Apple Smells Blood in the Water
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I agree with the quoted tweet (or Threads post, whatever) that Adobe is a brand many or most creative professionals spit on, even if we have no choice but to use their software. They've lost so much good will that if there was literally any other comparable tool suite out there, Adobe would be out of business faster than it takes to boot up their horrible software. I do my best to avoid them, but sometimes even I have to put a clothespin on my nose and do certain tasks in Illustrator or Photoshop.
The efficiency of these tools is not measured by the capabilities, but by the effort it takes from the user to get the expected end result.
It's Photoshop I can't replace with something else.
I think this is the biggest problem with FOSS alternatives, and it's a people problem (the type of problem FOSS devs are rarely equipped to solve). It doesn't matter what the technical merits of Krita or Blender or whatever are, because the same complaints from the same people will never go away. The only reasonable way forward is to ignore that demographic of people and their complaints, and just focus on doing their own thing.
This isn't a new phenomenon, it has always been this way. If you're a professional who uses Photoshop in their daily work, consider that maybe your assessment of FOSS alternatives isn't fair, and try dedicating some time to learning a new workflow with new tools with an open mind. If you're not willing to do that much, then you're going to be stuck with Adobe forever, and will be forever grouchy.
Sure, if they don't want to have users.
If you think folks haven't done this, then you're not paying attention. They've tried that and failed. That's the whole problem, they're failing to migrate to the open source options. That we can just take as a given, look if you can't compete with Adobe in 2024, then you're not ready to be at the table yet. There have never been better conditions to compete in these areas than there are right now.
Note that none of your complaints hold up with Blender, sure I occasionally see folks suggest that Blender's UI is a bit janky. But the overwhelming sentiment in creative circles toward Blender is heartfelt gratitude that application exists and is so capable. From my own personal observations, I'd put Blender as one of the most loved GUI applications in existence today.
I'd even go as far as to say Blender is over loved, I don't think it gets enough pushback for not having a dedicated GPU-renderer which is tablestakes feature today. So I'd actual say your entire point is actually inversed, FOSS gets too much leeway for being less capable because folks value the FOSS (and free-as-in-beer) points too much, which causes the software to be recommended in contexts where it really shouldn't be yet.
(Note: I'm not a 3d professional, though I am somewhat connected to it. I am mostly observing the community from the outside, so if I'm wrong about this I'll welcome the correction.)
It's an open source near perfect clone of photoshop
Let me put it in programmer's terms: Using GIMP is like telling you to build a website with a COBOL backend. It's technically possible - the IRS has all but done it - and it's Turing complete, so why can't you?
i also would like to see someone defending all that gimp bashing do the same.
the problem comes from both sides.
I've published a game on the Apple App Store. All graphics were produced using non-Adobe commercial and open source software. I even used relatively ancient software.
Here's a list:
- Creature House Expression: a competitor to Illustrator, which has a way better UI than anything Adobe, and still (AFAIK) unique features (eg. "skeletal strokes").
- Synthetik Studio Artist: has no competitor, and outdoes anything that Photoshop can accomplish in its niche;
- Vue d'Esprit 4: landscape and plant generation, which worked well enough that I didn't need any resource-hungry later versions;
- Candy Factory (for the Amiga, running under emulation): I'm sure some PS plugins can do the same, but why bother when I had this already from way back?
- GIMP: STFU about the UI. If you're used to Photoshop, get used to something else; PS is not the pinnacle of UI excellence.
Other superb software:
- VectorStyler, which might be a practical successor to Expression;
- Escape Motions software collection.
I've also tried Affinity Photo and Designer, but I definitely prefer the software I mentioned above.
So, YES, I am qualified to bash Adobe, and I unashamedly do so.
But I wouldn't find it convincing as a list of Adobe alternatives, the main thing that seems missing is expertise with Adobe software.
The type of review I'm primarily interested in is from folks who have used the software semi-daily for a long time, often at least a decade. The feedback usually looks something like this (e.g., something I'd imagine reading comparing NLE packages): "I edit ~10 documentaries a year in Premiere and DaVinci Resolve, DaVinci's color workflow is clearly superior, the UI is deeper, and the way the color wheels work makes it easier to make fine-grade adjustments. The node-based color workflow also makes it easier to separate making color corrections from actually color grading. But on the other side, Premiere's Dynamic Link integration, makes it easier to maintain and iterate on shots that involve a lot of 2D motion graphics."
A couple of points that I look for:
- Someone that's done something so many times that they no longer care about anything other than the best tool for the job. Often times the best tool is different if your goal is quality vs. speed, it's a good sign if that's specifically called out.
- They don't have chip on their shoulder. A lot of folks don't like paying at all, so will always prefer the cheaper software. Or they prefer open source software inherently. Or they have some other priority, like not wanting to install Adobe Creative Cloud (which starts a permanent process always running on your machine, which is icky). All of those are perfectly fine priorities for someone to have, but care absolutely zero about anyone else's opinion on any of that stuff, because I can already gauge for myself how I feel about those things. I.e., I already know how I feel about the price of software, so I don't care about someone else's opinion. What I want to know is if I invest in learning this software for a decade daily, how am I going to feel about it then? Would I have preferred investing in another package? The only way to gauge that is hearing from folks that have already done that. Note they don't need a decade of experience in the second package to compare, but they definitely need it for the first.
Just for completions sake, the other thing I noticed about your list is a lot of the packages were for one specific niche, which is a different category of software. All of the Adobe flagships are general purpose.
What I love about it: foremost, the UI. It was made for the software, not based on any existing library (as far as I'm aware). (I particularly love the 'dials' which work equivalently to sliders; and which, when double-clicked, allow the user to enter precise values in a text box.)
It's organized intuitively, with a great balance between simplicity and features. And features! It seems that Affinity Designer still hasn't caught up to this 2003 software. CorelDRAW is clunky in comparison too. While Expression's isolated bugs and annoyances will never be fixed, it's a joy to work in: grids and guides are perfectly 'good enough' (not the equal of Inkscape); onion-skins are invaluable for animating; fonts have simple but comprehensive controls (although OpenType doesn't work properly); brushes are unrivaled, even by Illustrator; and the (optionally) bitmap-style vectors enable a different kind of work flow.
Unfortunately, there's no SVG output, so I export as PDF and use Inkscape to convert. However, Expression also allows saving in a text-based format, which could be the basis for a file converter.
It can also use Photoshop plugins! Since I work mainly with vectors, I haven't had occasion to try this feature yet...
Expression is still available as a free download. It works in Wine on (Intel) Mac and Linux. The manual is great! And the sample files (together with the old website) are delightfully whimsical. It's stable, mature, and (in my opinion) outshines Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, CorelDRAW, and Inkscape.
while i concede that i don't know how good photoshop is, based on my experience of building websites and using gimp for photo editing, i find the suggestion that gimp is as bad as cobol disturbing, unless cobol is much better than its reputation.
try finding a better comparison please.
everytime i look at a discussion of gimp vs photoshop, i fail to find anyone articulating exactly why photoshop is so much better.
As you become familiar with Photoshop you will experience a usage gestalt that is unattainable with GIMP.
But why? Compared to Photoshop, GIMP's UI is a continually unfolding disaster by comparison.
Plus Photoshop includes Adobe Camera Raw which in and of itself is a UI majesty compared to anything available in Linux and its just an adjunct capability.
The programming language analogy is a good one. There's no point in arguing which language is the best, but everyone knows that language features have an obvious bearing on productivity in particular domains: this is demonstrated beyond all doubt via the enormous efficacy of levels of interface abstraction over the innate capabilities of a physical computer.
If you regard PS and GIMP as GUI languages for image manipulation, the expressive power and smoothness of operating PS compared to GIMP is obvious to any diligent user.
The joy of GIMP is that the advantage of GIMP over no image manipulator is infinite, while the advantage of PS over GIMP is merely incremental. This is the profound philosophical basis of Linux: it's something that can't be easily taken away from you. Photoshop is much more tenuous.
As to being able to appreciate the distinction, there's an old joke about advertising the advantage of color TVs on TV: if you can see the advantage, you already have a color TV. And if you don't have a color TV you can't see the advantage.
Would programmers listen to an artists opinion on programming languages and IDEs? Of course not.
The opinions themselves may be valid as relative to the individual but they’re not scalable beyond that.
I'll address that question in just a second, but as far as I can tell, the makers of GIMP have failed to listen to anybody about how that name turns people off and it's failed to gain acceptance because it's got such a terrible name. Ow heartbreaking to see such hard work wasted because horsecocks and panty-dropper, or other equally bad names could have been chosen instead. As far as listening to artists opinions, where do you think easier to use languages like Python or Ruby came from? By listening to curmudgeons that C syntax is totally fine, pointers are easy, it's fun to lose hours looking for a semicolon, and people like the author of "Real programmers use Pascal", so no need to make any changes? Or were there people, some of whom make art, who said, this crap is too confusing, and easier to use programming languages and IDEs came along? The ethos that everyone should be able to program comes hand in hand with listening to users, no matter what their day job. Programmers universally write for two classes of people. Themselves, and others. Talking to users and getting feedback (now that LLMs can write the code, but also before) is job #1 for a programmer. In order to do a good job, before you write a single line of code, you gotta find your users and see how they live, before you can write software that helps them. Find me a software project that didn't engage with its users and I'll find you software that has failed to gain wider acceptance. Like, say, Gim Paint, as I call it, since the name Gimp is such trash.
Yeah, I love Linux and dislike MS, too. Desktop Linux _has_ dramatically improved, but the average user isn't going to want to use it.
The Linux equivalents are quite good. I currently have 2 pieces in an exhibit I created with GIMP (manipulated photos). It’s got layering and the filters I needed. I’ve started to use dark table somewhat (it’s like Adobe Lightroom) but there are a few other photo organizers to try.
The UI is on these tools is different.. different and not great. But workable. The docementation is a little lacking. To be fair there is a whole industry based around teaching Adobe product (I went to one of their conferences years ago)
The 2 standout application for art creation in Foss seem to be blender(3d modeling) and Krita (painting).
Adobe won't even sell me a non-subscription copy of Photoshop anymore.
It's even kind of a good deal if you compare it to equivalent Wintel-ware / Android (if you can even a true equivalent).
This also depends on where in the world you live.
$400 for a 2 TB SSD, $1000 for a 4 TB SSD, and $2200 for a 8 TB SSD.
- top-end SSDs from other vendors are also pricey, though probably less so than Apple
- everything else about that machine is going to be a much better deal than just the drive in isolation
It's sad it lags so much behind now, as I hate paying for Adobe's subscription.
I’d not heard this theory (though the only pro-space app I care about is Logic for audio). I’d love if Apple started smashing the funding button for their pro apps again, but they’ve already caused a lot of distrust when they killed Aperture.
Not to mention other products that don’t get ongoing updates (HomePod, Mac Pro for about a century, Xserve line that was killed, and other more recent items that aren’t top of mind atm). Justifying the risk of conversion will be an uphill battle.
Pixelmator is also a one time purchase.
I bought Pixelmator Pro for $60 when it came out.
I like their OS, but it would be a hard sell for me to ever choose to migrate to their productivity software again.
That is pretty much the chicken and egg problem of Linux in regards to Apps and Games.
It’s hard to feel sympathetic towards Adobe with their expensive subscription model.
I guess Adobe only wants professionals and very serious amateurs to use their products these days.
To be fair, OS-native (and free 3rd party) apps are very good for the average amateur photographer, unlike 15 years ago. I think the market size of that segment has shrunk as a result.
I'm not overly a fan of subscription software, but $9.99/mo for Photoshop and Lightroom is 1 1/2 coffees a month. If you're enough of a photographer that you lay out probably $700+ on a camera rather than your iPhone, then...
The answer was "nothing". I asked why; the answers was: "no Photoshop user will migrate for Linux because of it, no gimp user will migrate to Photoshop".
Also, I've read in HN once: that are more people using Linux on the desktop than there are Photoshop users. People overestimate photoshop as a killer app.
Procreate has been an amazing and affordable alternative to drawing in photoshop/illustrator, and Figma filled a space that Adobe ignored, and Blender can do some amazing video editing things. But with PS, AI, and AE there is so much opportunity for competition.
They've supported Windows and iPad for years, too.
There’s a lot of organizational workflows that neither photos nor Photomator even attempt to include today. Ratings, multiple tags, quick selects, rapid export presets, multiple version handling etc
I assume this is why they acquired Photomater versus inviting them to the stage.
Now the play seems to be for Apple to dominate all creative professional software and make Windows+Creative/Pro software as much an oxymoron as Mac+Games.
So I will defend the idea of software subscriptions, not Adobe's implementation thereof.
You may like software you purchase but you don't really purchase software anymore. It may rely on online services that can go offline. There is a constant need for bugfixes. Old versions may not get those fixes. Vendors will gate new features behind major versions that you have to buy and the threshold for what constitutes a major version gets lower and lower over time.
Adobe was guilty of all of this. Photoshop has a Camera Raw plugin. Back in the day, new RAW formats (which came out all the time) were added to later Camera Raw versiona and those versions required later PS versions for literally no reason, other than to force you to buy the upgrade.
Purchasing software just isn't the panacea many think it is.
Subscriptions have a better incentive model to continuously fix and develop the software without artificially creating major versions to push sales.
Jetbrains is really the gold standard for subscriptions. Adobe... isn't. Adobe uses dark patterns for renewals and subscription periods. They keep jacking up the prices. They hide these price hikes in bundles.
Wouldn't this be highly illegal?
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law
I think DXO might be on par with Adobe for camera profiles.
Catching up with that 1hr interview...
I searched high and low for an Adobe competitor, even using Aperture with Reactive until it became too unstable. ON1 was the only other thing close to being usable.
For a few releases, it was nice. But it's unstable as hell these days. So unfortunate because it's powerful and has a nice interface. Unfortunately they prioritize new features over fixing things. Whoever the product manager is should be fired over the crap AI features they shoved in.