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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?"

97 of 468 comments (clear)

  1. I agree. by FireballX301 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Which is why I use MSPaint.

    MS PAINT 4 LYFE!

    1. Re:I agree. by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I actually find MSPaint a million times easier to use than fuckin' Photoshop or The Gimp. If I make a screenshot under Windows I'll always use MSPaint to crop and scale it, erase unwanted details, edit at a pixel by pixel level, etc. What's truely funny is that MSPaint could be simpler. For example, when you scale an image in MSPaint you have to enter a percentage of the current image size instead of being able to just enter the number of pixels you want it to be.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
  2. whinge whinge by timmarhy · · Score: 3, Informative

    "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....
    1. Re:whinge whinge by Fred_A · · Score: 4, Funny

      Also, he implied the "Are you sure you want to do this?" message boxes

      I always thought those should be replaced by

      You really shouldn't be doing this
      [Fuck my stuff up] [Oops, forget about it]

      --

      May contain traces of nut.
      Made from the freshest electrons.
  3. article is -1 troll by John+Nowak · · Score: 5, Funny

    For the love of god, PLEASE stop posting articles from dvorak. It is just sadistic.

    1. Re:article is -1 troll by Benwick · · Score: 3, Funny

      No sheet! As a former college-level composition instructor, I wish I could get paid to write that badly.

      Even the author knows he's not even trying (e.g. "yes, this is a badly constructed rant!"). This isn't Slashdot-worthy. It's not even kindergarden-worthy. It's crap!

      Approximately 500 words; 0 coherent concepts expressed ("I want a whole bunch of stupid programs put together that don't add up to Photoshop.").

      Grade: F, for "Fired."

    2. Re:article is -1 troll by strider44 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Don't you get it? Dvorak hasn't written anything insightful or probably even factual for years. The reason why he's still a writer is simply cause he's so funny. Look at the articles slashdot has linked of his and you'll see the top posts all either +5 funny or simply having fun trashing Dvorak.

    3. Re:article is -1 troll by lynzh · · Score: 2, Insightful
      spend a lot of time trying to figure things out.
      Photoshop IS very easy to use, yet very powerful. What software is he using?
    4. Re:article is -1 troll by shmlco · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Oh come on, he has a point. Too many developers, when faced with designing an "easy to use" program, start out by designing big 200x200 pixel kindergarten-style icons and step one, two, three "wizards".

      Both may help the first time you do something, and maybe the second, but eventually you get the idea, and just want the stupid interface to get out of the way so you can get the job done.

      I'm looking forward to seeing how the contextual toolbars in Office 12 work. Present the options you need for the tool you're using at the time.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    5. Re:article is -1 troll by m4dm4n · · Score: 2, Funny

      What you mean "The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'. There is no evidence that people want to use these things" wasn't insightful?

      John C Dvorak, rinky dink for over 2 decades.

    6. Re:article is -1 troll by plumby · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I had a superior give me a very good piece of advice once, and it has served me well. I wish Dvorak and his employers would take it to heart:

      "If you're going to come to me with a problem, make sure to bring a solution, too."

      I'm sorry. That's something I hear quite regularly and it's BS. It's just management abdicating responsibility. If there's a problem somewhere, you should call it out whether you know the answer to it or not - it won't go away simply because you don't mention it. It's great advice for getting you up the greasy pole, but it's useless for actually identifying and fixing problems.

      The correct attitude is "If you've got a problem, think about whether you've got a solution before bringing it to me". I actively encourage people working for me to come forward with problems they can't solve.

    7. Re:article is -1 troll by vought · · Score: 5, Informative
      Photoshop IS very easy to use, yet very powerful. What software is he using?

      It's OK. I saw the same thing among a lot of middle-aged men when I taught digital imaging workshops. He's probably tearing his hair out, looking for the "make my blurry picture sharp" filter, then worndering why it looks like shit after he applies "Sharpen Edges" eighteen times.

      Photoshop is actually very easy to use, if you understand the basics of selecting, masking, and layering.

      • Select an area you want to affect, apply a change.
      • Mask areas you do not want to change - at different opacities, if necessary.
      • Layer changes to create different effects as desired.

      Photoshop is a professional's tool. Aperture is a professional's tool. Framemaker is a professional's tool.

      Word is rinky-dink software.

      TextEdit is a utility.

      It's time for Dvorak to retire. He's the cranky old man with hairy ears down the block of computer industry journalism.

    8. Re:article is -1 troll by OutOfMyTree · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yep, I agree. "If you're going to come to me with a problem, make sure to bring a solution, too." sounds tough, but is bad management and probably indicates a boss promoted beyond his competence.

      What benefit is there in broadcasting "Delay coming to me when you have a problem" and "Us guys at the top don't want to share the benefits of our experience with you underlings."?

      "I would be interested in your suggested solution" is great, "Don't come to me unless you have one" is stupid.

    9. Re:article is -1 troll by Asprin · · Score: 3, Funny


      Dvorak is the new Jon Katz.

      (/crickets chirping)

      --
      "Lawyers are for sucks."
      - Doug McKenzie
    10. Re:article is -1 troll by badasscat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I use it once a week or less, and after three years have learnt to do a few things, but every time I need to do something different I have to spend half an hour digging through the help, which is almost as bad as a Unix man page, or Googling for an explanation. Unless you meant "easy to use after you're experienced", certainly not "easy to learn" for most people.

      But it is easy to learn the "45 things" that most photographers do all the time. Cropping, resizing, etc. are all either on the main tool palette or they're top-level menu items. If you can't figure out how to do these things, then I don't see how you can figure out how to use any modern computer application. You can have a discussion about how applications have gotten unuseable in general, but Photoshop is no worse than any other app in this.

      If you want to do something advanced, like, say, dropping realistic clouds into a cloudless sky, then yeah, it's going to take some time to learn to do that. But most photo apps can't do something like that at all, so I don't see that it's something to complain about. And most advanced tasks either cannot be automated or you wouldn't want them to be - I can't even imagine what a "drop in clouds" function would end up doing to your photos. And even if it did basically work (which it wouldn't), you'd suddenly have eight billion photos on the web that all look exactly the same with these fake-looking clouds.

      If you want a really basic image editor that's really easy to use, just download Picasa2 (it's free) and press the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button for all your photos. For most people, that's all they want anyway, and it doesn't get any easier than that (I can't say the quality will always be the best, but you can always undo, and anyway we're talking simple to use now, not best quality). Even cropping can be done automatically for common photo paper sizes, though there's no real reason I can see that you'd want to do this.

      But for anything more advanced, yes, you're going to have to do some work. To me, a lot of this whining about image editors that goes on these days is just laziness - people just want to press a button and have the software do everything for them, even if it's beyond simple things like adjusting brightness, contrast or color balance. Well, it wasn't like that when people had to process all their photos in a darkroom and it's not that way today and it will never be that way. If you want to do real heavy work on your photos, you are going to need to learn how to do things and you are going to need to spend some time doing them. That's just the way it is.

    11. Re:article is -1 troll by hey! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, as a supervisor, I'd say this:

      If you come to me with a problem, bring me several solutions. They don't have to be workable ones, and in fact I expect you're coming to me because you don't think any of them are. So be ready to tell me why none of them work. I don't expect you to have the answer to every problem, because nobody does, but I do respect initiative. If the problem is that a decision might be too big for you, bring it to me; I may send you back to work on it and eventually you'll learn what I expect you to be able to handle on your own. I'm always free as an independent pair of eyeballs too.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  4. Dear Dvorak by katana · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Dear Dvorak by Shaper_pmp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So what's the solution? Produce a different version of your software for every industry, company or skill-level that requires it? How is it in any way realistic or cost-effective for a company? Sure, I bet I'd love "Photoshop Bob Smith Edition", but Adobe would go bankrupt.

      I've got to say, I'd saddened by Dvorak. He was doing so well in so many ways this time, then we hit the line:

      "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."

      So... Photoshop (aimed at professionals) is "too hard", so he gets petulant, but drool-proof bundled software that's aimed at your Granny is "too easy", so he gets petulant. This porridge is too hot... this porridge is too cold...

      So, what he's arguing for is not, in fact, some brilliant new way of presenting user-interface options or simplifying common user tasks. What he's doing is merely throwing a tantrum because the software isn't pitched squarely at his existing skill-level.

      Here's a clue, John. People who want to use Photoshop for anything regularly buy a fucking Photoshop book. People who only want to remove redeye once in a blue moon use the idiot-proof bundled apps that anyone can use. It's not a hassle, because they only do it once in a blue moon. Anyone who wants to do it regularly learns to use Photoshop... acquiring a skill because, y'know, they'll be doing the task a lot.

      Buy a book on Photoshop or learn to love using idiot-proof bundled apps... and for christ's sake Shut The Living Fuck Up, you mindless drolling old troll-fossil.

      Or just, y'know, buy Paintshop Pro.

      --
      Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
    2. Re:Dear Dvorak by utexaspunk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      yes, and then once we have all these separate tools- one for resize, one for hue/saturation, one for cropping, one for brightness/contrast, one for sharpening, one for softening, one for despeckling, one for mosaic, one for posterizing, etc, etc, etc, we'll think- gee- wouldn't it be nice if there were a common interface for these programs? something that makes it easy to step forward and backward through the changes i've made to my original image? where i can easily, visually select a part of an image once and run these different processes on that selection? and then someone will make that program, and since it'll be a suite of little tools with everything you need for manipulating photos, a one-stop shop, if you will, i wonder what they'll call it...

  5. Gimp by Cave_Monster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I can't say that I have used Photoshop, but aren't script-fu etc in gimp what this bloke wishes were in Photoshop?

  6. Oh I'm sorry, Picasa and iPhoto * by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  7. 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.

  8. Picassa by adisakp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    http://picasa.google.com/index.html

    It's free and easy to use and doesn't install any crap / spyware.

    1. Re:Picassa by Nqdiddles · · Score: 5, Funny

      From the website:
      "...it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had)" (emphasis added).
      I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want any program finding all the photos I've got - even if I have forgotten about them!

      --
      And that kids is how I met your mother.
    2. Re:Picassa by vagabond_gr · · Score: 4, Funny

      I though you were speaking about porn. But then, did you forget about your porn???? Are you ok man?

    3. Re:Picassa by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Funny
      I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want any program finding all the photos I've got - even if I have forgotten about them!
      --
      And that kids is how I met your mother.

      Digital camera: $300.
      Getting a cute coed drunk: $15.
      The look on your kids' face when they realize that the pictures Picasa unearthed were of Mommy: priceless.

      Best text+sig combination I expect to read this week.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  9. Grasping at straws... its a stupid article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. Parent is Funny by TheStonepedo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Parent is Funny by Philip+K+Dickhead · · Score: 3, Funny
      Yeah. Making fun of Dvorak is like shooting fish in a barrel.

      "There's an expression we do not use enough. Rinky-dink."

      I guess he hasn't heard what the girls say about him...
      --
      "Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
    2. Re:Parent is Funny by gerardlt · · Score: 5, Funny

      Unfortunately, you forget that many kids can use Photoshop functions while many adults struggle to use MS Paint.

      --
      /* This sig is disabled. Press CTRL-W to enable. Thankyou */
    3. Re:Parent is Funny by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Paint actually does a lot of what I want. I can hit Printscreen, open Paint, and then paste the image into a new file. After that, I can crop and then save as a bitmap ot jpeg.

      If they'd add some decent red-eye reduction in there, I'd never need PhotoShop.

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
  11. Irfanview by BladeMelbourne · · Score: 4, Informative
    http://www.irfanview.com/

    Weird name, useful utility.

    1. Re:Irfanview by Nine99 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Try XnView, far better than IrfanView, IMHO. http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enxnview.h tml

    2. Re:Irfanview by Yeti.SSM · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's named after the author - Irfan Skiljan. Is that weird?
      But yeah, it's a really great program. Too bad it's windoze-only and free-as-in-beer for personal use only.

      --
      R Tape loading error, 0:1
    3. Re:Irfanview by speculatrix · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Too bad it's windoze-only
      irfanview runs faultlessly on wine.

      it's one of the few programs I really miss now I'm 99% linux, so I can get my fix that way.

      irfanview wins because it's very easy to use, and has a jpeg lossless rotation plugin. I install it on nearly every machine I help set up for other people, because I know they'd be lost with PSP and other things which are overly featured for 99% of photo processing work.

      free-as-in-beer for personal use only
      Irfan has put in a huge amount of work, it's only reasonable that commercial users should contribute - and in contrast Adobe Photoshop isn't free for personal use, is it?

  12. Simple Image Resizing by Nqdiddles · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Simple Image Resizing by Lisandro · · Score: 2, Informative

      The GIMP does it just fine, of course. I don't know if you use Linux, but ImageMagick is a great command line tool which lets you do almost anything on a number of image file formats; it's a Godsend when you need to do batch processing.

          I also used to do simple image editing with ACDSee too (JPEG conversion, resizing, rotating, etc).

    2. Re:Simple Image Resizing by munpfazy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Imagemagick http://imagemagick.org/ will do it quickly and easily. They're tools (mogrify and convert, especially) are perfect for that sort of job, and you have complete control over every parameter of the final image, without having to navigate a maze of checkboxes.

      Especially when converting from one format to another, I've found time and time again that imagemagick succeeds where other software fails.

    3. Re:Simple Image Resizing by DeafByBeheading · · Score: 3, Informative

      Look at post above yours, Nqdiddles: Irfanview rocks. It's more of a viewer than an editor, but has support for all sorts of basic editing, like crop, rotate, filter (a nice basic set built in, and I believe there are more through plugins), resizing (by percentage or by setting width/height in pixels/inches/cm, with option to preserve aspect ratio), and various other basic operations. And it's pretty damn fast.

      --
      Telltale Games: Bone, Sam and Max
  13. Re:*cough*The Gimp*cough* by User+956 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, for quick touchups I use the free program paint.net from Washington State University. Quick, simple, some power under the hood (it does layers!) and has more features than I know how to use.

    I've downloaded GIMP... had no idea what to do with it so after a couple sessions of randomly pushing buttons left it sit to gather stray 0s and 1s that collect on my HDD much like the dust gathers on my Windows 95 MCP book.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  14. A step up by Technician · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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!
    1. Re:A step up by Godeke · · Score: 2, Informative

      ArcSoft PhotoStudio (5.5 is the current version) came with my camera. This is actually a decent product that does the basics that a photographer (not a computer graphics wizard) would want to do. It even comes as a full install of the product in the camera box.

      This is so much better than then adware which came with my cheaper camera which made me spit in anger when it started spitting out "to use this feature, pull out your credit card and bend over". Note to manufacturers: either bundle something like ArcSoft PhotoStudio or don't bother wasting space on my drive. I don't mind paying for the bundle *if* I get something I can actually use. Pretending I got something I can use and then "timing out" in 15 days or disabling random menu items is a sure way to the bit bucket and unending hatred for your company.

      --
      Sig under construction since 1998.
  15. Given he was just blasting Mac users again... by ltmon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He should really try iPhoto.

    I think it matches the description perfectly.

  16. Paint Shop Pro 5 by koick · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  17. Ha! by Telvin_3d · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Ha! by jhoger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As much as I don't like Dvorak, he has a point about the 20 steps to something being a pain in the ass to keep track of.

      Every time I have to search google for a common sequence of steps it's a failure of the program or help in the program I am using. Half the time I can't remember immediately the magic Google incantation that finds me the 20 steps that it took me last time.

      Yes you're right, some actions a user might want to take are inherently complex. No, we cannot make macro keys or wizards for everything, especially activities that require our brain as input.

      However, there really ought to be a better way to dynamically build help systems that help you keep track of how to do complex things. The fact is that if I don't use a program at least once every couple of weeks, if it is complex at all I'm going to hit the learning curve every time I use that program.

      The bottom line is that there is a real fundamental issue there, and where there are fundamental issues there is room to create new solutions.

      Example: imagine every time you searched google it was dead-bang-simple to associate results of searches with the program you are using. Further imagine that anyone could easily record and publish a wizard/script for any application. Actually I am thinking more of a tutor than a wizard; rather then doing the task for you, it teaches you how to do the task. You would keep the tutor around until you don't need it any more.

      That I think would be an interesting middle ground. You still have the full functionality of the app, but complex tasks always have tutors that walk you through it as necessary.

      -- John.

  18. Does this happen in other fields? by amelith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  19. Just hide the tacky filters... by Hannah+E.+Davis · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I haven't used Photoshop much, but most of the commonly-used tools seem to be pretty easily accessible. I still wasn't very good with it, but that was due to my own lack of skill, not any problems with the UI or general program design.

    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.

    1. Re:Just hide the tacky filters... by jawtheshark · · Score: 2, Interesting
      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.

      I recently bought my wife an Wacom Intuos 3 and I installed The Gimp on her Windows XP machine. Pressure sensitivity worked out of the box. What version did you use? I used 2.2.8. Still, my wife doesn't use The Gimp, she uses Corel Painter (or whatever came with the Wacom, I don't know... I suck at using tablets)

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
  20. Why oh why?... by TLLOTS · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...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.

  21. They already made it, John. by numbski · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's called iPhoto.

    Affect the things you can, John. --Scorpy

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    1. Re:They already made it, John. by robbieduncan · · Score: 2, Informative

      I was going to moderate on this discussion, but like, whatever! If you set Preview (or your favourite image viewer if it's not Preview) to be your external editor in preferences you can right click and choose "Edit in external editor". If you want you can use the preferences to set double click to open in external editor instead of the built in retouching screen and that pretty much you set.

    2. Re:They already made it, John. by allgood2 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wow! See what happens when geeks try to overly exam things. The default view mode of iPhoto is "Browse" photos. Its the main thing that 90% of it's users do, with very little concept of editing or anything else.

      Basically you open up iPhoto, you'll see the little flash of text saying, loading photos if you have thousands of them like me (if you don't you probably won't see it). You'll see the photos for which over folder or album that you select in thumbnail mode. There's a slider, to make photos larger slide the bar to the right (the icons larger at that end), to make the photos smaller (so you can see more per page (slide the bar to the left (the icons smaller on that end).

      Photo navigation is handled by your arrow keys. You can go forward, backward, by using the left/right or the up/down arrows. If you want to see the photo even larger, you can click on the button that says "Desktop" and make it fit on your desktop. Though if your going through an entire row, obviously, slideshow mode in fullscreen display is far better.

      Sometimes when your looking for things to be complicated, simple is just too easy. I get a lot of people who switch from Windows to Macs who ask questions about how to do this or that. That's when you really start noticing how much software has trained people to do ill conceived work-arounds that become the standard way of thinking.

      I was just of this yesterday, when I was reading about this 10yr Windows user who just purchased one of the new thinner iMacs. He was discussing its grace, beauty, and overall ease of use, but then he rants about the lack of software. He wanted to load the machine up with anti-virus, spyware/malware, firewall and other security software. All perfectly fine, and available in the multitudes, for Windows. But for the Mac, you have your 5-10 main selections of anti-virus software, your built-in firewall or some UNIX base tools for those who want more control, but the category of spyware/malware software doesn't really exist.

      He went on and on about the lack of developers, without ever given consideration to the fact that the category is so under-developed because it doesn't need to exist on the Mac platform. At least not yet. Typically, pop-up blockers in Safari, Firefox and other major OS X browsers, is more than enough to prevent spyware/malware (at least the kinds that most PC users think of).

      Software doesn't self install on a Mac, it pops up a window requiring authentication and authorization. Which prevents the self-installation of most spyware that PC users experience. For those who want extra protection, they can block ads and banners, or purchase software like Little Snitch that will track outgoing communication from your computer, and a number of other little speciality tools. But they are specialty tools, because their for people who wish to knowingly esculate their security in specific manners.

      Some things aren't required, and even more things are just simplier than you believe on a Mac machine. Even I sometimes have to take a step back and look for the simple with some of Apple's tools, becauuse my brains cluttered with the 10 or 25 step process.

    3. Re:They already made it, John. by MouseR · · Score: 4, Informative

      Dvforak is talking about personal photography. iPhoto, wich I use almost on a daily basis, does not fit the bill.

      What Dvorak wants (but was scared to name it because it's only a Mac thing), is Aperture.

    4. Re:They already made it, John. by zsmooth · · Score: 2, Informative

      how do you lock the screen NOW

      If you have fast user switching enabled, just choose "Login screen" from the fast user switching menu.

    5. Re:They already made it, John. by shotfeel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On the Mac, the only way I know is to set a password for the the screensaver and wait for it to activate, or put the computer to sleep.

      I have a "hot corner" set up to activate the screen saver. Or you can set up a keyboard shortcut.

      But then, "maybe I don't want a password on the screen saver ALL THE TIME".

      I'm sure I can come up with specific sets of conditions that Linux doesn't handle without an "external application or something". In all OS's if you want something very specific you have to do some work to get it that way. And if you really think all OS's are as bad as they were 20 years ago, I have to say I completely disagree. Just the ability for a PC to run more than one program at a time...

    6. Re:They already made it, John. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't think this is particularly fair or true. iPhoto isn't plugged into the .Mac service for anything but printing and web page uploads, and the second is only a default: I, for instance (as well as somebody further up in the thread) use Flickr through a very well-designed plugin. Select an album, hit "Export," choose the group and other settings, and away you go.

      I agree with you that it isn't exactly obvious how to perform some tasks that ought to be simple, but there's nothing in the core abilities of iPhoto -- storing, sorting, and editing digital photos -- that requires .Mac. It's only if you want to upload them to Apple's web space that you need an account, and it's only if you want one-click printing or book-making that you need to use their printing services.

      Using iPhoto without .Mac or the built-in printing services is no more complicated than any other application, where you'd have to just save the photos as files and upload or send them to be printed manually. I've never used the built-in photo printing (although it's not a terribly bad deal cost-wise) because I'm impatient and prefer just to put them on a thumb drive and take them down to Sam's Club to be printed on a Frontier.

      IMO the only thing iPhoto is missing is color profiling and color space conversion. If I could just have the ability to choose a different color profile when I went to Export (for the Fuji Frontier, for example), I'd probably never have to launch Photoshop.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    7. Re:They already made it, John. by allgood2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nothing to do with Apple's utopian vision; but also nothing to do with saying things that aren't really true. But totally proves my point of users not looking past how they've been trained to view things. If you don't want someone to see your desktop, switch out of it. You have three options: 1) Fully log-out (this will force you to close all open items); 2) Partial log-out/Fast Switch (this will keep all your documents and files that are open, open, and show a login screen; 3) Add a password to your screensaver. These items work for probably 90% of the people 90% of the time. personally, I've been working on computers since 1987, and can only recall three or four times where I've ever tried to lock the computer verses logging out.

      With Mac OS X, and fast user switching, those times though rare are exceedingly easy. That said, if I wanted them easier, I could just pick up a small specialty application to do it for me, or go in and tweak the preferences. Personally, I'd use a specialty app cause that's what they excel at, customizing your environment for you. I have a slew of them running to make my computer, my computer.

      Also, you can activate sleep immediately with a command key or the use of sleep corners (drag your mouse to the upper right or lower left corner, depending on how you set the functionality up. And there are probably other options, as well, but since its rarely a concern for me, I've never bothered to find out what works best.

    8. Re:They already made it, John. by MouseR · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No one mentioned PhotoShop killer.

      Aperture is a professional (not personal as I mis-wrote above) photographer tool. It's meant to bring whatever's useful in PhotoShop, take out anything else, use a better interface and provide additional tools wich are all geared at professional photography.

      Even the neutral gray background and interface is there to help you better visualise your images without distorsion and hue-skewing caused by otherwise too flashy UI (aka, Aqua). Just like FCP.

  22. For basic resizing tasks... by WoTG · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  23. Just as everything else by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?
    1. Re:Just as everything else by SirPavlova · · Score: 2, Funny
      "These programs assume that you are a dolt."
      Dvorak... you ARE a dolt.

      Granted, but if even he finds them too "helpful," that's pretty damning.

      --
      Yar.
  24. Put this guy on TechTV! by pookemon · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
  25. Some things are hard.. by Vellmont · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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
  26. From ignorance... by venomkid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...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.
  27. again, iPhoto by deep44 · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  28. iPhoto is not that great by Zork+the+Almighty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!
    1. Re:iPhoto is not that great by jrockway · · Score: 4, Informative

      > It organizes all your photos in some crazy scheme on the disk

      By date? (the "2005" is not a random number... it's the year. The subfolders 01 02 03 ... are "months" -- and each month has "days" inside. This is the easiest way to organize things until you name the photos and add them to albums.)

      > It can't recognize duplicate photos and it will stupidly re-download all your photos every time unless you delete them from the camera

      I haven't had this problem. iPhoto says something like P12312312.jpg is a duplicate. Skip? [Yes, No, Yes To All]. Click Yes To All.

      --
      My other car is first.
  29. Has Dvorak even thought about the problem? by el_womble · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!
  30. The biggest problems by miyako · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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"
    1. Re:The biggest problems by Fnord666 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I really don't think it helps that some of the terms used for the tools, such as Dodge and Burn, are artifacts from analog darkroom photo processing techniques. These were introduced to ease the transition for photographers from film based to digital photography. At this point they could probably be renamed to something that makes a bit more sense. It could be a configuration choice which labels/buttons/flyouts you wanted to see.

      On a different subtopic, Photoshop is a high level and very powerful tool, yet camera manufacturers will include SE versions of it with their digital cameras. Mom just wants to tweak her photos a bit but Photoshop is what came with the camera so that must be the correct tool, right? Guess who gets the support call?

      --
      'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
    2. Re:The biggest problems by winchester · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Photoshop is modelled after the old analogue darkroom and film technologies. Dodging and burning comes easy to people who worked in the dark room. And once you understand channels and how they map to the analogue medium, you can do so much powerful things in photoshop. Pixel-accurate selections for instance. Unsharp masks may seem to work like magic (how can you sharpen something by using the unsharp mask?), but it all maps to analogue processes.

      For analogue photograpers like me, this is wonderful, as I can apply everything I know from the dark room directly to photoshop, and obtain similar results. I still use slide film, and scan the slides. Works wonders. Photograpers who have a digital workflow still understand very well what is going on.

      Poeple who just wish to do simple image ajustments, red eye reduction, cropping and so on, Photoshop is not the tool for them. They never were able to make those corrections, now they can, but Photoshop expects too much of a analogue background. You will leave 90% of the power of Photoshop untouched. (the digital dark room bit, that is). In that respect, Photoshop is just the wrong tool for them. Please note that this doesn't say anything about the inteligence of these people or the capabilities of the tool.

  31. Re:Oh I'm sorry, Picasa and iPhoto * by Freexe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  32. Different programs for different tasks... by Auraiken · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  33. Actually, it's not stupid at all by Moraelin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Actually, it's not stupid at all by sandwiches · · Score: 2, Insightful

      1) Photoshop is marketed to professionals. What kind of amateur uses a $600 piece of software to take out red eye?

      2) Your "seemingly simple" example is not simple at all. Recoloring one part of a photo while leaving another one alone is not that simple. Masking is not simple. You assume it's simple and then gripe when you discover it is not.

      3) I don't even know where to begin with your comparison between a human and a machine.

      4) "Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 software, the professional image-editing standard and leader of the Photoshop digital imaging line, delivers more of what you crave. Groundbreaking creative tools help you achieve extraordinary results. Unprecedented adaptability lets you custom-fit Photoshop to the way you work. And with more efficient editing, processing, and file handling, there's no slowing you down."

      That's a direct quote from the Adobe site. No mention that it's easy. In fact, the second sentence says "professional"

      So, if you have false expectations specifically about Adobe which is what TFA is about, then that's very much your fault.

    2. Re:Actually, it's not stupid at all by overunderunderdone · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem with your argument is that the program he's taking to task is Photoshop. It's NEVER been sold as so easy to use "that even someone completely untrained can use it" but as a complex program for professionals. Photoshop may claim it can "turn the red dress blue" it even claims it is "easy". For the people it made that claim to: professional designers & photographers... it was.

      It's not akin to your magical bycical sold as so easy even the untrained can use it but an expensive racing bike that makes otherwise impossible feats "easy" for professionals.

  34. Actually, it wouldn't by Moraelin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "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.
  35. Palm Desktop, and UIs generally by dunstan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  36. The Perfect Troll by BenjyD · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  37. I smell some shady marketing stunt for Aperture by Qbertino · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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
  38. John Dvorak on the Macintosh, 1984 by ExoticMandibles · · Score: 5, Informative
    The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things. What businessman knows about point sizes on typefaces or the value of variable point sizes? Who out there in the general marketplace even knows what a 'font' is?

    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.

    --John C. Dvorak on why the Macintosh would fail, San Francisco Examiner, February 19, 1984
  39. Re:*cough*The Gimp*cough* by Malenfrant · · Score: 2, Informative

    Curious. I too find Photoshop too difficult, as I am not an artist but a coder. However, I needed to touch up a photo for my parents, so downloaded the GIMP to give it a go. I found it incredibly easy to use, and managed to complete my task inside 10 minutes, and this after trying with Photoshop for nearly an hour. And yes, I am running windows (need to, as my job involves windows programming, and I need to keep up to date)

  40. 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.

    1. Re:PhotoStyler by aardvarko · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Photoshop's color picker can average 3x3 or 5x5 pixels; right-click in the image to select which you want. The crop tool is, and always has been, pixel-accurate at 100% or greater zoom.

  41. Tuxpaint? by matt+me · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Tuxpaint? by Asphixiat · · Score: 3, Informative

      Try digikam, very fast, made for quickly editing digital photos. The best thing is the quick, intuitive way of editing the red eye.

      you wont be sorry ;)

    2. Re:Tuxpaint? by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, digikam has some pretty good tools for photo management and touch ups. I saw a tutorial for removing red eye in gimp, And it was way too complicated. Complaining about how difficult it is to use a high level professional tool is a little short sighted. Most people couldn't start up autocad and start drawing out a house. Most people couldn't start up visual studio, and program their own operating system. Why would anybody expect to be able to start up photoshop and instantly be transformed into a graphical genius.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  42. Real men by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 3, Funny

    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!
  43. how to make photo editors easy to use: by plasmacutter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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!!
  44. Re:*cough*The Gimp*cough* by winchester · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Same here, actually. Anyone who dares to compare Photoshop to Gimp has either no clue what they are talking about or are so blantantly biassed that they should keep their mouth shut. Gimp is nowhere NEAR photoshop, in terms of functionality, feature-set and workflow. Everything I want to do in Photoshop is either very hard or impossible to do in Gimp. And no, the lack of a CMYK color space is not one of them...

  45. Paint Shop Pro, versions 5 by gknoy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    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 ... :D

  46. Dvorak... love 'em or hate 'em... by fzammett · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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
  47. You can do 45+ photo tasks in other tools. by fyngyrz · · Score: 3, Informative
    Dvorak's just not paying attention to the extremely powerful and low cost tools that are out there. They've been tailored for image editing for years, like the justly popular Paint Shop Pro and our own WinImages.

    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.
    1. Re:You can do 45+ photo tasks in other tools. by fyngyrz · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I don't know when it happened, but clearly, it happened.

      A couple of weeks back, I bought a copy to put on a friend's machine (he's an artist, I thought he'd enjoy the cool brushing features with tubes and so forth) and when I habitually went to jasc.com to buy it (I always try to buy direct from the manufacturer... they get the whole margin that way), I was forwarded to corel.com, and lo and behold, right there was PSP as a Corel product.

      We'll have to see how the product fares under Corel's umbrella. PSP has traditionally been a very user friendly product from a very user friendly company. I would class the support I saw JASC provide in newsgroups as somewhere between "poster-child for support how-to" and "legendary." Hopefully, we can look forward to more of the same from Corel.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  48. Simple to do by feyd.rm · · Score: 2, Informative

    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

  49. The next few dvorak articles... by Senzei · · Score: 2, Funny

    • Dvorak vs the user interface of a toaster: man outsmarted by machine
    • Dvorak: More tripe about why macs suck (because I wanted to say it but could not think of a reason)
    • Dvoradamus: Technology predictions made using refrigerator magnets and five year old spelling-bee champs
    • Why I am still relevant and everything you heard from anyone else is a bold face lie ... really
    • Some crap I made up because I was too busy smoking crack to come up with a story
    • 100 reasons why linux will never be good enough for the desktop (hint 1-99 amount to "There are too many choices for my brain to handle")
    • is the greatest thing ... no, even better than sliced bread (it does not force me to fight with my toaster as I cannot turn it into toast)

    Now, the true question is, are you wasting more brain cells reading what I say about dvorak or what he says about anything?

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