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Macromedia Sues Adobe, Claims Photoshop Infringes Patent
jmorse writes: "According to this article at sfgate.com, Macromedia is suing Adobe for patent infringement, claiming that Adobe's Photoshop and GoLive products violate a patent they filed in 1998. The article is a little short on details, so I'm wondering if there are other sources with more on this patent." Adobe and Macromedia have been skirmishing and counter-skirmishing over patents for some time now. The AP article doesn't say which patent Adobe is supposed to be violating this time, so just pick any random thing that Photoshop does that Macromedia might have patented and express outrage about it. :)
I know that good/great patents are extremely important. There are probabally under 100 of these filled a year. Now I know that I personally filed about 12 last year, not a single one was what I would call a good ground breaking patent, they were all defensive patents...
I gained a friend in a the large company that I worked for legal dept... Basically the story went like this, when we are sued we look at their portfolio of patents, then look at our portfolio of patents that we have that might cause their products to infringe... Which ever pile is taller gets paid royalties by the other company. That is a defensive patent
Now lawyers have to be VERY careful not to use what are really defensive patents and go out looking for royalties, it makes everyone look bad.
Eventually, they will both lose. When this happens, then we win.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Personally, I think Macromedia can f*ck off, they write terrible software with horrible interfaces that produce terrible results 99.9% of the time!
Maybe that's what their patent is. Too bad for them that Windows will be used as prior art in the trial.
While i'm actually fond of both companies (well, recently very much less so with adobe over Dmitry/eBooks and the KIllustrator deal) i feel that this is just another patent squabble that will affect nothing in any future products, nothing in anyone's lives and will not be over anything ground breaking. It's all about the bottom line for two pretty wealthy companies and as such isn't much to talk about, especially with the sparse details.
I've read on a Macromedia Newsgroup recently that Macromedia bought some patents the NetObjects owned. I wonder if the timeing of the two events has anything to do with each other.
Heres a little info from NetObjects site:
http://www.netobjects.com/transition/
All I can say is that this is yet more proof that software patents are just a bad idea. Let's see; Photoshop has been around since the Dawn of Time by computer standards, and somehow it violates a Macromedia patent filed just 3 years ago. I'm using Photoshop 6 now, and as far as I can see, it does the same thing every other version has done, only with a few more mostly-useless bells and whistles. I bet the patent is either about some tiny little insignificant nitpicking function I'd never even notice, or is about something big and obvious that's been in editing utils since the Amiga or C64 days and should have never been awarded a patent.
Either way, every software patent I've ever seen covers something silly and obvious that shouldn't be patentable based on the fact that it's so obvious and isn't a real advancement at all. The real-world equivalent to most such patents would be like trying to patent a new Lego brick because you made it two rows longer. Uh-huh. Ingenious.
Take the infamous 1-click patent for example. All it is is a fairly obvious way to make shopping on line just like shopping in real life at a store where you have an account or tab. Hand the clerk at the store your stuff with your ID or account number, order is rung up, store already has billing information, customer leaves with product. Amazon's 1-click patent does the same thing, only on-line. Patentable my ass. Anything simple and obvious shouldn't be patentable.
I bet whatever this new Adobe/Macromedia fight is about, it's over something that should never have been patentable in the first place.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
The two groups are competitors. That's their sole motivation. Adobe sued Macromedia a while back for their widgeting. Macromedia's going to sue them for this, whatever it may be. The two can't win in the classical, Capitalist method by improving their product and surpassing their enemy so they just sue.
As to your hatred of Macromedia products, I'd have to agree slightly. I dislike the growing trend of using widgets. The problem: Adobe started it! As it is, I use Adobe for Photoshop and Macromedia for everything else.
Pax Digitalia
This is [ridiculous|stupid|ludicrous|lame]! How can Macromedia patent ______? I was doing _____ on my [Z80|8086|Altair] in the [1970s|1980s]. It's really [easy|trivial|fast] to implement. I could write it right now in [Perl|C|Python|Java|INTERCAL]! The USPTO needs to gain some [sense|accountability|knowledgeable employees (like me)]. Still, Adobe [deserves|asked for|needs] a taste of their own medicine! I can't be too upset about them getting sued. It's [kharma|fate|divine intervention].
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
...this is why software patents are bad juju.
Don't even get me started on Adobe's 'Rights Management' crap.
My company has spent a little over $1300 on Adobe products. Of course, I could never justify spending this much personally for what many consider to be 'essential' tools for web design and publishing. A great deal of this. I imagine that a great deal of this goes to fund Adobe's legal departement and executive management layer. We know for a fact that that all three of these flagship products could be replicated by OSS programmers with not a lot of difficulty. It would be a large project, but most of that art functionality is already in GIMP. The rest is spread around a few other art and publishing tools.
That's right. Adobe's hideously inflated prices go to support their vast corporate empire, and *not* to better their products. They could be doing better, but they're not.
Macromedia is no better, having done their best to replace Adobe in the position of being an unofficial 'industry standard' when it comes to web design. If they did this with quality products, it would be one thing, but they try to do it with lawsuits, legal gimmicks, and customer abuse. Flash could be so much bigger than it is now if it were an open standard. Most of the web developers I know would vastly prefer to work with Flash rather than crank out lameo HTML and CSS.
For shame!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
My luck I spelled 'cotton gin' wrong. ;>
While I mostly agree with what you said, sometimes really obvious ideas are important (and not quite so obvious). The cotton gin is a great example- a simple device with a very basic purpose that should be very obvious, yet it didnt pop in anyone's head as early as we think it could have in hindsight. This bad boy invention ultimately helped bring some pretty big changes in the US.
But the cotton gin made it's inventer jack. The guy who make the first tv also made jack from his invention. Kind of makes you wonder.
Both inventions were made after patents were made available in the US, but the inventers both made zip. That also kind of makes you wonder.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Yeah, but can you do CMYK seps for your film output?
Get a professional tool, chum.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Since tech details are a bit sparse, I'm not quite sure which patent this is or whether it is frivilous, but quite frankly, I like seeing someone (try to) take a bite out of the big guy... And Adobe is the Microsoft of the digital image world.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
Unfortunately, most of their products are priced for large corporations, and NOT for independent designers/artists. Large companies can afford $600+ for Photoshop, I don't know any freelancers who really can.
Yes, they give student copies of the software, but you aren't allowed to upgrade those copies the same way you can with a retail version.
Adobe not only has to pay for engineer time (which may or may not be equal to the open source efforts), but management, marketing, support/IT, legal, and equipment(including buildings)
On top of that, they have ~40 products and ~5 technologies to support.
Not only that, for the most part, they aren't *imitating* another product; they have to design, test, and distribute their products that Open Source guys don't have to worry about.
GPL Deconstructed
My guess is that this is a continuation of last year's suit(s) where Macromedia is claiming they own the "tabbed palette" technology that Adobe has incorporated into Photoshop.
b e. shtml
r el eases/200008/20000810macro.html
Here are some links from Aug 2000:
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0008/10.ado
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/press
In any case, it looks like Macromedia isn't going to let up too easily on trying to drive Adobe under.
Back in my day, we had to write raw RGB in a hex editor, and compress it, by hand, with no calculators!
And we liked it!!
There is also an article in the Washington Post which mostly gives the same information we have already but also cites the case more specifically as "Macromedia v. Adobe, C01-3940". So the next step is Findlaw which can get us to the web site of, say, the district court for Northern California (disclaimer: I'm not sure that is the right district but it is a decent guess). That web site seems to say there is lots of fascinating information on PACER but that's a pay service. So I think I'm more or less at a dead end (although I didn't try, say, searching the patent databases looking for macromedia owned patents which look plausible).
As for why PACER costs $$$, they answer that on the PACER site as follows:
Isn't that almost exactly what Adobe were suing Macromedia over? Has the US Patent Office granted both of them almost exactly the same patent?
This could get interesting...
(Aside: Personally, I think Macromedia can f*ck off, they write terrible software with horrible interfaces that produce terrible results 99.9% of the time!
So poor craftsmanship removes Constitutional protections...novel idea...
This is old news for these two companies...
They have been sueing and counter-sueing for quite a while, i.e.:
And so on...
Some good info:
www.cptech.com has some good info and links on the two sueing and counter-sueing.
macweek.com seems to indicate the the whole thing is over the fact that 'that Adobe Premiere violates two patents related to visual display and editing of soundforms. Macromedia also contended that Adobe's patents in the case are invalid and thus unenforceable.'
This seems to be a defense patent battle, in that both sides are trying to invalidate the other sides patents...
A few more links...
www.creativemac.com says 'Macromedia Fires Back at Adobe'
And an editorial by WebDeveloper.com... and I quote:
Ultimately, I would say this a standard battle of patents. Such things have taken place many a time, this time it just happens to involve software patents, and thus happens upon the radar of geeks and slashdot...
You had hex editors? We had to use handheld magnets to flip bits in memory!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Basically the story went like this, when we are sued we look at their portfolio of patents, then look at our portfolio of patents that we have that might cause their products to infringe... Which ever pile is taller gets paid royalties by the other company. That is a defensive patent.
That is one of the stupidest things I've ever read, and makes me all the more happy I purchased the Alan Cox software patents shirt. When a measure meant to protect inventors becomes a way for two companies to hold silly legal dicksize contests, it's a sign the system is broken and needs fixing, or scrapping, or something. Anything to halt the flood of crap that flows through the USPTO... and the Slashdot front page.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Not only you, but many others, are cheering on Macromedia as they bring this legal action against Adobe. In some respects, yeah, cool. But you have to remember one thing: corporations who use patents to secure a foothold on a technology/idea/whatever, are not champions of open source ideals. Macromedia is just as evil as Adobe when it comes to corporate principles, so don't look at them as taking justice for what Adobe has done in the past. They'd just as soon slap the little guy around with the DMCA as Adobe would.
Why bother.
i had grips of their software titles NEW IN BOX that i was selling on ebay. i got the gear from my dot com that had went under, it was the lot they purchased just before they sunk, and i got to sell it on ebay. both macromedia and adobe tried to sue me! Lawyers decended, auctions were canceled, everyone was surley, i drank heavily.... they wanted me to open the boxes, send the liscense key and wait for their "OKAY." i was like, fuck you pay me. i sold the software for a little less than i wanted to the poor saps that had the auctions canceled on them...
in the end i wish both companies a fist full of nothing and pint urine.
.cig
Read this completely before you mod it as flamebait.
Most of the web developers I know consider Flash to be a standards-breaking, improperly used piece of ass. But then, most of the web devs I know are rabid about making damned good and sure that the lowest common denominator can use their site. On a modem.
I'm a professional graphics designer. I live in photoshop. The GIMP - the closest thing that OSS has to a graphics app - is a huge steaming pile of poo compared to the ease of use, power, stability (on a Mac, no less!), and most importantly, USEABILITY of Photoshop (version 5, don't get me started on 6). The GIMP is "almost photoshop", everyone says. We (the graphics community) can NOT use "almost". What we NEED is "Better Than Photoshop".
I've seen a lot of GIMP art. I've seen a lot of Photoshop art. The capacity and useability of GIMP - particularly with regards to fonts, anti-aliasing, color control (emphasis), et. al., is severly lacking. I've seen some mindblowing graphics produced with photoshop.... I have yet to see anything comprable with the GIMP.
A *PROFESSIONAL* graphic design app is a good deal more difficult to execute than a window manager, an office suite, or an IRC client. OSS is almost worthy with Nautilus, barely palatable with word processing, stinks horribly at fonts, has produced a number of excellent IRC clients, and a stable as well as surprisingly portable codebase.
The functionality that graphics people demand isn't there because graphics people don't code and coders don't do graphics (some think they can in both cases, but the evidence supports my statement). Hence, a graphics person that depends on Photoshop has about a 99.9% chance of not knowing a single line of code, and hence, not knowing how to build what he wants to use for free. The issue with OSS is that the "by geeks, for geeks" mentality is simply incapable of producing an application of the quality and caliber of Photoshop- it takes a corporation like Adobe with the money and management to ram the coders and the artists together to get the results necessary to produce a useable application.
If Adobe and Macromedia's killer apps could be "easily replicated" by OSS, then why haven't they been? I don't know a SINGLE graphic designer that works in Linux. I know two that work in Windows. The rest use MacOS- and of the MacOS users, ONE uses OS X , and she runs her apps in Classic. NONE use or recommed the GIMP. Point of fact, it is a common conclusion within the Pittsburgh professional graphics community that the GIMP is very good at making very bad art. Likely due to the fact that "configue / make / make install" and "Orator 24 point/ Soft Light / desaturate/ color balance / variations (blue, two iterations)" involve two completely different sides of the brain.
Photoshop is worth the price tag. It is the ONLY graphics app out there that can do what professionals demand- easily, smoothly, and in a stable fashion (on a Mac- hasn't crashed on me once, minus poorly coded third party plugins). Compared to the price points of comprable video compositing and editing software, Photoshop is CHEAP.
When the GIMP (or comprable app) can use the photshop 5 keyboard shortcuts (and actually DO with equal effectiveness what those shortcuts key to), get color right, support a gazillion fonts, do alpha channels and selections on the flip of a click, read PSD files, launch in under ten seconds, dynamically allocate swap disks (something photoshop doesn't do), AND competently handle a 11x17 @ 600 DPI image with 45 pixel layers and 30 type layers... AND manage five gigs of swap disk without dumping core.... then I'll think about actually seriously using it to do some work.
The day that OSS can produce a useable graphics app - that can be installed in less than five clicks without resorting to a terminal - is the day I cease dual booting.
That day is nowhere near. We'll see another thousand or so IRC clients on sourceforge before we see a Better Than Windows WM, let alone a Better Than Photoshop graphics app.
M$ got where it is through marketing and a couple of BAD decisions on the part of IBM.
Adobe got where it is by making QUALITY products that do what professional graphic artists NEED to do. Nothing compares to Photoshop in terms of functionality, flexibility, and stability. N O T H I N G.
I suppose that Adobe technically has a monopoly, but in this case, they have earned it through right of coding a product that is FAR and above superior to everything else. It's the Industry Standard for image manipulation and creation for a reason - it's GOOD. Nobody that uses Photoshop bitches about it (generally- a few people prefer 5 to 6, but it's semantics- nobody that likes 5 and hates 6 is going to jump ship to another app).
From a graphics standpoint, Macromedia makes the better HTML editor (dreamweaver) and image optimizer (fireworks) - but Fireworks sucks in many areas... and on the other side of the fence, Adobe Illustrator is a BITCH to print form at weird sizes, and Macromedia Freehand does color seperation for print (shirts, cloth, hats, etc.) in its sleep, whereas Illustrator doesn't even bother.
Companies are suing each other with stupid claims of patent infringement. Ok, ok, ok. Okay! OKAY!!! I guess it's possible that the people who make patent rulings are going to listen to our opinions about how stupid these claims are. Maybe the word "representative" in the phrase "congressional representative" refers to representing the public interest. Maybe professional wrestling is real too. I'll have to give these possibilities some thought. Meanwhile, somewhere in the world, other things are happening.
To: Litigating Patent Holders
From: B.Franklin, Geo. Read, Jaco. Broom et. al.
Dear Sir,
We understand that you are planning to embark on certain legislation that will require the invocation of section eight of the document known as "The Constitution of the United States", specifically the clause that reads:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
We wish to remind you that this text is covered by modern copyright law. Should you find it necessary to refer to this clause, or any clause of the document, in your pleadings to the court we will require that you pay a reasonable and non-discriminatory fee. This fee will reflect the value of the document to the United States.
We trust that you will contact us before use or publication of our copyrighted material.
Kind Regards,
The Founding Fathers
You kids today have it too soft.
woof.
Pshaw!
If you are using the product professionally -- that is, you plan to make money by using it as a tool -- you damn well should be ponying up the bucks for it.
You wouldn't steal a wrench set from Snap-On, you wouldn't steal a laser printer from Staples, and your sure as hell wouldn't be stealing your delivery van from the GM dealership.
So get some morals, and *DON'T* steal your professional software, either.
If you can't pay like the big boys, don't play like the big boys.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
this time by Macromedia, when they have time to do so?
¦ ©® ±
I've seen some mindblowing graphics produced with photoshop.... I have yet to see anything comprable with the GIMP.
You know what? I have seen some mindblowing graphics done in image editor coming with Windows 3.11. Moreover, I have seen some mindblowing graphics produced without any help of Photoshop or computer at all. Actually, some of it is hanging on my walls right now.
Saying "tool X sucks because I have seen better graphics made with tool Y" is basically saying "guitar sucks because my brother plays good on violin". That's plain stupid argument.
When the GIMP (or comprable app) can use the photshop 5 keyboard shortcuts
Well, here is another stupid argument coming. Judging professional application by keyboard shortcut compatibility with other application. Is it trained monkey who is going to use it? So that once imprinted with some basic keyboard accords it cannot do anything else effectively? Oh my...
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
Most likely 1). It takes about 3 years for a patent to get through the patent process. This is part of the reason the USPTO recently changed the rules regarding patents--20 years from the initial filing date, instead of 17 years from the patent's grant date. Three years from 1998 means that the patent was likely granted this year.
--Be human.
I've seen a lot of GIMP art. I've seen a lot of Photoshop art. The capacity and useability of GIMP - particularly with regards to fonts, anti-aliasing, color control (emphasis), et. al., is severly lacking. I've seen some mindblowing graphics produced with photoshop.... I have yet to see anything comprable with the GIMP
You know, I much prefer Photoshop to the GIMP myself. But this statement is just crap. Has it occurred to you that there might be so much more "mindblowing" photoshop art because over 90% of art colleges are TEACHING PHOTOSHOP!? And the students of these places are already artistically talented people. So there is simply a far greater number of Photoshop users out there, and the percentage of Photoshop users that are artistically talented is much higher than of GIMP users. Most GIMP users probably have technical, not artistic backgrounds. So OBVIOUSLY there is going to be a lot more great photoshop art out there than GIMP art.
If you really want to be scientific about it, do a study of 100 artworks done by randomly selected real artists using GIMP, and compare them to 100 artworks done by randomly selected real artists using Photoshop.
The GIMP is powerful, and I don't think there is any basis for your statements about fonts, of all things. If you're going to criticise GIMP, there are things that are much more worthy of criticism - which is why I'm guessing that you haven't really used GIMP very much.
As I said though, I prefer Photoshop, the main reasons being: (1) the interface, its just so much more usable, (2) I already know Photoshop well, there is not enough incentive for me to head off on a new learning curve. But at least I have used GIMP fairly extensively at times in the past, back in the days of Photoshop 4, where feature-wise it still compared well to Photoshop.
How can you say the GIMP doesn't support "a gazillion fonts"? The GIMP supports all the fonts you have installed on your system, if you don't know how to install new fonts its your problem, my Linux box has hundreds of fonts installed. And complaining about keyboard shortcuts and PSD files is like complaining that Photoshop doesn't use GIMPs keyboard shortcuts and that it doesn't read XCF files - thats just lame. And why should GIMP allocate swap disks when the OS has a decent disk swapping mechanism? GIMP scripting is about 1000 times more powerful than Photoshops "actions".
Come on - I'm sure if you knew GIMP better you could have come up with FAR more valid criticisms against it. You come across as someone who tried GIMP for a couple of days at most and felt frustrated because it "wasn't like Photoshop", which you already knew. I'm not saying you are, but thats how you sound.
Saying "tool X sucks because I have seen better graphics made with tool Y" is basically saying "guitar sucks because my brother plays good on violin". That's plain stupid argument
But that's not the argument he's making. Hes saying that perhaps the GIMP is so substandard it isn't possible to make good art with it without fighting the program itself, therefore noone talented enough has ever been able to fight it and succeed in creating good art.
This is NOT in any way a bad argument -- you may not like the fact that a program has to prove itself, but if you're trying to sell to professionals, thats what it has to do. Someone with the GIMP has to create some work that people will say "hmm, the GIMP can do that? that's really nice, I want to find out how it was done". Until someone with an interest in proving the GIMP's capabilities does this (and of course GIMP itself is capable of doing it!) then we as professionals have to assume that the real problem is that GIMP is inadequate as a professional tool.
From my time in GIMP I can definitely say i wouldn't choose it over many other options short of Windows Paint. It has few high-quality features, but lots and lots of time-wasting and idiotic programmer crap that is targetted at people who couldn't come up with a workable color scheme if you put a gun to their head.
Which is fine -- there's nothing wrong with an "image editor for programmers". But don't try to sell it as "Photoshop, but better!" because there is no evidence (final work) to support that.
(as a side tangent to show that this really does apply in real life -- "real artists" stayed away from acrylic paints for decades because they didn't believe they were up to the challenge. It wasn't until a few talented folks actually got around to figuring out how to take advatage of the unique characteristics (and the paints themselves had evolved a lot!) that professionals accepted the medium -- so we're not just picking on the GIMP)
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Adobe is the print graphics champ.
Macromedia is the web graphics champ.
The users win, because they're both fighting tooth and nail!
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Is everything so simplistic in your world? Does everything in your world boil down to who we are "supposed to be" hating now, to the point where you actually get *confused* if somebody you thought you were "supposed to be" hating happens to be a victim in some things too? How sad. The world is a complicated place. Perhaps such simplistic thinking is the result of the media's perpetual insistence that everything is either "good" or "evil", I don't know.
Well they would if Adobe had not patented it, but if they had not patented it then where would Adobe be now? Its the only "proffessional" tool used because no-one can make anything too similer out of fear of being sued
There are plenty of other programs that do CMYK seps. Quark and macromedia easily come to mind, as well as the slew of programs that are nothign but software RIPSs, as well as pretty much every postscript print driver for every laser printer on earth.
Its not in the GIMP because its hard to do and the programmers don't care about it. It isn't just a simple color space conversion -- Adobe has been tweaking the LUTs for over a decade now, and its getting better every time.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Even if we accept that a small handful of individuals were willing to innovate (accepting all the costs that come with it) without IP, this does not make IP any less necessary. Besides the fact that they can STILL invent even with the existence of IP, they are a minority. Most individuals need IP if they are to quit their jobs, spend their savings, and years of their life towards such pursuits. This is especially true of companies. There is no comparison between the amount of time/resources spent on innovation today versus that of before reasonably-strong IP protections.
Give em what for, Macromedia. Destroy each other. Adobe is quite replacable by open source counterparts, and.. Well.. The only thing I'll miss about Macromedia are those funny anti bin Laden animations everyone makes.
Are you nuts, man!?!?! I might agree that there are open source web authoring alternatives to Adobe products, but the GIMP is no replacement for Photoshop. Where are the open source versions of InDesign, Illustrator, AfterEffects and Type Manager? They don't exist in any professional capacity. Sure, there Scribus and Killustrator, but those apps are mere toys compared to their commercial brethren.Where are the open source versions of Flash and Director? Again, they don't exist.
Linux and related open source projects are very important. Don't get me wrong, but until there are commercial quality publishing, illustration, vector animation and image editing apps (that at least have rudimentary support for CMYK color!), Adobe and Macromedia will be the leaders in design and multimedia software development.
Pooty tweet
I agree that if you use a product professionaly you should pay for it.
:)
In retrospect, the money really isn't all that much.. actually its not much in comparison.
However, I do agree that to pay those prices as a student.. even with the discounts are horrible. Unfortunatly that's how the world works... with anything. A student who studies Graphic Design *has access* to photoshop just like a sound engineer who has access to a mixing console... it's the same thing.
That's why I support this philosophy, however illegal. If I am trying out a product, I will get it as Warez and use it. But if I ever make money for it, I will buy it. Those poor guys who sat there for hours and wrote it deserve some $ back
------------
Sase
"It's the opposite of that."
The capacity and useability of GIMP - particularly with regards to fonts, anti-aliasing
Apple has patented the hinting mechanisms in TrueType.
color control (emphasis), et. al., is severly lacking.
Probably because Apple, Adobe, and Pantone own broad patents in many jurisdictions on all known feasible methods of color correction that produce acceptable results (i.e. better than C,M,Y = 1.0 - R,G,B; K = min(C,M,Y); C,M,Y -= K).
Hence, a graphics person that depends on Photoshop has about a 99.9% chance of not knowing a single line of code, and hence, not knowing how to build what he wants to use for free.
Which explains the lack of a scripting language in Photoshop. GIMP, on the other hand, supports Scheme and Perl scripting and C and C++ filters.
it takes a corporation like Adobe with the money and management to ram the coders and the artists together to get the results necessary to produce a useable application.
If you consider "results" to include "broad patents on color correction that keep everybody else from competing in the prepress market," I agree.
If Adobe and Macromedia's killer apps could be "easily replicated" by OSS, then why haven't they been?
Because developers want users in the United States to be able to use their software legally.
Point of fact, it is a common conclusion within the Pittsburgh professional graphics community that the GIMP is very good at making very bad art.
Programs don't make bad art; bad artists make bad art. A license saying that "bad artists may not use this program and thereby tarnish the image of the program" would look ridiculous to me.
"Orator 24 point/ Soft Light / desaturate/ color balance / variations (blue, two iterations)"
Nearly the same steps in GIMP. I have used Gaussian Blur then Curves to do some nice neon effects.
Photoshop is worth the price tag.
Perhaps for you. I don't use the prepress features (I do mostly game and web graphics), so I see a stripped-down version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements as more worth the price tag.
When the GIMP (or comprable app) can use the photshop 5 keyboard shortcuts
You can change any GIMP shortcut by right-clicking an image to open the menu, hovering over a menu item, and pressing the key you want to use to activate the menu item. Most GTK+ apps work the same way.
get color right
Again, if this were implemented, GIMP would not be available in the United States of America or any other jurisdiction where somebody has a patent on using LUT-interpolated vector transformation for color correction.
support a gazillion fonts
GIMP supports as many fonts as you have installed on your system. I can see all my TrueType fonts from my copy of GIMP 1.2 for Windows.
read PSD files
Do you also expect Photoshop to read XCF files? Find me the spec for PSD files, and I'll send it to the GIMP people to implement.
launch in under ten seconds
On what kind of computer? Photoshop 5 takes over a minute to launch on my old 75 MHz Mac.
The day that OSS can produce a useable graphics app - that can be installed in less than five clicks without resorting to a terminal
Depends on how you have your window manager and desktop environment set up. I'll use Windows 98 Explorer for example, as that's what most popular *n?x desktops try to emulate, adding one step whenever the state of a mouse button changes from UP to DOWN. I'll also assume you turned the annoying CD-ROM Autorun feature off.
Note that instead of steps 1-4, I simply type F:\ into any open Explorer window.
Look for a GIF checkbox. Fail to find it because of Unisys's discriminatory licensing policies. Give up.
And you still haven't calibrated your display resolution. Because many poorly-written but popular Windows applications will not run correctly if the display resolution is set to anything but 96 dpi, many graphics applications (including GIMP) include their own settings for resolution.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Just wondering?
We wish to remind you that this [United States Constitution] is covered by modern copyright law.
Ignoring that works of the U.S. government immediately go to public domain, recent retroactive copyright term extensions may eventually make jokes similar to this a reality by exploiting a loophole in the "for limited Times" language. Yes, the courts consider one billion years and two days to count as a "limited time" under the letter of the Constitution.
Will I retire or break 10K?
until there are commercial quality publishing, illustration, vector animation and image editing apps (that at least have rudimentary support for CMYK color!)
That'll take about twenty years until the patents on using LUT-interpolated vector transformation to do CMYK separation (the only known feasible method) run out.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You are 100% correct regarding the GIMP vs. Photoshop. The GIMP _MAY_ be a replacement for Paintshop Pro (ok, not quite). The GIMP is "cool" and "neat" (I like having access to the libs from Perl, for example), but it's nowhere near a professional graphics package.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
This poster is dead wrong on the facts. Firstly, IP was recognized in the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 [nara.gov], long before the invention of the cotton gin.
Uh huh. And the guy you're replying to said "both inventions were made AFTER patents were made available in the US."
So how is that fact in dispute?
"And like that
Snap-on tools are expensive because they're made to be used in a professional workflow. Same with photoshop. I can't think of many things I need to do at home that couldn't be done with Photo Deluxe, Fireworks, or the GIMP. Photoshop costs money because of its color management, automation, and other labor saving functions. Many of its features are unnecessary if you only touch-up one image a week. But if you do it every day, the time starts to add up. Adobe's own marketing clouds the issue, since they market Photoshop for web imaging, which is a small concern compared to its major use, print work. No one in print would use anything else, ever. No need to market it heavily. Its prepress features are top notch and unparalleled. Ask yourself, what "home" user needs prepress features?
Please somebody mod this guy up. His point about the patents should be heard.
War is necrophilia.
Somebody else said it and I'll say it again in case it gets lost in the noise.
Why don't you rail against adobe to open up their file formats so that GIMP can open them. Why don't you complain to these companies to release their patents on color correction and font manipulation so that GIMP can implement them. One of the main reasons why GIMP can't do these things is that it's actually ILLEGAL for them to do it. It's one thing to expect open source developers to implement some feature it's another to expect them to go to jail of face bankrupcy from a lawsuit.
War is necrophilia.
Personally, I don't see the reason to stick with Photoshop at all if you're a Windows user who just wants to use some plug-ins, touch-up some photos, design things for web pages, and so forth.
For about 1/4th. the price, you can buy Paint Shop Pro 7 and do anything you'll probably ever need - sometimes more easily than in Photoshop.
(EG. Have you ever tried to load in 2 different JPG photos and merge them so they're the left side/right side of one JPG photo? Comes in real handy for things like eBay photos, where you get charged for photos beyond the 1st. free one you post with an advertisement. Anyway, in Photoshop, it's a pretty complex process. I sure couldn't figure it out intuitively. In Paint Shop Pro, you just drag the photos into a new window, and voila!)
AFAIK, there isn't a product that offers the exact same functionality of Photoshop for less than 1/10 of the price
Think about it....if there _was_ would anyone buy photoshop? Of course not! If you want to save money try the GIMP, you can't beat the price.
This is getting ridiculous.
Maybe there is hope in the future. Perhaps all corporations will merge into one single gigantic corporation that controls everything. Then this corporation will infringe its own patents and compete with itself. Maybe it will then sue itself out of existance.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
That the first sign of the impending death of any tehnology company is when they start paying lawyers rather then engineers.
Something to think about.
AFAIK, if you're not using the software professionally, then you don't need all the functionality of Photoshop...
...and for 1/10th the price, you can pick up PaintShop Pro, which is more than most non-professionals will ever need, too, but is still dirt cheap.
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Oh, get honest. Just because they're bits on a disc doesn't make them any less a product than a laser printer.
In fact, a whole lot of the same work goes into either product: research, customer needs analysis, design, prototyping, production, fine-tuning, sales, post-sales support, documentation, etc.
Yes, yes, fuck, yes: when you steal software, you're not stealing physical product. Big fucking deal. The physical materials cost in almost any product is piss-all.
The investment in development is the costly bit, and is the bit the developer must gain back, be he developing printers, Porsches, or Photoshop.
Anyone who claims piracy "isn't really stealing" is a cowardly liar.
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of patents?
That, my anonymous coward, is an entirely different topic.
And I believe you're right on the money. Adobe gives its product to art schools, and makes it easy to copy, because that entrenches it in its target market.
It's kind of like drug dealers offering the first hit for free. Or, for that matter, Saturn dealers offering a money-back guarantee. Just try it, you'll like it well enough and certainly will develop the habits and skills that keep you tied to it.
It's not like there aren't competing products that aren't every bit as good as Photoshop; I'll wager that Corel PhotoPaint has far more functionality than Photoshop (real scripting, for starters), yet it certainly isn't the standard.
That's because Adobe was smart about marketing, and Corel isn't.
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For those trashing Adobe as a greedy company with a $600 program, don't forget something very rare in the software industry: Adobe's license lets you install one copy at work and one at home as long as both aren't used at the same time. Okay, they're just making legal what most people do anyway, but it's a good idea.
Photoshop is a professional tool and is priced appropriately: if you make money off of it, you should pay for it. If you're a student, Adobe has educational discounts at a fraction of retail.
Add that to their distaste for dongles, the general quality of the software, interoperability, Windows-Mac cross platform operation, lower-cost bundling, and reasonable/timely upgrades (a couple minor incidents aside), and I'd say Adobe's pricing and licensing is pretty good.
It's these same companies that spend money on R&D. Just as a company pays a worker $x/hour (plus expenses) to make widgets, it's paying a scientist $y/hour (plus expenses) to come up with new and unique ideas for widgets. It seems odd for a company to invest all that money, only to not own the fruits of that labor.
Even independent scientists generally benefit from being able to sell their patent to a company. Take Thomas Edison, for example. When he invented the electric light bulb, he had no interest in building a production facility. He just wanted to spend his time continuing to create new and different things (which we should all be thankful for). So he sold his patent to a company (GE, I believe, though my memory's not the best) for a sum of money that exceeded his original asking price. Edison was happy as he got more money than he expected, allowing him to continue to invent. GE was happy as they could actually afford to manufacture light bulbs and make a sizeable profit selling them.
Now one could argue that a ban on corporations owning patents would have meant they'd have licensed it from Edison, allowing him to continue to receive money. However, the sale of the patent could've just as easily been reworded in terms of an exclusive, flat rate, 17 year (or whatever the patent lifetime was) contract.
Reset your double click speed dumbass..
Two clicks is still two clicks, no matter how far apart in time they occur.
And you made your install on a WinXX box when the auther clearly states that most graphics people use macs.
The Macintosh interface saves two clicks on "My Computer" (by placing a shortcut to the CD drive on the desktop) and saves three clicks by converting the "associate" options to a single "add desktop droplet", but ten clicks is still greater than five.
Will I retire or break 10K?
That patent was invalidated because of the prior art of Joseph Swan.