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Dvorak on 'Rinky-Dink' Software Rant
DigitalDame2 writes "John C. Dvorak explores the trials and tribulations of photo editing software and why it's so difficult to use. Unless you are using these programs full-time, you spend a lot of time trying to figure things out. Is it too much to ask for a simple and powerful software program that can do the 45 things photographers do most in Photoshop?"
Which is why I use MSPaint.
MS PAINT 4 LYFE!
"we want simple complexity" - yes, when you can tell me how to do that i'll write you the program.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I thought Adobe Photoshop was easy/ier....
I forgot to be anonymous.
For the love of god, PLEASE stop posting articles from dvorak. It is just sadistic.
People may want only 12 things available, but each person may want a different 12 things. When you put several versions of the "45 things" list together, you get Photoshop. Or, uh, Microsoft Works. Except it doesn't, you see.
Learn something new every day!
I can't say that I have used Photoshop, but aren't script-fu etc in gimp what this bloke wishes were in Photoshop?
Christ if Picasa or iPhoto aren't good enough for simple photo enhancing editing then you -do- need to learn how to use professional editing programs like Gimp or Photoshop.
I installed Picasa on a person's computer who is a novice at using machines but wanted to make his photo's look a bit better. He nearly fell of the chair when he saw he could simply drag slider bars for highlighting and colouring changes, as simple as it could be.
Dvoark is a relic.
No, I do not really use MSPaint for photo editing.
...but then again, it's a Mac program, and you can't be a tech writer and like something Apple has produced unless you're biased.
Yaz.
http://picasa.google.com/index.html
It's free and easy to use and doesn't install any crap / spyware.
He wants to do something that is fundamentally complex, which is edit photos. Okay, he wants to remove red eye? He's going to have to tell the program where to remove the red eye from. He wants to crop the photo? Is the program supposed to know how? What about rotating, changing the brightness, etc.
Of course it's complex. What does he expect? A miracle? Artificial intelligence?
The best, easiest software is Picasa. It's interface is pretty simple, and I recommend it to all my tech unsavvy friends, and it seems to work.
The comment is at least 100% funny. The fact that it makes fun of the subject of the article rather than making fun of Dvorak makes it even funnier and somewhat refreshing. MS Paint is an alternative for Photoshop, regardless of its simplicity and ugliness. Kids can use all of MS Paint's functions while many adults struggle to use Photoshop.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Weird name, useful utility.
I'm no expert on image editing - I very rarely do it. When I do need to edit the size of a photo (for a web page or such), I often have problems finding a program that will let _me_ tell it the width, height and resolution - without using something like photoshop.
Perhaps someone knows of something simple yet able to do just this?
I'm sure photoshop is great, but it's hardly worth installing a large, expensive program just to have control over the size and resolution of your images.
Perhaps a free (Mmmm..beer) "Photoshop Lite"? Or have I missed a great little free program that's out there?
And that kids is how I met your mother.
aol pictures at http://pictures.aol.com/ provides one click auto red eye reduction, color correction, cropping all in one active x control free for anybody. what else do you need
I've seen these least common denominator programs bundled with cameras and PC's. Most of them are little more than a teaser to buy the full version.
I bought a camera that came with a program from Arc-Soft. It's not photoshop and it's not megabucks in price.
It does do all the simpler items needed for common photo editing and is not complicated. Red eye reduction, croping, changing size, changing resolution, adjusting contrast, brightness, saturation, etc are all not difficult. Stitching several photos together and adding text are also not difficult. Compressing for e-mail is also not hard.
The program does not have advanced bells and whistles such as adding lens flare and beveled edges for web buttons, but this might be in line of the simple but not dummed down software he is looking for.
It came bundled with my old Ricoh 3MP camera.
The truth shall set you free!
He should really try iPhoto.
I think it matches the description perfectly.
If he's only wanting to do a few basic things, the software that comes with the camera -is- going to be sufficient for many users. On the other hand, if you want professional grade results, you have to learn to use a professional grade tool at a professional level. And that takes time. This guy's asking for a miracle, not a program.
As to photographers-professional ones that make their living that way-I'd venture a guess that they can do those "45 things" in their sleep. Because they took the time to LEARN, just as you have to do with anything you wish to do well, whether it's playing a guitar or editing a photo.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Actually, this is why for quick edits, I like to use Paint Shop Pro 5 (ca. 1998); logical, loads fast, most the tools I need, and no bloat. Of course Gimp rocks, but then I have to agree with his complaints.
From the article
"You want to make the picture more vibrant, get rid of red-eye, remove an object from the scene, and maybe swap the heads of the people in the picture" After all, all these things are easy to describe, so they must be easy to make as a one-click tool, right?
ha!
As someone who uses Photoshop for a wide variety of things, the very thought of trying to boil down any one of these, with the possible exception of the red-eye, to a simple one or two step tool is ludicrous
You want to make the picture more vibrant? Well, what type of colour range exists? What part of the picture are you trying to emphasize? What colour standard (RGB, CMYK, etc) is it in? These are a half dozen different tools for this for a reason, a different situation calls for a different tool.
Remove an object from the scene? Well, what types of objects are around it? What is behind it? How do the shadows affect the rest of the image? The very thought of approaching this without a dozen different tools is silly. A half dozen selection tools alone. See, in Star Trek they can hit the 'delete things' button, the computer magically makes up background, but this is real life. Ditto for the 'let's swap heads'. After all, you saw a kid doing it in a computer commercial once, so it has to be easy. Almost all the same problems, and a couple more as well.
Yes, it would be nice, but at some point the skills are necessary. If you want a more basic package Adobe and a handful of others make things like Adobe Elements which take care of a lot of this, but are still a more complex level of program. However, this is one of those things that where how complex the process is and how complicated the end result looks have nothing to do with each other. Get off it and learn the tools for the job.
One thing that doesn't seem to need making any easier is to write ill-informed IT commentary columns.
This sort of complaint would sound silly in another context. Imagine writing to a medical magazine about how "neurosurgery is too complicated" and they should make it easier to understand. Or rocket science? "They should make the 10 most common kinds of rockets easier to design".
I'm all for cleaning up and improving some of the actively user-hostile interfaces you come across but this kind of complaint really does sound like "complicated things should be easy and require no thought or effort".
Ironically, some of the programs that are aimed at newbies are very difficult to use because they're inflexible and patronisingly assume the user is a dolt. Better software will help people up the learning curve so they can do more complex things with their photos than they originally knew were possible.
Ame
If anything, I kind of wish that certain "things photographers do most" were MORE difficult to find: I'm one of the art moderators on Elfwood (a big sci-fi/fantasy art web site), and let's just say that the world would be a better place if budding young artists did not immediately pull out the lens flare filter every time they needed a fairy or extra magical sparkle in their work.
Personally, though, I prefer using Painter Classic for general digital art because I find it more comfortable to use. It's not exactly photo-oriented like Photoshop is, but it can still be used for photo manipulation. I use The GIMP occasionally as well, but I can't figure out how to make it recognize my tablet's pressure sensitivity, so I don't use it very often.
Now with Photoshop, most photographers only want to do perhaps a dozen or so functions. You want to make the picture more vibrant, get rid of red-eye, remove an object from the scene, and maybe swap the heads of the people in the picture. Oh, yes, and you want to crop. Essentially, you want to optimize the photo.
What are we talking about here? A button for each one of those? Because that kind of operations are often hard enough to do with full-fledged image editing software (do well, atleast). Aren't we asking a little to much?
Anyway, if all that we want is image editing software with the basic operations (selection, basic filtering, cropping, etc), there's plenty of those arround already. No need to use Photoshop.
I'm assuming he's using MS Windows. I'm also assuming he hasn't heard of Picasa. I guess he also hasn't heard of Aperture, by Apple. Personally, I'm more of an iPhoto kinda of guy, since my personal foto lib is about 3K (I like to take pictures), it does a good enough job.
Now, one thing I do remember about Dvorak is that he's almost as bad of a MS Apologist as Paul Thurrott, so in his mind, decent PC freeware and Apple solutions are probabally out of the question for him. Shame, he's mising out.
Burn Hollywood Burn
...are articles like this getting posted on the frontpage (or at all)? All the article comes down to is a rant from an idiot who appears frustrated with their ineptness at being able to use image editing programs.
It's called iPhoto.
Affect the things you can, John. --Scorpy
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Irfanview. It's free for personal use, easy to find, and easy to use. It even does batch conversions quite well.
Open image. Click-drag a box to select an area to crop. Hit Menu-Something to crop. Then Menu-Something-Else to resize. I use it all the time for day to day work w/partial screen shots and other basic image tasks.
Picassa is great too, but in many cases it's a little too invasive for a quick screenshot fix or image resize.
Is it too much to ask for a simple and powerful software program that can do the 45 things photographers do most in Photoshop?"
You could use The Gimp. And download the 45 plugins that have probably already been written because it's very easy to write a gimp plugin.
:wq
since my personal foto lib is about 3K (I like to take pictures)
:P
Only 3 KBytes? Wow. That's some good compression.
TRHOnline - Staggering Towards Brilliance
gimp == lame
and it's more than the name...
I agree.
Most photo editing packages suffer from tremendous feature bloat and simple paint packages miss key basic functions. I work with a lot of time frustrated web artists and they have the same complaints about packages being too much or too little with no good middle-ground packages.
I'd to see a non-technical "Gimp Lite" or "PhotoShop lite-lite-lite" that still had the very few features that are used 90% of the time on just a handful of buttons or controls.
1. ability to insert text into a different (second) layer
2. ability to crop and resize
3. ability to define "blobby" non-geometric areas for manipulation
4. 1 or 2 color balance sliders (think warm---cool)
5. a contrast slider
6. a brightness slider
7. a size compression vs. quality slider that showed the output image and probable size
8. burn and dodge tools.
Oh....as long as I'm dreaming about ideal software...how about a quick, intuitive way of toggle "tool tips" and such on and off, such as right-clicking?
Those of us with ADD find that animations and pop-ups really interfere with our creative trains of
hey...I've got mail!
sounds liek a toal n00b..
I dare bet using Notepad to write some text is hard too if you can't read or write.
Why is he expecting graphics applications to be any easier if he doesn't understand the basics of computer graphics?
And using PhotoShop as an example... Why would somebody who just wants to remove red-eye or crop a picture buy a $600 program? PhotoShop is complex because it is meant for professionals. Adobe also has Elements at $90, which DOES have the red-eye and easy cropping he want (and which is NOT an older version of Photoshop with name changed (apparently dvorak never even tried using it, since it blatently ovbious NOT what he describes it to be), but rather a recent version with drastically cut functionality and a "workflow"-like interface).
But apparently he wants something which only requires one button to read his mind and alter the photo accordingly. With great power comes great responsibility. Don't want the responsibility? Then don't demand the power!
But just to quote from the article:
"These programs assume that you are a dolt."
Dvorak... you ARE a dolt.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
...the 45 things photographers do most in Photoshop...
Would that be snapshot photographers (red-eye removal, tilt correction, silly filters), amateur photographers (not sure here, maybe a little bit of colour/curves adjustment, retouching), professional photographers (pretty much everything), or non-photographers (lots of artists use PS and never touch a camera)?
Not everyone needs Photoshop, it's complicated for a reason. Most snapshot-takers would be fine with Picasa/iPhoto.
Game dev and music blog
Now with Photoshop, most photographers only want to do perhaps a dozen or so functions. You want to make the picture more vibrant, get rid of red-eye, remove an object from the scene, and maybe swap the heads of the people in the picture.
This guys level of expertise is showing. Users just want to remove an object from the scene? One of the hardest things to do in ANY package - I suppose he expects to just click a button, then click the object and voila! It's gone! The closest thing to that function is the selection wizard - and those that use it know how prone to "error" it can be.
Oh, yes, and you want to crop.
What a numpty - it's right there on the toolbar in Photoshop, on the left, third one down. RTFM! And it's one of the easiest tools to use. What do you want? Auto crop? Click a button and the software crops the image for you. Exactly how you want it?
Essentially, you want to optimize the photo.
Start with Ctrl-Shift-L.
Then you can try this.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
Because they're hard to do and take skill. Someone who's never used a keyboard before might think it's "overly complex". "Unless you are using the keyboard full time, you spend a lot of time figuring it out".
Here's a clue Dvorak, doing complex things requires you to learn how to do them. Why do you make this assumption that doing everything is simple?
AccountKiller
...yeah, why can't I cure cancer? I mean, we know it's caused by *cells* and it's in the *body*. Why hasn't science made a pill to cure it yet?
Seriously, I haven't consumed a more ignorant piece of media since the last time I watched the O'Reilly Factor.
Information isn't that simple, mister Dvorak. How are you going to tell a computer to do you want it to do when you haven't even defined it? And when you do try to define it, it's so nebulous as to be irrelevant.
You want to be able to do something skillful while lacking skills? And at the same time, you criticize programs that try to lead you through the process? That sounds pretty "rinky dink" to me.
vk.
for those that didn't read the article "bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bibitch bitch bitch nothing is good enough for me and people pay me to bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch"
Im sure he'd find it even more annoying using photoshop without a mouse!
He directly/indirectly bashes Apple at least once a month, yet.. as previously stated, iPhoto fits his vision of a utopian photo editor *perfectly*. I use it; it's simple, and just powerful enough to cover the basics of home photo management/editing.
I also agree that Slashdot should stop posting the trash he writes.. he complains about Windows, hates Apple, and is nowhere near smart enough to even *try* using Linux (imagine the articles that would come out of that experience). Why should people care what he has to say? I certainly don't.
I don't understand why people like iPhoto. It's quirky and awkward. It organizes all your photos in some crazy scheme on the disk (like the iPod!), it can't do much besides crop, and its "magic button" approach to colour fixing generally produces worse pictures than what you started with. It can't recognize duplicate photos and it will stupidly re-download all your photos every time unless you delete them from the camera - HELLO! The only redeeming feature of this program is the ability to zoom in and out on your entire photo collection, and that's a gimmick. Whoopie.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
isn't that what photoshop elements was designed for? It's only $89
Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 4.0 software combines power and simplicity to help you do it all. Edit and enhance your photos by fixing common flaws instantly or using advanced options for more control. Keep every photo at your fingertips. And show off your creativity in entertaining slide shows, photo mail, Web galleries, and countless other ways.
Is it too much to ask for a simple and powerful software program that can do the 45 things photographers do most in Photoshop?
I think it's too much to ask for another program that does everything that's simple to use. How the hell is Photoshop 'difficult', anyway?
Who Am I?
I draw a vector circle, I want to add bevel and a drop shadow.
I want to apply it to the entire circle, hence I want to do something with the entire layer.
I realise that Photoshop has a useful feature called layered styles.
I add the bevel layer style.
I add the drop shadow layer style.
I am not John C. Dvorak.
Give up? Too bad. I'm everybody else with a sense of intuitivism.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
Seriously, Picasa is fantastic. Yet another formerly-commercial package bought by Google, improved, and distributed free.
It has a nice interface, the common photo editing tools are straightforward to use, and since the Google days, there's even an I'm Feeling Lucky button for colour and tone enhancement! I use Photoshop every day, and love it, but it took an awful lot of work to learn it. Picasa, though, I just installed and started using straight away.
http://www.picasa.com/
I have been a user of photo editing software for a while now, for middle size tasks, red-eye, crop, rotate, balance, just "everyday" stuff, but sometimes I want to do things a bit more "complicated". I have noticed that a program like photoshop is too much for me, and a program like picassa too little, so I have been using Ulead Photoimpact for a while now, and I really like it, it's interfase is very intuitive, it is filled with Wizards, even a photo enchancing tool, that "almost reads your mind", and also, a bit more "hidden" power functions, for the advanced user, it can take photoshop plugins, use layers, etc... I think that if you want a well balanced software that can be there for everyday use, and also have the option to do power edition, without the bulk, in a very smart elegant and gentle way. you should try Ulead Photoimpact. http://www.ulead.com/pi/features.htm
And no I'm not a affiliated with Ulead in anyway, I just think that their software is good.
I think with the lack of Jon Katz postings, slashdot thinks we need another *great* person to discuss about.
Long live teh Dvorak age!
The reason photo editing is difficult to use, is because photo editing is difficult to do.
The fundamental problem with photo software is that computers don't have a clue about what they are doing so they can't help you. You may just wan't to make the subject stand out from the background, but the computer can't tell the difference between a cat and an orange so you have to describe exactly where the subject is. Magic wand tools are a help, but there not that good because even when you've defined the outline of an object accurately the computer doesn't have a clue what it is so you still have to describe exactly what you want to do with it.
In this respect photo editors are tools, not aids and must require training.
Compare this to a PIM tool where the defining a data object is as easy as typing text into a text box. The computer knows what you mean when you gesture to remove an ex-girlfriend from an address book because you have told it what an entry is and how to delete it. We're many years from being able to say "remove my ex-girlfriend from all of my old photos" and have it work as effectively.
One of the best rules of thumb in computer science is if its hard from computers its easy for humans, and vice versa. Nothing emphasises this more than dealing with images and objects.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
"I just saw Apple's Aperture and realized that even with 10,000 extra applications at my disposal, they almost all suck. Why is that?"
It's about quality not quantity. Thank goodness for Picassa.
Having helped a lot of friends out with Photoshop, it seems to me that the biggest problem that people face when trying to do things is translating what they want to do into "photoshop" speak. Really I think this is perhaps the most common type of usability problems in software today.
The vast majority of the time when someone asks me for help with Photoshop the conversation usually goes along the lines of: "Hey, how can I remove a blemish in photoshop" "Use the Clone-Brush tool" or "Hey, how can I fix the color on this old photo I scaned" "Adjust the color balance", or "How can I darken this bit of the image to make a shadow" "burn tool" etc.
It's not that these people are stupid, it's just that photoshop uses a lot of jargon that people aren't really familiar with.
The second biggest problem I think is that people who haven't done a lot of digital editing don't tend to think in terms of things like layers, fill, opacity, etc. Instead people have the tendancy to see the image like a sheet of paper.
Aside from these two big problems, the most common thing I see people have trouble with is selecting things out of an image- mainly because people spend an hour meticulously trying to select what they want to cut out instead of using the magic wand to select the background- invert selection and be done with it. Doing so is simply non-obvious to people.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I just had to do a quick diagramming of a small network I co-admin. I happened to be sitting at a windows machine at the time and did it out in MS paint. It came out pretty well.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
http://www.dl-c.com/Temp/products/pwintro.html
And programming is also hard. Why can't we have a program that does the same top twelve things that programmers do, but easily, and without all the difficulty?
It all comes down to reading the manuals and finding out what app will best fit your needs. Don't try to confuse yourself with the extras, but don't get software that doesn't give you what you want in terms of functionality. Right?
He obviously hasn't used Paint.NET. http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net
/. ?
And does anyone even read his column when it's not on the front page of
Amen,
What is he doing using a $600 professional software package to edit photos anyway! This is not a program for your parents to edit their home home holiday snaps on, but a design tool that is very good at what is does.
I have very few compliants about how complex this software is to use and most of them involve finding and editing muliple layers which shouldn't be a concern if you are editing photos.
Its sounds to me that Picasa would be more to his liking or even MSPaint (and I'm not joking)
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
If "The GIMP" was as widely known as, say, Firefox, we wouldn't even be having this discussion :)
C'mon guys and gals, The GIMP is open source, runs on Linux, Windows Macs and others, has everything you need.
Yes, all photo editing software requires learning but that is becuase of the inherient non-linearity of the subject matter (it is always going to be harder than formatting an email differently because you have millions of pixels each representing millions of colours being manipulated to the satisfacion of something as subjective as "it looks better now")
It will never be black and white (unless you want it to be :P )
Someone had to say it.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
i agree completely with this article but i have found an acceptable solution.
i do the occasional image editing, but only simple stuff, most of my editing is cropping, or resizing with the occasional cut/paste. For the past 10 years ive used image composer that is on a frontpage 95 cd (it use to be my dads before i confiscated it)
I tried using the gimp, but the 2342324 different options was just way more then i needed, way to confusing and a way to long loading time.
Thats why i not only have a frontpage 95 cd but even have a backup copy in case the original cd ever craps out. (I of course dont use frontpage)
I have bad karma....
Open source is heavenly, Microsoft is the devil, SCO is going to hell
is alt + E with me (German keyboard layout)
don't waste your karma, though...
And of course, EVERYBODY wants infinite power while expending minimum effort. Yeah, I'd like not just graphic-editing software, but everything-editing software that can do everything I would ever hope to do and be just as intuitive as walking to use and require no learning at all. I'd also like a billion dollars, a Playboy-model threesome in my bed every night, and a lamp-bound genie to grant me infinite wishes whenever I summon him. For free. All I have to do is hold out my hand and it will fall out of the sky to me, right? Hey, c'mon! What are you laughing at? What's so unreasonable about my request?
I'm going to keep repeating it until it sinks into the consciousness out there: "Stealth Bombers are more difficult to operate than tricycles BECAUSE THEY CAN FLY."
This is a good example of why some programs are better for certain tasks as others. From experience, I rarely use photoshop for simple tasks like cropping or resizing. Small things like that tend to be used in Paint Shop Pro, mostly because it takes a split second to load compared to photoshop. However, if I want to do long-term image manipulation; photoshop, gimp, and open canvas are normally my choice ( in that order ). If i'm working on something that involves drawings or painted art, I tend to use Open Canvas. IMHO Photoshop is becoming somewhat bloated with plugins and useless features.
The point is, software and hardware today are hard to use. The even more important part is: they're sold under the explicit _lie_ that they're oh-so-easy, and even your grandma could just plug one in and do everything right away.
If I step out of the nerd "well, duh, of course it's complicated, and anyway you're an idiot if you can't write your own program to do that instead of bothering me" mentality, and try to use them myself, as a simple user... the fact is, most of these programs are a right pain in the butt.
The user just has some seemingly simple concept, like "I want to remove the red eye" or "I want to recolor this red dress (e.g., a texture for The Sims 2) to blue, but FFS, leave the gold necklace alone. I don't want that turning purple." (I'm using that as an example, because that's one thing that _I_ got frustrated with in The Gimp. Anything short of manually tracing the outline myself, pixel-accurate, just didn't work right. The fuzzy select tool for example, just loved to go nuts and select the shoes too when I only wanted to change the dress, or and/or select random pixels from other parts of the texture.)
From a non-technical person's point of view, as in, every-day casual conversation, it's as simple a request as it can be: "I want that dress in blue." If you went to a clothing store with your GF and asked the store assistant "is that one available in blue too?", the store assistant would understand _exactly_ what you mean. You wouldn't have to go through all the hoops that these programs make you go through.
Tha problem is, yes, that it ends up, in your own words, "something that is fundamentally complex". And that's not what marketting told the user when they took his/her money. If they told the user "see, we have this fundamentally complex tool, and you need a college degree to use it", only then we'd really have the right to tell the user "well, duh, what did you expect?" At the moment he/she's led to expect the exact opposite.
And, to answer your question, what the average user expects is just that a product he's bought actually fulfills those promises that marketroids made. No more. If they said photo editing would be easy and intuitive, he expects it to be easy and intuitive, not something fundamentally complex.
And it's not an unreasonable expectation anyway. If I sold you any other product under explicit claims as to what it does and doesn't, you'd expect it to meet those claims.
E.g., if I sold someone a bicycle under the claim that it's such a new and improved model that even someone completely untrained can use it, they'd have all the right in the world to expect just that: that if they put their untrained kid on it, that kid won't fall over. Asking then "well, duh, what did you expect? a miracle? AI?" is missing the whole point. It's not their business to know how a bycicle would stay up with someone untrained on it. It could involve gyroscopes, or a computer, or whatever. It's not their job to know that. They bought a product under an explicit claim, they expect it to live up to that claim. That's all.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
SERIOUSLY. Ever heard of "don't feed the troll"??
The most thoughtful idea in this entire thread and article.
Now then, who's worse: Dvorak for continually writing such trash, or the (at least) two people who think it's a good idea to post said trash to Slashdot?
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
When I can't find anything useful in "Help", I use Google to find the answer, which with an image editor is often about a dozen arbitrary steps. Then what I would really like to do is paste the answer into the editor's "help" so I can find it quickly next time I search the help.
Does anything allow me to do this? And if not why not? Currently I use favorites to store helpful URLs but that's not really what I want. (PS: in the unlikely event this this is a new idea, I claim prior art, so no patenting!)
- Pete Austin
Dvorak is a tool (and a grouchy one at that.)
Sounds like what Dvorak is after is something like Adobe PhotoDeluxe which Adobe discontinued in favour of Elements.
"This sort of complaint would sound silly in another context. Imagine writing to a medical magazine about how "neurosurgery is too complicated" and they should make it easier to understand. Or rocket science? "They should make the 10 most common kinds of rockets easier to design"."
Ok, if you want to make that analogy, let's take it all the way, shall we?
Imagine a world where people sell you stuff like an iSurgeon kit for home use, or a "RocketMaker Pro 5" for home use. In fact, they'd even throw in a free trepanation drill (you know, for drilling holes in a skull) with other products, as a teaser to make you buy the full version, same as image editing software is bundled with cameras. Imagine furthermore that you're bombarded with ads telling you "Surgery is easy! It's fun! No previous expertise needed! Why, even your old grandma could strap someone on an iSurgeon table and give them a lobotomy, like a pro!"
Would you still think it's silly to expect those products to live up to those marketting claims? Why?
Let's say I sold you, say, a watch, under the explicit claim that it just does its job (e.g., stays accurate) and you don't need any expertise at all to use it. Then you discover that not only it doesn't do that, but you need take it apart and rearrange its cogs even for such a conceptually easy task as setting the alarm. Would you consider that scam normal too, or would you consider it just that: a scam?
That's the whole problem. It's not just that some software is hard, it's that it's sold as something it isn't. If it was sold as some complex tool only for experienced professionals, like surgery equipment is, then noone would have a problem with it. But the user is bombarded with ads telling him/her "Buy our iSnakeOil (TM)! It's easy! It's made for non-technical people like you! You don't need any knowledge or expertise to use it! You can do everything, no matter how complicated in 2-3 clicks, without even knowing what you're doing!"
And then when said user has problems, we turn around and tell him/her "well, duh, of course it's complicated. What did you expect?" I.e., in other words, "well, duh, you should have known we lied to you."
And when it's not that, it's what you yourself describe here:
"Ironically, some of the programs that are aimed at newbies are very difficult to use because they're inflexible and patronisingly assume the user is a dolt."
I don't even find it ironic, but yes, that is a major problem. That's one main problem I've always had with the "users are idiots" arrogance that's rampant in the software industry. Instead of trying to _understand_ the user, and exactly what is difficult for that user and why, we end up with products that are just dysfunctional crap.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Everyone is hung up on his, perhaps, ill advised comments on Photoshop. But his comments on Palm Desktop versus Outlook are spot on. Too often user interfaces are designed by techies, for techies, without regard for how it will actually be used by knowledgeable users. Interestingly, it is the same argument which the commercial software lobby use to beat FOSS, ignoring how poor their own products usually are in the same way.
So rather than getting bogged down in photo editing software, I'd be far more interested in people citing examples of software which has a well thought out UI, which allows simple things to be done without either having to master a lot of complexity or have the software use a condescending tone (the "rinky-dink" Dvorak talks about).
I'll start with Noteworthy Composer: for fine output I'll work with Lilypond, but for quickly jotting down a bit of music and preparing a presentable printout and midi stream it "does exactly what it says on the tin."
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
This guy Dvorak is good - he's like the king of trolls. He includes just enough sense to keep people reading, brings up several age-old arguments and leaves enough obvious gaps and errors in his articles for Slashdotters to leap on.
A few years ago I had to use Photoshop for work. At first I found it very difficult. Luckily I worked with someone who knew it inside-out. They taught me how to use it and I came to appreciate what a useful tool it is.
A short while ago I tried Picasa for the first time. I didn't need any help.
If you want a simple digital image editing tool use Picasa. If you're a pro, you don't need my advice.
This article has "shady marketing ploy" written all over it. A few days after Apple releases Aperture, we have Dvorak ranting about the current state of Photo Editing tools. I bet in his next column he's gonna write about Aperture and how cool it is. It IS cool, mind you, but this is a marketing ploy none the less.
Fits the image Dvorak has in public too.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Your request is unreasonable because the Genie is not Open Source.
Jerk.
but Insightful... Photoshop Elements is essentially an older version of Photoshop with its name changed to Elements
come on... that's like saying that Porsche 911 is basically an older version of Volkswagen Beetle with its name changed.
On PC:
Picassa
Paint Shop Pro
IrfanView
XNView
(Both the last two are good with Total Commander)
On Mac:
AcdSee
I View Media Pro
Graphics Converter (can edit as well)
Aperture
I remember downloading photoshop 3 from the "warez" private room on AOL's chat network when I was 15. It has a tool bar with all the tools you can play with. I guess you could consider the menus a bit complicated but a little exploration and it all makes sense. resizing is easy because you can select any unit that is relevent. percentage, pixels, inches whatever. is this hard?
The whole concept and attitude towards icons and hieroglyphs is actually counterrevolutionary - it's a language that is hardly 'user friendly.' This type of machine was developed by hardware hackers working out of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. It has yet to find popular success. There seems to be some mysterious user resistance to this type of machine.
don't need no damn photoshop. (disclaimer, I'm not a good photographer).
I can't believe I agree with Dvorak. How much do I have to scrub before I wash this dirty feeling off my skin? Photoshop does suck. I can use all the tools, but does this make it an easy program to use? No, it is needlessly complicated on every level. Bundled software is rubbish no matter what type of equipment or what manufacturer. Well until I saw what Canons "DPP" could do. It has a ten minute learning curve, and works in a quality photoshop will not touch. Yes, it is fast to learn only if you see the Canon learning videos online, but it is obvious that it was designed as a no-nonsense tool for professional photographers workflow. I have not tried Apples new Aperture, but I suspect that it is similarly layed out. Apple charge almost as much as Canon charges for a Digital Rebel, and I believe that DPP comes free with the camera. I know it comes free with any 20D camera or better.
Reckon we can get you a job at pcmag now that you have down the art of the rant?
Oh wait, you rant too well.
My bad.
2^3 * 31 * 647
For me the Paint Shop Pro series (sans everything since version 8, when they turned the program into a Photoshop clone, complete with confusing UI) has a better UI than both Photoshop and the GIMP
I had an early version of PSP (magazine freebie), and whilst it was reasonably powerful, and more tuned to the Windows interface manager, the interface wasn't that great. For example, many of the dialogs had a "programmerish" feel, with selection of numbers by direct input or up/down arrows, instead of a more intuitive graphical representation.
Photo Deluxe (a now discontinued product that used the Photoshop engine, but a totally different interface) was a pretty good example of a product that did what it set out to do. It wasn't Photoshop, it wasn't trying to be, and if you tried moving beyond what it was designed to do, it was fiddly. But within its design range, it was pretty easy to use.
I don't know how it compares to Photoshop Elements, which took over its position in the market; I suspect Elements is far closer to the "real" Photoshop. Anyhow, it seems to have problems on modern PCs due to some shoddy programming; it ran fine on my 256Mb machine, but it complained that there wasn't enough RAM on my Dad's PC with (IIRC) 1Gb- and it did the same on mine when I upgraded to 768Mb.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Speaking personally, I ocasionally do the same thing; but that's because different pieces of software have always had different strengths and weaknesses.
In all honesty, I think saying that MSPaint could be simpler is giving it too much credit. It's just not well-designed at all; it's only easy to use because there's not a lot to it. Or rather, it's easy to learn; *using* it is a PITA, because stuff like colour and background selection are so basic, you end up doing complicated workarounds to get past the limitations.
In terms of control of individual pixels, something like the 2-64 colour versions of Brilliance on the Amiga (a paint program generally considered better than the later versions of Deluxe Paint, which also had a 24-bit "true colour" version) would be far more satisfactory. MSPaint is simply a crude application that hasn't improved much since it was called "Paintbrush" God knows how many years ago...
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
PhotoShop is an arrogant software lacking competition. In 1995, I was a working professionnaly for a printshop and using a software called Aldus PhotoStyler. This software was absolutely outstanding with many simple features that Photoshop still does not have today:
... the swirl.
- Magic wand that can select based on hue (perfect for green screen)
- Magic wand with a threshold that you can adjust AFTER you have clicked.
- A color picker that can average a region.
- A pixel accurate crop box.
Those were really useful features that I still lack today. PhotoStyler was a professionnal tool costing more than 800$ and worth every penny. PhotoStyler was that feature rich. I was doing only the basic things but it was doing it well. It didn't had the fancy swirl effect but I never had a customer who required a swirl.
What happened to PhotoStyler? I was bought by Adobe and discontinued. It was a superior software at that time and it was the only way for Adobe to continue selling PhotoShop.
The guys who coded PhotoStyler decided to restart again and came up with Ulead PhotoImpact but that product not as good as the original PhotoStyler. They decided to target home users instead of professionals because of PhotoShop dominance and removed important features like CMYK support and added tons of useless features (for professionals) like a button makers and
Now compare Tuxpaint to MS Paint and you that these two programs are in no way equivalents. MS Paint is not for children, just an image editor preserved from 1995 that is so appalling by todays standards it is only used by children. Tuxpaint IS meant for children (and has the bright colours and gimmicks - I love that magic star brush). What Linux needs is a speedy lightweight photo viewer with the simplest, most handy photo editing facilities. No need for brushes or active editing, just the standard brightness/contrast/rotate/crop/resize/balance tools that are needed to touch up photos, and are lacked (or badly implemented) in MS paint. Similar to that Google Photo program. What I stress is important though, is this program must be speedy enough to be used as the standard photo viewer. It takes a moment for me to view a photo in GNOME, but then it takes 30 seconds to load the GIMP, when all I want to do is rotate it or adjust the balance. Yes I can use mogrify, but the average user just needs to quickly go through their 50 photos when they download them and then rotate and rebalance them individually in the most speedy way thewy can.
Easy, reads everything and hasn't failed me yet. Well worth the $60 or so I paid for it when I first loaded it on my Win98 machine and still runs great under Win2K
Peter
(*trying* to learn how to use Gimp on Linux...)
Quite a few here don't want to see "Dvorak" on a Slashdot headline. Problem I think is "editors" here get confused when Dvorak stories lots of comments. Lets just skip the next Dvorak story.
Let's hope for a Dvorak free day the rest of today.
If iPhoto or Picasa don't float your boat, then try something a bit more suited to the task, like Aperture.
It brings major ease of use to simple photo management with incredibly powerful tools, like the ability to work with RAW images, and automatic versioning so you never stuff up your original "digital negatives"
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Real men edit their .jpgs from the command line by feeding hex values and pixel coordinates. EVERYTHING else is rinky-dink.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
agree 100% about dvorak; so why does /. not have some sort of name filter you can add to your profile ?
Thei point about professional softwware is tht they deliberately make it hard, to appeal ot the profesional base - why would someone whoose possibly high pay which depends on knowledge use software that makes tht knowledge obsolete
that is, photoshop could easily, if they want, re do the interface to make it much easier.
but if they did, pros would not use it, and pros are their base.
to put it another way, if your customers earn a good living with your tool and their knowledge, why would they buy a tool which implies their knowlege is not worth anything ?
i think that is why photoshop does not offer a redeye reduction tool
... who know how to use a Macintosh.
Sounds like he is wishing there was an application like Aperture on his PC. Last week, he criticized journalists writing about Apple's inventiveness and capacity to create products customers want as having conflict-of-interest, because they use Apple products. Today, he wishes openly for innovation and commitment to product need.
iPhoto doesn't do enough, which is why I bought Photoshop Essentials to supplement it. PSE gave me the ability to more easily pick the output resolution so I can put it on the web. iPhoto is a pretty good photo organization program though I would like to see the set of photos that are in my library minus the set of photos that are already in at least one album.
What this idiot is asking for, is the equivalent of a programmer asking why his compiler doesn't compile his pseudo-code.
The complexity in graphic manipulation is high and only because the red refelection from our eyes is consistent and bright, is red-eye removal apparently easy. Swapping people's heads is not, especially when the lighting does not match.
--
include a check box in preferences which says "filter photo editor jargon", which will replace anyt terms involving greek letters, scientists names, and photographic terms with easy to read plain layman's descriptors for what they do to the picture
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Picassa does everything I normal have to adjust in just a few clicks. 1 Make everything straight 2 auto adjust the contrast
Perhaps Dvorak should stick to writing about things he understands and knows something about, like Windows software. When it comes to writing about much of anything else he always falls far short and tends to make sweeping unjustified generalizations.
"...with Photoshop, most photographers only want to do perhaps a dozen or so functions." - Really? That's a rather impressive statement. John appears to have polled or knows personally and has asked MOST of them himself exactly how they use Photoshop. Wow. Color me impressed. I see all the documentation and supporting evidence right there in your article that backs up your broad statement... Oh, wait, no I don't. Sorry, this appears to be more typical Dvorak crap, all noise and hot air with nothing to support his position.
Hey John, how about reporting facts rather than huge supposition based upon nothing other than your own frustration for once. Keep up the good work and aim high. Your lack of standards certainly aren't suffering.
his keyboard is teh shizzle. Allthou I prefer QWERTY.
Dvorak would never have anything positive to say about an Apple product. He despises that Apple didn't just curl up and die as he has repeatedly predicted.
Did you just get here?
I actually had to rub my eyes and reread that last bit over again a few times, then skip to the next page for the punchline. But there's no punchline, as the next page starts a new topic.
Even shorter version:
"Dammit! Why can't someone design decent photo editing software? It's all either incredibly complicated or for kiddies!" (long rant edited for brevity) "Oh, except for Photoshop Elements. It's fine."
Shorter still version:
"I am an asshole with attention deficit disorder."
Wow! all this talk about photo editors and no mention of Irfanview? Irfanview is simply the BEST lightweight photo tool on Windows. Batch conversion/rename, crop, resize, Photoshop filter support, ect, ect, ect. You're not going to create a FARK.com photoshop contest entry with it, but I only have to fire up the GIMP a couple times a month. And the pricetag? Zero. Free as in beer my friend. Hell, I run it under WINE at home, because it's so damn good. I'm quite fond of the Gimp, and ImageMagick does what I need it to do from the commandline ( abhor its TK'ish UI ), but Irfanview is the best balance I've found.
http://www.irfanview.com/
Free The Lapland Six!!!
http://www.whatiwore.com
What I wore, now with 100% more pool project!
Is it too much to ask for a simple and powerful software program that can do the 45 things photographers do most in Photoshop?
As a software person I'll get right on it! So, which photographer do I design for? Photographer A, or photographer B who's top 45 only overlaps A's by 3 features?
I would imagine all it would take to get any photographer to stop using it would be if it's missing a few of their top 45. OMG! Am I arguing the pro-bloat line? Someone shoot me.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/
Oh my.
All I heard was, "I'm annoying, then white noise."
Seriously, the article summary should read:
This is too hard, this is too easy, Goldilocks only wants lukewarm porridge.
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous.
-- Robert Benchly
Well, it's been fun reading this discussion, in a here-we-go-again sort of way. Anyone dares to suggest that software might be easier to use by normal people, and most of you have a hissy fit. But then you guys probably change your underwear using a command line interface.
8 78645-6414220?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v =glance
Regardless of the particular comments Dvorak makes, software could be a hell of a lot easier to use. Unless you all think that just having a WIMP interface is the be-all and end-all of interface and interaction design.
I've just finished reading "The Design of Everyday Things", by Donald A. Norman. I totally recommend it. Funny, wise and thought provoking.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465067107/103-3
Is it too much to ask for a simple and powerful software program...?
Yes, crotchety old man who is famous for having once understood technology, that is too much to ask. Next question?
Simple and powerful are virtually antonyms. Powerful is essentially synonymous with "many capabilities." Simple is essentially synonymous with "I can't understand things that have more than 7 icons."
Is it too much to ask for a high performance, easy to ride motorcycle? Yes.
Is it too much to ask for a rich, healthy dessert? Yes.
Is it too much to ask for a high paying job that requires no skill? Yes, unless you're John Dvorak.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The key to my own resizing script is the -pixels option to pnmscale. You can batch resize a lot of portrait, landscape, and variously cropped photos, making them all come out the same size.
These days I use gthumb to go through my photos to pick the best ones, crop and adjust brightness. The menu option for copying remembers multiple recent folders, so I can quickly sort them out into print-worthy ones (the topack folder used by my script) and web-worthy ones (toshrink). It's a smooth process.
There but for the grace of God go we...
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...one on Slashdot that actually likes Dvorak.
My favorite quote from the article is:
"Dumbed down and stupid is not the same as easy to use."
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Why is the iPhoto approach to storing photos bad for non-professionals? I disagree. The non-pros that I know don't have a clue about file structuring and organization. They will never delve into the file structure to find a photo - especially when it is so much easier to find one using either iPhoto or SpotLight.
And, if they really don't like what iPhoto provides them with, they are free to not use it and instead use one of the free tools that utilize Core Image for photo editing and then just store the photos in the Photos folder. Rather than using iPhoto to download images from the camera/card, they can use the excellent included software called "Image Capture". But this is for those who know a little more than the average guy and actually care.
This is the typical PC user attitude: "Why can't my computer figure me out instead of me figuring it out." The fact of the matter is, Adobe is doing an excellent job of serving its customers with Photoshop. If Adobe moved things around to make it "easier" (which would be impossible anyway) they'd alienate people who do useful work with Photoshop, and usher in a new era of Grandma removing red-eye from her photos (and I believe they have a version for this sort of thing too) with photoshop and professional artists using The Gimp.
Programs cannot be both easy to learn and powerful. It just doesn't work that way. Especially not raster programs. Raster processes are complicated by nature, how can you expect them to be easy to pick up in an hour?
"My point is, why can't we have simple and powerful software that can do the 45 things photographers do most in Photoshop put into a package that is easy to use?"
Simple Mr. Dvorak. Because photo rasterizing is complicated, and things like removing red-eye take several steps which you can to have fine-tuned control over if you want to ever do something right.
I'm awful at picking up GUI programs, but I think I've learned a good 25% of the Gimp functionality in no more than 10 hours of use; and I don't have prior experience with that sort of program.
I'm sick of people asking for devs to cater to idiots. Devs should cater to power users because people who can't figure the software out won't do anything useful with it anyway. Might as well let the people who care to learn have a powerful tool that they can use in any way they want. When was the last time you saw a battery powered drill with a irremovable battery because that made it simpler to learn? Or one without reverse, because that's considered too complicated? Duh, you haven't; because only software engineers are silly enough to buy into this "programs for the masses" idea.
There are some programs which fit that genre. But most don't, and we all know they're gonna be cheesy.
It seems his rant is "why doesn't all software work exactly the way *I* want, without me having to ever learn anything". Err, ya well when we get the telepathic software, I'm sure it will.
For photo stuff, I use Picasa. It's free and it does what I want, and it's obvious/easy enough that with a few minutes of clicking around you can find all the major features.
Has he even used Photoshop Elements?
What he describes is the old Photoshop LE software, which was basically just older versions of Photoshop not eligible to be upgraded.
Elements is a bit different from Photoshop, but does just as good a job on the things it does have. However tools are rearranged, fewer options mean a cleaner interface, etc. In fact, Photoshop CS2 borrows interface designs from Elements, not the other way around.
It's a good compromise I think, good enough to keep me happy as a second-computer graphics tool, but lacking enough that I still want Photoshop for serious work.
It's way better than the load of crap called Adobe Photodeluxe it replaced.
I'm no photo expert, which I suppose is the point of this article. I'm also no Microsoft fan. But I do have Office XP on my desktop at work, and I use Microsoft Picture Manager to touch up my pictures. For just brightening and resizing photos, it's remarkably easy to use. The hardest part is getting Picture Manager to locate your photo. You can select a group of pictures and auto-correct for brightness, and it actually makes dark pictures viewable. I remember spending half an hour learning how to make a picture look decent in Photoshop. You can select a group of pictures and auto-resize, compress, and email to a friend. I'm sure it's got lousy "features" as well, but for my extremely simple needs, it's adequate. In fact, I'm ashamed to admit that it's quite handy.
I keep forgetting my place. Jesus is for losers. Why do I still play to the crowd?
It is called Photoshop Elemets. Read.
Its no good to me.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I have no such problems with iPhoto on my Macintosh OS X Panther... My wife was even setting up nice animated "albums" after a few hours of using her Mac for the first time.
-dZ.
--
War is peace. Equity is slavery. Credit is strength. For your convenience (TM).
- The Ministry of Truth and Visa
Carol vs. Ghost
Off of the top of my head, I can't think of any situations where the Mac gives you a confirmation dialog when you're trying to complete a reversible action.
Usually when you get a confirmation dialog like that, it's because you're about to do something destructive that's not undoable. For example, emptying the trash. Although I haven't actually read the UI guidelines (and based on some of their recent brushed-metal products, nobody at Apple may have either) it seems like that would be a fairly logical rule for when one should be invoked. If it's a mouse-actuated event that results in the non-undoable loss of data, show a conf dialog. If it's on the CLI, don't bother -- since it's a lot harder to type a command by mistake than it is to mis-click.
I agree that there should be options for advanced users to suppress such dialogs in the GUI (especially for people used to the more terse UNIX CLI philosophy), but I wouldn't want to get rid of them on my mother's machine. Or even necessarily on mine, although I consider myself a relatively intelligent user.
It's nice to know that if you're about to hose a bunch of your data, especially with just a click or two, that you'll get one last chance before you commit to the action.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Why can't someone make paint that is easier to use. It looks so simple when skilled artists make paintings, but I have too many confusing options to choose from. I mean really... there are so many colors and I can't figure out how to hold the brush. Do I use the bristly end or the hard end? And what do I put the paint on? There are too many confusing options. Art supply stores should make this easier. There should only be one paint brush and one type of paint and one color that does the 45 things that most painters need to do.
Don't get me wrong, some art supply stores sell paint-by-numbers. But it really limits what I want to paint. I've tried changing the paint-by-numbers "Cat" into "Dog", but it never turns out right... the media is just too limited.
I want something that is powerful, flexible, and allows me to look like I know what I'm doing even though I don't. I don't want to learn to be an artist, I just want to push a button.... er... pick up a paint brush and create professional art. I don't want to have to learn about composition, paint mixing, or any other information that is vital to understanding art. The canvas should read my mind.
</sarcasm>
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
Just IMO in all that but its free and it works very well. Its at least as good and I heard several user of the previous version of Iphoto saying they thought at the time that Picasa was better in many ways. Now most of those same people think they more or less equal with preference obviously given to there native app. If camera makers just bundled Picasa instead of whatever crap they currently use then digital camera users would be much happier.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I agree with Dvorak. Maybe that's because I'm somewhat of a dinosaur too. So I wrote my own photo program that performs the important fundamentals, such as merging Mars Rover raw photos into color images and generating web pages with lat-lon-altitude from the image exif info. Important, fundamental stuff! (This can't be advertising if if I don't make any money on it, right?)
Holidays are holidays, not pictures. Spare me.
When I could not find my Photoshop installation CD's, I got very cross and met my deadline using Digital Image Suite from Microsoft and guess what - I prefer it over Photoshop. Sure Photoshop has some nice deep stuff but for personal photography the usability of Digital Image Suite was just more appropriate.
Works for moi
Is it too much to ask?
Yes it is, John.
Many of us remember when owning a computer carried a personal responsibility to make sure you knew how to use the damned thing. Now that they've become ubiquitous, they're supposed to be our "little plastic pals that're fun to be with?" Eff that. My dog is fun to be with, my computer is a tool.
And like any tool... you should learn how to use it, otherwise you'll simply make a mess. Want the power of a darkroom but don't want to learn how to use it? Fine, CVS, Walgreens, etc... will be happy to develop your pictures.
Want to organize those photographs in a simple, easy to understand format? It's called a photo album. Little paper and plastic thing. Stick the photos inside and you can organize them to your hearts content.
It's funny. We complain about bloat. We complain about unnecessary software upgrades. We complain about everything... but then we want easy to understand, no thought required, mind reading technology that'll do our bidding without any technical understanding on our part. Well, at least John seems to (of course, the closest example to this has been on John's hit list for a decade now: Apple).
Count me out. Like many here, I got into computers back in the early 80's with an Apple ][ (many earlier, switch the machine to fit your experience). All CLI all the time, baby. By the mid-90's, I realized I was really missing pass-or-fail computing. So, I built a Linux box and have happily played in that sandbox since then.
As a society, we're dangerously close to crossing the ignorance border and never looking back. We buy technology and don't know how to use it. We take pharmaceuticals and don't know why. We consume everything that's put on our plate and never ask if we actually want (or even more: need) it. And then we want it simpler, quicker, now NOW NOW!
Here's a question, John. When my car breaks down on the side of the road... why can't I wave my magic faiery wand over it and make it run again? Oh, I guess because I never personally desired to know how a car works (mechanically speaking). Therefore, I acquire the responsibility of paying someone who does -- at least, as long as I want to drive a car. Simple choice, learn how it works (thereby learning what to do when it goes wrong) or accept paying a person who does. Nothing wrong with that -- keeps lots of little auto mechanic's kids in cozy winter wear during the cold months. It's a cornerstone of our society.
But do not stand around balling out the industry for making big, bloated, cumbersome software... and then turn and ask for something that fits your needs.
It's that or learn how to code, compile and build it yerself. And John, I have a feeling that simply picking up a moron's guide to Photoshop'll be easier for you.
Okay, enough. I know Dvorak'll never read this and I should stop holding a conversation with him now. But before I do allow me to at least answer John's issue at hand:
Want to tackle the simpler points of Photoshop w/o Photoshop? There are plenty of products out there. Some will even hold your hand. But remember this, John: The difficulty of a system is comparable only to the ignorance of the end user.
#SickNotWeak
From TFA:
Any software that asks you "What do you want to do?" is in this category.
Hmm -- what about software that asks you, "Where do you want to go today?"
Several other responders have mentioned IrfanView and GIMP and other fine products, but the actual answer to your question is yes, there is a mini-photoshop, it's called "Photoshop Elements" and it's designed specifically for editing photos. It's semi-free -- you can purchase it from Adobe if you want, for a lot less than $600, but I got mine because it was bundled with my digital camera or scanner or something.
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
The hardest thing about getting old is realizing that you're just no longer mentally nimble enough to pull off the "quick learn and forget" for something you won't need to do on a daily basis.
I have never used Photoshop. I don't have the money to buy it, and I don't want to pirate it. I use the GIMP. No, this isn't a rah-rah session for the GIMP, I am sure there are others that will do that. (it frustrates the HELL out of me at times). But I used to do photo editing using xpaint back in the mid-90s. Did some stuff that still holds up today. But I have somewhat of a talent in art, which really really helps. Attention to detail, understanding perspective, light, color. Photoshop can't teach you these things. If you don't have an eye for it, you'll spend hundreds of dollars on software that you can't use.
Get Irfanview and Picasa2. They should take care of 90% of your needs. I still use them, because they do things quickly and easily. If only Irfanview ran on Linux. Best program ever.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Dude - You posted what I was going to post.
I was blown away with the efficiency of work flow and general editing tools in ACDSee. I was in a rush to pull together some marketing material based on tons of pictures I whipped out. The experience was actually enjoyable. The developers at ACD systems obviously spend quite a bit of time on the UI.
Gimp - Well, it just plain rocks. I still have Photoshop but for 99% of my image hacking, Gimp passes with flying colors.
JsD
"It falls apart once you have 10-20k images (something a pro can easily shoot within a few days)."
Just to be nitpicky, here. 20,000 day / 72 hours = 278 photos per hour. That assumes you never take a break to eat or sleep during those 3 days.
I know pros can really pile up the pictures, fast. But I think even photo pros need to sleep and eat. Besides, don't photo pros use something like iView MediaPro to store and organize their photos?
I've used PSP since I believe version 3 or 4. My computer hs PSP 5 installed, and my wife has PSP 9 on hers.
... :D
I cannot think of any large imrovements between the two -- but I can say that the experience of using PSP with PSP 9 was noticeably more enjoyable than on my copy. I was surprised by this, as I came at it expecting things to be just more bloat -- but there seemed to have been some minor UI tweaks.
Though, I do miss that the 'L' key doesn't open the layers dialogue anymore... grrrrr
Ok, let's put any (probably legitimate) criticism of Photoshop aside for a moment... no one has ever claimed it was a product designed for anyone but grahics professionals.
I don't go around complaining that the emissions test computers they use on your car is too complex for the shadetree mechanic. I don't go around saying that the tools they use at the optometrist to measure occular aberations is too complicated for my wife to use to test my kids.
These are professional tools, meant to be used by professionals who will have the necessary training and time invested to learn to use them. That the everyman finds them complex shouldn't be surprising or criticised.
Paint Shop Pro, until the most recent versions anyway, was always nearly as powerful as Photoshop and considerably less complex. For someone like me who does some occasional graphics work, but is far from a professional, it was nirvana. Why Dvorak can't see that is beyond me.
Ah, sorry, of course I can see why... he's a writer, and he's gotta write, and when you read anything by Dvorak you have to ask whether it's something legitimate (sometimes) or just a fluff piece to meet his required allotment of columns for the week (frequently). This one falls in the later category as far as I'm concerned.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Word is worse than rinky-dink -- it's complicated and unreliable and makes you want to beat its developers with a WordPerfect 5.1 manual (they came in binders).
WordPad is more like what Dvorak seems to be asking for, since it lets you pick your font, set your margins, make a list, and paste in a picture. That's all you need in a word processor.
Word, on the other hand, has a bunch of brain-dead, hard-to-disable automation features at the rinky-dink end of things and a bunch of fussy, hard-to-use desktop publishing features at the other end. All, in my experience, can leave you with an irrevocably screwed up document if you accidentally use them.
And he should be using Paint Shop Pro, probably.
Mind the Gap
As the maker of WinImages, as you can imagine I'm rather biased towards it, but either of these would more than satisfy the needs of the vast majority of photo editing folk. Not only can one find the basic features one needs to edit photos, there are other features available you can't get in Photoshop — and they are useful, to the point, and powerful in the context of photo editing. Some examples include PSP's handling of brushes, which is vastly superior to Photoshop's, and WinImage's approach to area selection, which likewise makes Photoshop look like a horse and buggy.
You have to keep in mind that Dvorak is paid to rant. He takes advantage of the ignorance of his readers by asserting that the market is free of tools, when that is in fact not the case at all.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
To create a thumbnail of dimensions 160 by 120: To rotate a picture 90 degrees anti-clockwise: These alone should be enough for most people and will save hours of fart-arsing around dragging and clicking. But if you happen to want to pull out a 200x100 pixel segment from (55, 668): If you like charcoal drawings, ytr this {change the 2 for different thickneses of charcoal stick}: Of course there are more options you can use. If you have a GUI running, try: Middle-click to magnify and get co-ordinates. Left-click for a menu. Everything you see in the menus can be done from the command line. The basic commands are mogrify {which takes one filename and overwrites the old file with the new}, convert {which takes two filenames, the first is the existing file and the second is the new filename to be created} and display {which takes as many filenames as you like and displays them one after another, press space to select}. They all take the same options; see manpage for details. Note that the arguments to convert need not be the same filetype; the input filetype is determined automagically and the output filetype is set according to the extension. This means you can do something like and it will Just Work.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
PIcassa http://picasa.google.com/index.html
I put it on the machine of every new digital camera owner in my family. None of them have a problem working with it. Does whatever they need to do. I've never had anyone ask me how to do something Picassa won't do so I guess it has the right tools.
Best of all it's free.
I could never get to grips with Photoshop, I've tried a few times since Photoshop 4.0 was around..
I've always stuck with PaintShop Pro, I find it a lot easier to use and has masking, layers blah blah all that stuff, I guess it's 70% of Photoshop but I find it a lot more intuitive, until version 9 that was...then it went a bit like Photoshop and got harder to use, I'll be sticking with version 8.
I don't want to buy a $50 book or read a 800 page PDF just to learn how to use some software so I can create banners/buttons/edit photos/mess around with graphics etc..
I'm a geek, I just want to use it.
For non tech people I usually give them ACDSee or Picasa, it suites most of their needs.
As for the people recommending Paint, they should check out Paint next generation, Paint.NET!
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/
Share your Knowlege - Kung-Fu Geekery
"Make a print? How about using the drop-down menu under FILE and clicking on PRINT? Is that so off-the-wall? These programs assume that you are a dolt... these programs are in fact harder to use than Photoshop because of the rigmarole you have to go through to do a simple chore."
I do wish I know what mythical programs he was trying to use for his photos; I can't think of one popular home photo app off the top of my head that stashes the Print option somewhere secret.
Photoshop (stretching "home" here) has it in the File menu.
Photoshop Elements has it in the File menu.
Photoshop Album has it in the File menu.
Picasa has it in the File menu.
Photomeister has it in the File menu.
iPhoto has it in the File menu (and duplicates it in the Share menu, for that matter).
The software Nikon and Canon provide with their cameras has it in... you guessed it! The File menu!
Dear PC World Readers, printing is so hard when it's in the same place it is in every other application! How on earth will I ever print my lovely pictures?
Um... yeah, John.
I tried to listen to This Week in Tech for a while, but once Leo brought Dvorak on as a regular that was the end for me. This kind of crap is why.
1. Open Keychain Access 2. Goto Keychain -> Preferences -> check "Show Status in Menu Bar" 3. A padlock appears in menu bar click on it to lock screen and to lock keychains if you so desire
Consumers/moderate users should look into Paintshop Pro.
Downside is that no pro worth his salary will touch it.
Dvorak isn't buzzword-compliant, because this is the sort of thing that MS is really big on these days.
And yes, task-based interfaces do really suck for users with more than a room-temperature IQ. Adding a preferred wireless network shouldn't take a dancing dog and fifteen mouse clicks on yes/no menus, but it can if you haven't repaired XP so that it doesn't treat you like a mouth-breather.
For as long as I've read anything this guy has written, it seems that his entire professional career has been about bitching about the absence of some M$ Wizard to go inside of his brain and create something for him. As far as all these flatulent discussions vis-a-vis Photoshop vs Painter vs PSP vs crayons, it's not about the friggin' tool - it's about the creativity of the person who uses it. Even monkeys can figure out how to use a blade of grass to go grocery shopping in an anthill; it's the "I need instant gratification/why can't this computer do what I want?/Bill gated is a God/Apple is going out of business again" bunch of useless drek that clutters the already cluttered information bandwidth, and most of it hurls forth from Dvorak's peecee. For Christ's sake... treat Dvorak like the intellectual child he is and ignore him. He'll eventually go away, or else hold his breath until he turns blue and passes out... both of which would be positive things.
to the good old days of posting Katz instead?
Now that would be sadistic, for sure.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
What a knucklehead Dvorak is. Goodness, now how about making programming as easy as speaking your wishes into a microphone and the machine produces a bug-free, optimized application for you. To every art, whether programming, driving a car, photography, painting, working in PhotoShop, there is a price to pay. Doctors take years to train. Professional graphics designers spend a LOT of time learning the tools, and Adobe spent a LOT of time listening to these professionals.
I've used various software through the years - you simply learn what you need, then slowly add to that pool of knowledge as you become more familiar with it. My favourite for the past 8 years has been PaintShop Pro (recently sucked in by Corel), and PaintShop remained a closed and confusing world. As my needs and experience have grown, I'm shifting over to PS. Note: !not! Elements 3.0 - that is rinky tinky shitware, starts out asking the Kindergarden questions and lacks all the cool functionality of the real thing. What was impossible for me a year ago is now old hat. And every week, I learn a little more.
Dvorak used to be a voice in IT. Now he's background noise, ranting to himself in a corner. A willingness to learn is required in this life, and in high tech especially. Idiotware (I won't list the titles for they are many) is available for the unwilling, and always performs down to its expectations. PaintShop actually makes horrendously complex imaging processes fairly simple, you just HAVE to spend a little time getting to know the tool. Its a poor workman who blames his tools.
There, I think my blood pressure has come down to normal again...
Now, the true question is, are you wasting more brain cells reading what I say about dvorak or what he says about anything?
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
I've used Ulead's PhotoImpact for a while now and I think it fits in that middle ground. Lots of power if you need it, but tools to get the daily tasks done quickly and easily. It's not too expensive, though their support sucks. It's definitely worth it.
The quickest way to learn the software is to hang around Fark and join the photoshop threads. That taught me more about the software than working with a DVD full of home snapshots.
say, "Math is hard!"
Q: What's the difference between John and Barbie?
A: John can pull his own string. And does it waaaay too often.
I am,
AC
Not enough people know about picasa. The ONE real gripe I have with picasa is the exporting process is far too convoluted.
Other then that, it does the job 95% of the time and does it quickly, easily, and without looking like a Fisher Price program.
The rest of the time, I generally use Paint Shop Pro. (Although that is turning into more and more of a mess.)
So, you're the one who reads his articles?
John C. Dvorak's opinions do not belong here.
The way that they really get you is when you pay for your staff to learn this software though professional Adobe training, which will also require Adobe books.
Of course, there are tons of other book makers out there. Take a look at any bookstore-- the Photoshop section is overwhelming. By making a difficult, yet powerful program that everyone wants to use, they have created a whole new market.
You want frustrating? Try using 3D-Studio Max without any training or extra books. Good luck with that one! This trend is lousy, and it really hurts educators who have to teach this stuff to students without these textbooks. Most of the time, I just request a free desk copy, and use that to teach the essentials to my students. (By the way, that is one of the few sweet perks to teaching!) know_op Move Sig
Adobe killed Aldus SuperPaint too. SuperPaint continues to be unsurpassed in easy of use for a drawing app for everyone. It was killed because of Illustrator and Photoshop, both that have continued down a path of unusuability.
The real question... why haven't any products popped up to replace them? Or open source solutions?
The answer is that Photoshop has marketshare and mindshare. Its the shit, man. People teach courses on how to use it (god knows I couldn't figure it out). As soon as the user base starts revolting, things might change, but unfortunately a real revolt means people leaving the platform for an alternative - so its chicken and egg. An alternative leads to competition. But an alternative won't happen so long as Adobe has market share and buys/kills competition.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
I once very nearly fell into the trap of designing a "rinky dink" user interface. After rethinking my approach I corrected my mistake and moved on. But the incident made me question the path that had lead me astray. I had been using a tool from the UML, use cases, to model user activities. Without thinking, this had lead me to model the user as "someone who wants to do something", which naturally leads to an activity-based interface (i.e. rinky-dink). The result was as horrible as anything mentioned here.
It could be me being just stupid, but given that
- activity-based interfaces were all the rage in mobile phones only a handful of years ago
- the amount of talented engineers that design user interfaces for that same phones (i've worked with some).
- UML, in particular use cases, is used extensively in the telecoms business
I'd say use-cases should be used with great caution, as far as user interfaces go.
I still think use cases are great when finding out requirements, but they have their limitations. After thinking through the actions a user might want to take with the data, generating use cases, the designer will probably have to turn the design "inside out" to obtain a usable interface.
Cheers.
I've been following good old "blowhard" Dvorak since the eighties, and this is one of those times when he (thankfully) gets it right!
i d=3
I've been using Photoshop for years, and I'm *still* not used to it. I'm also a photographer (for fun and for part-time $$$ doing greeting cards and such).
An absolutely essential add-on is Extensis (now One on One) Intellihance pro: http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_
It's visual, it's point and click,and it works wonders. Nine times out of ten it "gets it right" and does a better job than I could have playing with levels, curves, etc. and I spent a looooooong time learning how to understand and use those features.
There's also an INCREDIBLE Velvia/Provia Photoshop action over at atncentral.com, which takes me back to the good old days of over-saturated-green nature photography (I always do nature shoots with Velvia unless lots of browns are involved).
There are a couple of other useful filter packs out there (I've used just about EVERY SINGLE photo filter made), but if you could only get just one, I recommend Intellihance Pro.
DISCLAIMER: no affilition to mentioned products/companies. Just a happy user.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
I cannot remember PhotoStyler, because I wasn't doing any graphics stuff at the time. But that and SuperPaint mentioned in this thread sound like they might be perfect tools/toys for my kids. MS Paint is too limited, and Photoshop / Paint Shop Pro / The Gimp are far too complex.
Would the last versions of these tools still run on current machines? Is it possible to find install disks somewhere? (Yes, I do still have a floppy drive (external USB)).
PSP 9 isn't necessarily bloated, but it does have a lot of features included that go beyond simple image editing. A lot of work in the later versions of PSP has been done on vector tools, filters, and suchlike. Not a bad thing, but really a lot of extras.
So yeah, 9 is a really great program, but to keep Dvorak from becoming confused and agitated, I would settle on 5.
Oh yeah, I was forced to use Microsoft's Photo Manager the other day on a computer that had no other image editing software (outside Paint), and after cropping and exporting about ten screenshots I felt like I had been beaten about the head and shoulders. That program has the single most painful user interface I have ever experienced in any piece of image editing software since Doodle! for the C64.
-rcmiv
Hang on a second here....
You guys actually PAY for Photoshop?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
I had only touched Photoshop once or twice before I fell into a job where it required me to learn the ins and outs of it. I went from not knowing how to resize a picture or canvas to being able to blend multiple layers of pictures into gigantic collages - vignetted and all - in the space of about 2 weeks. And from there I just kept moving.
Some may say, "well hey, it was your job, that's all you did", and they'd be right, except that I only worked 5 days a week for 2 - 3 hours a day.
So really the learning curve for Photoshop was extremely merciful. If you don't have the time to spend learning to use an awesome piece of software, do what they used to do back in the day when only nerds had computers - pay someone else to do it.
You're nothing; like me.
Media Bias and Technology Reporting
Are Media Writers Biased Towards Apple?
wow dvorak, you're so interesting...
Dvorak's got a point. I mean, remember Clippy?
/.'ers compain about his "badly constructed rant" but completely ignore the "should of" abominations.
HELLO THERE! Looks like you're trying to figure out how to use this crappy badly designed software!
Would you like to know...
a) Why it's so user-unfriendly
b) The most commonly used functions that still need a tutorial because the programmers are lazy b*st*rds
c) Shut up, you stupid piece of rusty metal!
---
The bad thing with software is that it's always designed by computer geeks who have little or no idea what usability means. One exception of this is MUSIC SOFTWARE, which is usually designed by musicians for musicians.
But a CHEAP software designed, if not by painters, at least for painters?
Anyway returning to the anti-dvorak rant, If Dvorak was johnc (23453523) on slashdot, I'm sure his rants would have gotten a +5 Insightful.
Besides,
So I appreciate those who decided to talk about Dvorak's Rant, instead of Ranting a talk about Dvorak.
(Authenticate if you like to keep people out of your prefs.)
You can now lock the screen whenever you want by clicking on your name and selecting "Login Window...". 10.4 added a nice tweak, now you can show long name (full name), short name (username), or icon in the menu bar for user switching. I find using username is a big enough target at the top of the screen to allow me to lock my screen with nearly no thought. You could use UI scripting to assign a voice command or keystroke to this action though. Some people feel weird about talking to their computers though.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
I didn't look at the time stamps on the other posts, so maybe you just didn't know yet. Yes the parent was stupid to say "why would you want to lock your screen?" that undermines his point that (as he put it in like the first paragraph) "partial logout/fast switch" was the solution you asked for.
8 78716
See: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166254&cid=13
You MISS THE POINT. Of COURSE I can write apple script to do something, or download something that will do it. The POINT is that the mac does not nativly do something that the other major players do. Because this very basic feature does not exist, we have to do STUPID work arounds. Logging out? Putting the computer to sleep? Stupid.
You don't have to write a script. You don't have to download anything. The Mac does do natively that which you request. It takes four clicks. That very basic feature does exist. I don't see how pulling up the login window is a work around. No logging out or sleeping is necessary.
I know it's more fun to just bash people even when they've tried to help! Yay Slashdot!
Cheers.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
IIRC, you can run either program, but you'd need a Mac from that era, and yes they installed off of floppies (check eBay, look for Yahoo groups devoted to older software, I'm sure someone could "hook you up"). You'd need a PPC Mac (maybe a G4 or older) with OS 7.6.1 or older (I've heard that some features of SuperPaint 3.5 (the last version?) don't work correctly on newer versions of what is now the Classic OS). Someone correct me if I'm wrong ... you could run 7.6 on a G4 right? You'll have to forgive me -- this is about the time I forsook Macs, as the Dark Age had arrived.
I have to chime in with a me too though, Aldus SuperPaint was the shiz-nite! SuperPaint had the gradient tool that PhotoShop stole, down to the dialog box. I shouldn't say 'stole' of course, as they bought them outright and then incorporated all the best features into PhotoShop and Illustrator. There was a big flap because Freehand was also Aldus's and got spun to Macromedia instead of going to Adobe.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Still today I use XV
resize, crop, color adjust, little edits, rotation
covers 90% of my needs.
It lacks: resizing to bigger than screen size, clone tool and red eye removal
George
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Too bad! I thought it was a PC program or had a PC version. I don't have a Mac, and while I would be happy to add an OSX Mac to my network, I definitely don't want to have to deal with any of [1-9].x series. Not even to please the children...
But thank you anyway for the detailed reply.
Yeah I don't blame you - even people who like Macs don't like some of the classic revisions. :-D As I alluded to in the post, I moved off to x86 around that time... up until OS X was released (at which point I shamelessly dropped the Linux desktop).
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.