid version.
• WordPress – if you’re looking for a flexible website to showcase your work, WordPress has hundreds of themes to choose from. Unfortunately, to link your own domain you need to get paid hosting.
• Portfoliobox – the free version allows you to showcase and sell your creative work for free with a limit of 30 images and up to 10 pages. To expand it and remove the ads you need a paid subscription though.
• Smugmug – you can build your portfolio and sell your work with different plans to fit your budget and needs.

Adobe Portfolio FAQ

How much is Adobe Portfolio per month?

Adobe Portfolio is a free asset included in any annual Creative Cloud plan. Therefore, the cost depends on the subscription you get. It can be as low as $9,99 per month with the Photography plan which includes Photoshop and Lightroom.

Can you just buy Adobe Portfolio?

No, Adobe Portfolio is a tool that comes with an Adobe a single app subscription, the photography plan or the Creative Cloud All Apps membership.

Can I use my own domain with Adobe Portfolio?

Yes, you can link your own domain. You can buy one through Adobe powered by Namecheap, or you can connect it to one that you already have or that you buy elsewhere.

Is Adobe Portfolio good for SEO?

You can use the dashboard to add titles and descriptions with targeted keywords. You can also integrate analytic tools into it when you build a portfolio.

What is the difference between Adobe Spark and Portfolio?

With Adobe Spark (now called Express) you can make single-page websites while Portfolio allows for multiple pages. However, with Spark, you can edit video and create graphics for social media, which you can’t do with Portfolio.

How long is Adobe Portfolio free?

Adobe portfolio pricing is free for as long as you have a Creative Cloud paid membership. If you cancel your membership, your portfolio will stay online for two weeks. After that, you can still access it but it won’t be available online.

How many Adobe Portfolios can I have?

With a single account, you can have up to five websites.

How do I protect images in Adobe Portfolio?

You can choose to disable the right-click function. This will prevent people from saving your images. Also, it disables the possibility of drag and drop to a device.

How do I use Adobe Portfolio?

This is how to use Adobe portfolio. Sign in with your Creative Cloud account. Choose if you want a single-page website or a collection of works for a multi-page website. Then, choose a template and customize your portfolio or import your Adobe Lightroom collections.

Can you blog with Adobe Portfolio?

No, Adobe Portfolio doesn’t support blogs. You can add a link that leads to your blog, though.

Final Words

In my opinion, Adobe Portfolio has more pros than cons as long as you accept that it is exactly that: a portfolio website.

If you’re looking to build a website to run your photography business, then you’ll lack many useful features such as the ability to sell prints.