[DigitalToday reporter Jaewon Choi] A free open-source software bundle, Crafting Apps, has been released to support image and video editing and PDF work. It is drawing attention as a potential alternative to Adobe, applying an interface layout and keyboard shortcuts aimed at users familiar with Adobe products.

On Oct. 6 (local time), Japanese media outlet ITmedia reported that the development team behind the AI image and video creation tool ArtCraft released seven app projects on GitHub, covering image editing, vector graphics, video, photo management, PDF, motion graphics and publishing. All apps were developed from scratch in Rust and support macOS, Windows and Linux. Some can also run on the web.

The flagship app, PhotoCraft, is an image editor that reimplements Photoshop using a clean-room approach and supports layers, masks, text, brushes and adjustment layers. It can also import and save PSD and PSB files while preserving layers. VectorCraft provides pen tools and image tracing features, targeting Illustrator-type work.

The bundle also includes FilmCraft for video editing, LightCraft for RAW development and photo management, PrintCraft for viewing, merging and splitting PDFs, EffectCraft for motion graphics and VFX, and DesignCraft for publishing layout.

A key feature of Crafting Apps is AI automation. Menus and tools can be executed via commands, and it supports CLI, a JSON control channel and MCP, designed to let AI agents directly carry out editing tasks. MCP-based control functions have already been implemented in PhotoCraft and EffectCraft.

Even so, it is still difficult to view it as a complete replacement for Adobe. As of that day, PhotoCraft and PrintCraft were in early alpha, and the remaining five apps were under development. PhotoCraft also says it has limitations in some text typesetting, brushes and plugin compatibility.

Crafting Apps itself is provided free and open source. AI image and video generation in the separate ArtCraft service runs on paid, credit-based plans, but users can also use it without a subscription if they connect their own compute resources or external services.