Slashdot Mirror
Photoshop in Linux Thanks to Disney
miladus writes "eWeek
reports that Walt Disney's feature animation unit (along with 2 other
unnamed studios) are using Adobe's Photoshop in Linux. They use the Wine emulator
to run the software and the 3 studios 'not known as team players, all
three agreed that a project that would benefit the entire open-source
community while delivering a technology they needed--was worth their cooperation'."
I just remembered reading this article in Linux Journal about Dreamworks running Photoshop via VMWare.
Unique signatures are rare.
I wonder if/when Apple will release a powerful yet easy to use image editor to compete with Photoshop. I'd like to see what they can do, as I think Photoshop's UI "is the sux", as the kids say.
What about speed issues? Isn't photoshop+wine a lot slower than running it in native win32? I can hardly run mirc with wine on a 1ghz computer (only a test, I don't really use mirc ;)
has anyone actually tried to run ps on linux? How does the performance measure up to say a mac or windose box? I would also like to see Adobe golive run nicely on linux too. Maybe adobe will notice the need for its apps on linux and start porting them.
_+_+__+_+_+_+_+_+_+++
when i moo u moo - just like that
This is a major improvement for Linux. I know of many people who dont use Linux because of Photoshop.
I hope other companies do the same thing Disney did, with other poducts. It would bw a great boost to Linux on the desktop.
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
The best part of the GIMP is that it is free. For those of us on Windows, the idea of using Photoshop on Linux is cool, but I'd still have to pay for it. Until then, the GIMP is my tool of choice.
In your experience, where have you seen instability problems with Photoshop? Do you know it to run poorly under Wine?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I don't get where their numbers are coming from.
Apparently Photoshop on Windows costs $50K+$40K support == $90K
Photoshop on linux costs $15K.
Last I checked, Photoshop was around $600 per workstation. XP Pro is $200/station, and I think licenses for NT/2K/2K3 server are around $100/seat. So really, Windows ended up being the cheaper part of of the equation, at $300 per station.
Support? How is it that Windows support is $40K/yr but linux support is free? There's just as much free Windows support out there as linux.
I applaud the effort to move off Windows, and I'm glad to see that WINE is of this caliber quality, but don't justify your switch with a bunch of nonsense numbers.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
On a related note, I'm still kind of surprised that Adobe wouldn't port Photoshop over to Linux even for a company with as much clout as Disney. Seriously, I realize it's a LOT of work to port an app that massive, but if basically every animator who runs linux wants it, why not? Catering to your customers is definitely part of a good business model. Since Adobe's management switched over not too far back though, I think some of the crazy innovations might be slower-coming these days. Guess that's what happens when you replace someone with vision (Adobe founder) with a Marketing drone (current CEO, IIRC).
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA. ..."
Oh yeah.
I dislike the company, but there are some really cool, nifty, interesting things, technologically, that disney does.
One of my favourite examples - The core development team of Squeak smalltalk is resident at Disney. Smalltalk hackers are a cool bunch. And yes, Squeak is open source.
Anyway, I'm sure there are many cool nerds at Disney.
-Laxitive
If the same license fees are paid to Adobe for photoshop no matter if you run on Windows or Linxu where is the huge savings? Did MS change the fees fo desktop windows as of late4 without telling us?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Can anyone whose done real work with Photoshop-on-WINE comment on how they deal with display calibration and colorspace issues? How do you make sure what you see on your linux box is what you get from your film printer?
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
What would be really great news is that there was a native *nix version again. ( there was one for SGI long ago.. so they cant claim it cant be done ).
While using it in wine may be nice, and shows wine is improving, ( hats off to their team ) it really doesn't mean THAT much in the grand scheme of things.... we don't want to be relegated to just be an 'emulator' ( yes i know its not 100% accurate to say emulation, but you get the point so its close enough )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I used to sort of like the Gimp, because I thought it had great promise. That was back in '98 or so. It's still mostly stuck with a UI that blows big time. Something as basic as drawing lines is still ridiculously unintuitive. Do you seriously think that the amount of money they spent on getting Photoshop running on Linux would make much difference to the quality of the Gimp?
So you do this for a living... let's see, spending a few hundred bucks up front, verses several extra clicks for each and every manipulation you do for 8 hours a day for the next couple years. Hrmmm, not exactly a rough choice is it?
It's true; I could typeset my documents with Emacs and LaTeX. That fact doesn't stop me from using Word though.
Actually, I much prefer vim and LaTeX. Word doesn't do typesetting btw, you'd be better off using Adobe InDesign/FrameMaker, quark xpress or even Microsoft Publisher(!)(an almost forgotten product, but even the windows 3.1 version was a whole lot better at typesetting than word is).
Word's market isn't typesetting (or even DTP) or complicated document management; it's general use word processing. You shouldn't compare it to LaTeX, but to OpenOffice for example. And ooO certainly does have clunky-UI issues!
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
My understanding is that Disney is also responsible for the TEA templating system used by ESPN, go.com and a few other big Disney owned sites. They've stop hosting the project pages and the new pages can be found at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/teatrove/
"Tea is a simple, powerful, compiled, high-performance, content creating template language that elegantly separates application logic from layout. The TeaServlet makes Tea development easy, by linking into a servlet container."
Made Linux versions of their software I would never have to use Windows or OS-X again, and would be a much nerdier and happier person (happier cause I wouldn't have to keep upgrading both my expensive OS's).....
Of course there is a 99% chance that will NEVER happen, and even if I use Wine or (insert YOUR favorite Crossover app) I still have to have windows on a partition - hence I still am supposed to buy/pay for a copy of windows - so why not just have Windows....
Ave Molech Setting
No, that exploding sound you hear is thousands of wine fanatics reading the article and going, "Wine is NOT AN EMULATOR!!
I thought the joke embedded in the acronym was that it stood for BOTH of:
- WINdows Emulator.
- Wine Is Not an Emulator.
Because it DOES provide a Windows API (which is one of the definitions of "emulator") but DOESN'T software emulate the machine itself (which is part of the USUAL definition of "emulator"), instead running the application's executable code "directly on the metal" - avoiding the massive speed penalty - and doing as much as practical of the API emulation by leveraging Linux native services rather than replacing them.
But I don't actually KNOW how much of that is true. If one of the WINE core group can confirm or correct this post I'd appreciate it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If the GIMP acted more like...well, any other image editor, it might be an easier sell.
Even Photopaint and Paint Shop Pro are reasonably similar to Photoshop. Painter is also adopting the Photoshop-like interface.
To me, the GIMP might have features and capabilities close to Photoshop (in my experience it doesn't...unusable files and strange stuff like blur also darkening images), but I know how to use Photoshop. Other programs import layered Photoshop documents (After Effects anyone?). Subjectively, I think the interface is *terrible*. That's me, other folks may like it. But it keeps me from using the program, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
Don't get me wrong, it's an admirable project. I can't see using it professionally though. Some do (film GIMP, or whatever it's called now), but I don't.
As for the cost of Photoshop...it's reasonable. It's a professional tool that's pretty standard. Buy it in a bundle for $1000 (or $500 educational). If you can't afford that, get Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop Elements. Considering it's pretty much a one time major expense coupled with $150 upgrades every 18-24 months, it's not a bad professional or serious hobby use cost. If all you want is to resize a pic for a background or something, obviously you don't need Photoshop. If you stand to make several thousand dollars from a project, $150 for that Photoshop 7 upgrade isn't much...having the right tools is worth quite a bit.
It sounds like you never used photoshop of any period of time. I have been using GIMP for years until last year when I got a Mac and after having GIMP Crash on me every 5 minutes I forked over some cash and got photoshop (I got it at a good price off ebay) And even though I have more years with GIMP I must say Photoshop is a lot better then the GIMP and that is without the filters. It may have most of the same tools but I found photoshop is layed out in a method that is a lot easier to use and more powerful. Sure you can make art with any tool. I have seen some quality pictures done in MS Paint. I am no means a graphical full graphical artest but I need to give my programs I make a nice polish to them and I found that using Photoshop allows me to make a lot looking nicer application then with GIMP. And having tools that make your life easier is not a hack it is a tool to make yourself a lot easier. It is like saying that a person is not a true artest because they need to use a ruler to make a straight line.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I always thought a lot of the interface complaints came from people who were used to using Photoshop and then couldn't find stuff in the Gimp because it didn't just copy the Photoshop interface.
I got used to using the Gimp then I tried out my sister's copy of Photoshop for a couple of simple operations. I found the Photoshop interface to be a bit less efficent (the gimp would include a couple of useful features in a dialog box that Photoship didn't) in a couple of places, but more or less equivilent in my mind.
The biggest stumbling block I see for the Gimp is lack of native CMYK support, which is a big deal in the professional publishing biz (or so I'm told). After trying Photoshop, I went back to the Gimp and never thought twice about it.
I read the internet for the articles.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Apple has such a large hunk of the graphic design market because its workflow is much better suited to the task. Windows tends not to make a big impression with your typical Mac photoshopite because it gets in your way far too often. Windows' color matching is cheap, the keyboard shortcuts are so inefficient as to be practically useless, and the scripting environment sucks. Anybody can write an AppleScript to shortcut a task, with a little effort you can write one by hand to be even more useful. The keyboard shortcuts are obvious and easily accessible rather than modal like Windows shortcuts. ColorSync beats the pants off Windows color matching and is native to all applications.
MacOS' workflow was the draw during "dark times", Adobe merely catered to this affinity by keeping Photoshop available. The workflow of Linux is too variable to really compare to MacOS or even Windows. Every desktop environment and window manager is going to give the user a different experience. Using Nautilus or gmc or Konq make just managing files entirely different experiences. X11's color matching is a joke, even when you've got monitor specifications. The print environment is also inconsistant and iffy at best. Linux is a good replacement for Windows machines performing several duties. It is not however suddenly going to sweep Windows or MacOS under the rug just because Photoshop runs on it.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
This only encourages Adobe to put even less effort in linux. Why bother making your product work properly on linux when you can have others do it for you free of charge?
This is just free money for Adobe and lets them sell additional copies without having to worry about support or how well the product works. This isn't going to pressure Adobe into anything.
Taking Wine to its obvious conclusion you have to ask yourself, why turn Linux into a Windows clone?
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the Adobe products come to linux. It's just that I don't see Wine doing anything but crippling linux in the long run.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
If you're interested in contacting Adobe, here's a direct link to their Feature Request form. I suggest as many of us as possible to visit this page and let Adobe know there certainly is a demand for their product. We're talking 3 studios here, including Disney. Lets make some (positive) noise!
http://www.adobe.com/support/feature.html
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Monitors, Projectors and all light emitting devices are RGB!
On a press CMYK works by absorbing the RGB light rays (from white light) respectively, depending on the amount of ink on the paper, (in halftone or even solid depending on the color required) thus the reflected light (which is not absorbed) is what gives the color you see when reflected.
Calibrating your monitor correctly is important, color seperation is NOT required unless you are doing pre-press. Have a 4 color printer attached to your PC do you? (for those not paying attention black is NOT a color!)
I use PS on Windows for all my digital photo editing (as can be seen in my signature). But I still need to use Windows because my scanner, a Canon scanner, only has software for Windows. If the scanner worked in Linux then all my digital photo editing would no longer require Windows.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Photoshop in linux...? Could this be a bad thing? Once you have the end-all photo editing suite available in linux, what happens to all the great photoshop-esque programs that opensource devs have been woring on for years? It sort of sticks a knife in the gimp's throat, if you know what i mean. Now, being that it's running on WINE and not being ported to run on linux directly, this might not be the case.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
Thank you for making my point. And just why should they learn yet another interface? Because it is "better"?
Well, I'm sure the authors think it is better, but if at least one of them would take his head out of his ass for once, he'd realize that the professional people do not want "better" GUIs, they want GUIs they are familiar with - something they can get the work done right away and not after learning yet another goddamn arrangement of menus, buttons and dialogs.
This is what you open source people just don't seem to get. You people Ignore (with capital I) what the end users want. You are so caught up with being different, revolutionary and 3133t that you want to revise everything. Well, the Adobe GUI does not need revising. People already know how to use it. Revise whatever is under the hood instead. Make it work faster. Make it work more reliably. Make it do more. But whatever you do, don't change the interface.
You may have the time to tweak your kernel, compile your applications and learn a dozen new programming languages a week, but when it comes to the real world you need the results now - preferably already yesterday. Work under the hood and clone the de facto standard interfaces shamelessly.
BOO! TERRO
Why bother making your product work properly on linux when you can have others do it for you free of charge?
If Marketing can convince Quality Assurance to test the Windows ports of the publisher's products on all three platforms (Wine, Windows 9x, and Windows NT) instead of just two (9x and NT), then Marketing scores an extra bullet point in the products' features lists.
why turn Linux into a Windows clone?
Commercial distributors of emancipated operating systems want whatever the market wants. During my college education (1999-2003), the market wanted a Windows clone.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Overview of Changes in GIMP 1.3.17
- Made the text tool optionally create a path [Sven, Mitch]
- Added the ability to reverse gradients to the blend tool [Mitch]
- Added dithering to the blend tool [Alastair M. Robinson]
- Changed all(?) GIMP-1.4 references to GIMP-2.0 [Sven]
- Allow to transform paths using the transform tools [Mitch]
- Added a simple CMYK color selector [Sven]
- Added naive RGB CMYK conversion routines [Sven]
- Generalized paint tools [Mitch]
- Finally a brush-shaped cursor for all paint tools [Mitch]
- Started to integrate new composite functions [Helvetix]
- Made the style for dockable tabs configurable [Mitch]
- Some preparations for text transformations [Sven]
- Store grid settings in XCF [Brix]
- Redone assembly checks and run-time checks for CPU features [Sven]
- Added lots of mnemonics to the menus [Jimmac]
- Support for comments in PNG files [Sven]
- Constified the libgimp API and adapted all plug-ins [Yosh, Sven]
- Cleaned up the brush/font/gradient/pattern selector API [Mitch]
- Support for patterns with alpha channel [Bolsh]
- Lots of bug fixes