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Dvorak on 'Rinky-Dink' Software Rant

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the do-my-bidding dept.

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?"

2 of 468 comments (clear)

  1. He should try iPhoto. by Yaztromo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...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.

  2. PhotoStyler by Impavide · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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:

    - 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 ... the swirl.