Someone at Adobe finally gets it...but is it years too late?

[thatcrazycajun]

Anyone who's had to use Adobe Photoshop more or less continuously over the last decade or so (as I have) has had an opportunity to see it grow from relatively manageable (if non-intuitive) application to hideously over-featured (not to say over-priced) bloatware. Now Adobe senior product manager John Nack becomes the first Adobe employee to publicly admit this—in his company-sponsored blog, no less—and that he and others have been working behind the scenes, and continue doing so, to remedy the problem. (See blog here.)

Being as it now costs north of $1,000 to buy one copy of Photoshop all by itself, never mind in a package with the ever-growing family of "Creative Suite" apps to which it now belongs, and that installing it practically requires you to buy the damn thing its own dedicated hard drive to hold it all, one must wonder whether the situation is at all salvageable anymore. A quotation from that legendary cartoon sage, Daffy Duck, comes to mind: "Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin."

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Dude. The GIMP. Runs on Windows as well as Linux, and while it does take a reasonably large amount of disk space for a Linux app, that ain't *nothing* compared to what you're describing for PS. And cost? Absolutely jack. Nada. Bupkes. Pocket fuzz. The big goose egg. And yes, it will import Photoshop docs, and exports as just about any graphics format on the planet (I don't know how its .psd exporter is, or even if it exists; I've never had cause or yen to use it. But Postscript and PDF are two that it does do, along with the usual gif, jpg, tiff, etc....)

And besides. Adobe is one of two outfits on the planet more evil than Microsoft.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Great minds.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Two? Which (corporate entity; I can supply government names all day) is the other?

The GIMP is perfectly usable, though not spectacular. The only issue I'd have in switching (and I note that I still use Photoshop 7, three versions back) is the plug-ins, of which about 1/3 really are essential to me.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

The other one? Wal-Mart.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

I actually already use The GIMP at home (sort of; I use the standard Windows port on my Dell and a GUI-overlaid version called Seashore on the Mac). However, I am still required to use Photoshop at work, as this is what our IT guys have standardized the Creative Group on. And in most places I do temp or staff work, this is the case, as I am not permitted to supply my own hardware/software.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Bring Your Own PC is coming... :)

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

And with every upgrade the Gimp gets closer and closer.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Oh, feh, I've used The GIMP to edit photos professionally for pay. Unless it's something *really* complex, GIMP has been there for years. And even then, there's still the Perl scripting facility; you could hack up your own FX.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

I was agreeing with you re Gimp.
And yes, it HAS been there for years, but the improvements and tutorials have been coming thick and fast:

http://gug.sunsite.dk/?page=tutorials

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

*nods*

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a cycle that I'd fallen into a decade ago. You learn/get The Software (whichever one it is) that everybody says you need to know. Then they improve it and you have to learn the improvements. Then there's another Software and another, and they all have upgrades and improvements. Eventually you get tired of keeping up with the improvements and you start forgetting how to use The Software, then after spending all that time and money you're woefully behind. My only solution has been to pick a version I'm comfortable with and stay there. I still save documents in MS Word 5.1 and still use Photoshop 7.0 and they work just fine.