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Google Funds Work for Photoshop on Linux
S point 2 writes "Google has announced that they have hired Codeweavers, maker of the popular Wine software to make Photoshop run better on Linux. 'Photoshop is one of those applications that desktop Linux users are constantly clamoring for, and we're happy to say they work pretty well now...We look forward to further improvements in this area.' It is unknown whether or not the entire Creative Suite will be funded for support, but for the time being it seems Photoshop-on-Linux development is getting a new priority under Google."
The GIMP sucks! Stop bringing it up in every discussion about Photoshop.
"I am not a number! I am a free man!"-- The Prisoner
I suspect that as things start moving more and more in this direction, WINE will become the new "windows" API, taking it from Microsoft. If I were working on software, I'd write something platform independent as I could, and if I had to use Windows API, I work with WINE to make sure it ran flawlessly under that environment.
Imagine Windows API not in the hands of Microsoft.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It's the things that the GIMP doesn't do that relegates it to toy status.
love is just extroverted narcissism
What does Google get for this? Is this just a shot at Microsoft because Microsoft has been taking shots at Google?
Seems like a good reason to fund Gimp instead. Not that Wine is a project worth funding.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
For some professionals, there are tools that do not yet exist in gimp that they cannot be without (cmyk, layer grouping, adjustment layers, the list goes on).
However, gimp is good enough for many amateur and some professional uses.
While I like the gimp for what I do, my father who does photo retouching prefers photoshop.
If having photoshop work better(I believe it was bronze on winehq.com a little while back) helps make people make the move to linux, I'm all for it.
While we're at it... how about premiere too? Linux video editing doesn't even have a gimp equiv (kino doesn't give me enough control, cinelerra crashes, kdenlive has a few bugs and not enough effects yet...)
Why, the GIMP Toolkit, of course... or would that just be too confusing?
It's called The GIMP! ...which is probably the number one reason so few digital art professionals take it seriously.
I love linux, and advocate for it ad nauseum, but the devs need to do something about the clever-only-to-the-AV-Club names with which they continue to burden their otherwise fine creations.
Finally, linux users can join in on the piracy of adobe products that the Mac and Windows people have been able to do. See, linux IS getting more like the other OS's every day! :^)
Perhaps linux will be stronger if it learns to acknowledge the existence proprietary software vs remaining a religious movement.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Perhaps you missed the point. It is to make proprietary software obsolete.
The GIMP might be very powerful and feature packed, but the learning curve to get into it is cliff shaped. That makes for a vey significant barrier for newbies.
Most people don't want to do hugely complex photoshopping, just remove red eye from phots and a few other simple effects.
I've tried to use GIMP a few times, without using the manuals, but after a few minutes of getting nowhere I've fired up a Windows box and used photoshop (also without a manual).
Perhaps this exercise will give the GIMP people a bit of motivation to make the software more newbie-friendly.
We're getting to the stage where Linux is almost simple to use. "It was hard to write, so it should be hard to use" no longer cuts it.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Adobe Photoshop is the standard for graphic designers for all intents and purposes. If they can get it to run on Linux then that's a solid reason for new users to consider using Linux. You can be as idealistic as you want about free software but until GIMP becomes as good as Photoshop then professionals won't use it. The only reason I still have Windows installed is because I have CS2 for some school-related projects.
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
Yes. It makes the sound of a chair being thrown through a window.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Why not port it to Linux they have a win and mac version of it.
They sell a version of Wine. They are also company that will gladly take Google's money to do work on Wine. They are the same ones who helped make Google Maps and Picasa run on Linux.
We're the largest single contributor to Wine. We host the Wine web
site, employ the Wine maintainer, and do much of the 'heavy lifting'
required to keep Wine moving. Of course, many others contribute as well,
so we're certainly not the sole maker, but we very much play a vital
role in the making of Wine.
I can see this as valuable if it will allow a greater number of Windows applications to run on Linux and improve wine as a software program. Wine itself needs more funding since currently it does a dismal job of running many Windows programs. But the focus needs to be on improving compatability with all programs. If all this is going to do, is make Photoshop run better, it would be better to spend the money improving the performance of the Gimp and other open source programs. But making all Windows programs run on Linux, over 99%, would be a major accompishment that would hurry up the acceptance of Linux as a complete Windows replacement. There will also be those who say that it would be better to get people to use open source alternatives to windows programs than to use windows programs on linux, although, while we should improve open source programs, since having windows programs run on Linux would help many people move to Linux and would eliminate the main thing that keeps microsoft dominate, I think that improving wine to 99% compatability would also be very valuable as well. Remember as well, that a large number of Windows programs are custom apps for very specific purposes. I used custom windows only programs used by a company I worked for. These are not general purpose programs that I can just replace with open office. So its not necessarily just word processing programs and general windows programs one may need to run on linux that one can just get an open source replacement for, but highly specialised programs for which there is no Linux replacement and might only be used inside a company and no where else. I have had to have Windows XP in addition to Linux because of these custom special windows programs. I would just love to get rid of XP and run them all on Linux. The other major area that would be very useful is funding a compatability layer to support Windows hardware drivers on Linux, if we have millionaires reading this that want to fund something that would speed up Linux adoption, that would be the surest way of getting hardware support on Linux. I agree that open source drivers are always best but still this layer would be essential, especially until open source drivers are written, There is always a long lag between hardware becoming avialable and driver avialability on Linux because the drivers have to be written through back engineering and it takes quite a while, and there is always more resources put by companies on Windows. Linux is always on the back burner. This layer would also make it much eisier as well to backengineer hardware protocols by watching the communication between proprietary drivers and the hardware, a compatability layer for hardware drivers could speed up open source driver development
Which is why many developers will steer clear of it... you pretty much can't make OTS software with that view.
I think the photoshop interface is horrible. If you want to look at a powerful image editing paradigm check out Adobe After Effects. Although a video editing/special effects package it could apply directly to photo/print editing.
The endless levels of composition and the post-rendering are incredibly powerful.
If they built an AE interface on top of the gimp engine we could have a truly special piece of free software.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The Gimp DOES have CMYK support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP#Color_support
Allow me to introduce you to the Paragraph and the Full Stop.
That is all. Carry on.
But please, do not forget that we'll need proper tools and device support for colour management. The only reason for me having Windows on my PC is that there aren't good enough tools colour management. Without calibrated colours you can not do anything even if you had the best tools in the universe to alter your images.
...I've tried to use GIMP a few times, without using the manuals, but after a few minutes of getting nowhere I've fired up a Windows box and used photoshop (also without a manual).
The wine project had always been a double-edged project and it seems to me that google is using the bad edge.
1. One of the arguments that wine devs had is that not every compagny have the ressources to port their applications under *nix, but Adobe certainly doesn't fall in that category.
2. The picassa road is not definitively the best one : just bundling wine to a windows application and label it linux (or other unix) compiliant is near anything but nonsense. We choose unix because of freedom, but also because we believed in its superiorical technical merit (*be it true or not*), not to rely on some win32/directX implementation. We don't eat that food (oh, and if we could forget about this mono thing, many people would sleep better).
Even if i'm amazed by the work done by the wine team, and I'm thankful to them for allowing me to play some games under linux, I don't see them taking more importance as a good thing. This is not this kind of solution which will improve our systems.
As far as I know Codeweavers sell a version of Wine, so is this deal going to mean Photoshop will work better on Wine that I have installed for free, or the version that you sell.
I predict if they get Photoshop running properly on Linux, Linux users will abandon the OS in favor of something even more obscure and difficult to use. Then they'll tote that operating system as superior to Windows and piss about how nobody adopts it.
I have nothing compelling to say
With all the nonsense of Vista, a WINE porting strategy makes sense.
Think of it like this: Microsoft is trying to push a product (Vista) that its customers do not want. The *only* reason that any consumer would buy it is because they have virtually no choice because of Microsoft's monopoly.
Step in Google, fund WINE, work to create a Windows execution environment that supports many of those XP programs that will not work under Vista. Linux already supports many of the hardware devices that Vista does not. A working WINE may be able to eat away at Vista adoption.
What is needed is a smooth integration of Windows executables with Linux execution code. Conceptually, windows programs are nothing more than binaries that need their own environment, similar to the way one runs GNOME applications of KDE and vice versa, or better still Java programs. (Yes, I know that Java is a tokenized interpretive environment with a JIT, but this is a discussion not a compsci course.)
IMHO, the programs that should work out of the box on Linux with wine is quicken, quickbooks, peachtree, and photoshop. This would open up so many home and small business users who would love to use Linux but can't.
From your link. Yey for reading!
"Note that 'CMYK' colors are immediately translated into RGB when used; GIMP does not have any built-in support CMYK mixtures that cannot be represented in RGB, such as rich blacks, though they can be simulated to a limited extent with third-party add-ons.)"
While I don't agree with the GP that the GIMP is a Photoshop replacement, I think you're being pretty harsh. It's a damn powerful piece of software, and the fact that it doesn't do _everything_ does NOT make it a toy.
As a huge Linux fan and user, I have to agree. The GIMP is just... it's a bad name.
I can tell someone I use Firefox, Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Pidgin -- that, not so bad. I can say I use Gnome or KDE (depends on my mood), or I can tell them I use Pan. But I cannot look at another human being and tell them to use "The GIMP."
I run Linux on a PowerPC, you insensitive clod! How much good is proprietary software running on WINE going to do ME?!!
-:sigma.SB
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
Who exactly is it that is supposed to be driven to try and bring them into the herd? Why should I care if John Q Public prefers to write applications for Windows? How does that have any bearing on my preference to write applications targetting Linux?
Sooner or later he's going to realize he's just Bill's bitch on his own.
Linux is not just about having "another" system -- it is about open source, and for several legitimate reasons... though admittedly, sometimes the arguments come off sounding and being carried to the extremes of religious zealotry. But why Google would choose to fund a proprietary piece of software, when funding GEGL would help propel GIMP to the functionality inherent in Photoshop, as well as enable other parties (such as Google) to create offerings utilizing that codebase (GEGL stands for Generic Graphics Library), strikes me as a bit foolish. I think their monies would be better spent on GEGL/GIMP -- but the funding for Photoshop on Linux is still a good thing. But here's to looking a gift horse in the mouth! :)
That's the point... to you. You aren't in charge. Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with making money by selling Linux apps and proprietary stuff. There is an enormous monopoly in computing, and I would prefer to focus on that.
And yeah, you have to choose. You can't hope to compete against windows if the very best kinds of software really need windows (though Pshop obviously is also on macs). You either go nuts with every bit of information being free, of we give everyone an open set of basically strong tools, and let them buy professional level stuff, games, media, etc if they want it.
Gimp, openoffice, mozilla, ubuntu (or whatever) makes a nice level of stuff, but I need photoshop, I need VIZ, I need Autocad. And for CAD, there are free solutions, but they just aren't going to do. So I use Windows 2000, still the best version for me. I can boot into ubuntu, and would like to be able to use Wine, but we're about to buy Vista instead. How annoying.
Unless, of course, one of those "gadgets" or features that Photoshop has that GIMP is lacking, is needed. Then the price/performance becomes $0/unsuitable, which is very easily beat.
I think this has value if it will help improve Wine so it can run all Windows programs. That really should be the focus here. I do think funding Wine would really help along Linux adoption and help end the dreadful Microsoft monopoly. So, this is not necessarily just about photoshop, but making all Windows programs run on Linux. and it is the fact that so many programs run only on Windows, which keeps Windows dominate. If we have millionaires reading this who would like to speed up adoption of Linux, funding work on developing a way to run windows hardware drivers on linux would also be a huge help. There is always a lag between hardware being released and running on Linux because companies always spend less time on Linux. While open source or native windows drivers are best, it is not realistic to expect Linux to be adopted when people cannot run their hardware for years perhaps because there is no driver. This would allow as well the hardware to be used with Windows drivers until a native linux driver is produced.
What the hell is the difference? An operating system is a collection of software.
Preamble: I'm a photographer needing to process tens of thousands of photos relatively swiftly. The functionality I need isn't all that advanced (curves, levels, an occasional straighten horizon (measure + arbitrary rotate), crop, unsharp mask, and sometimes an action to find edges, feather and apply unsharp mask on that), but being able to access and apply this functionality swiftly is an absolute must because of the volume of photos I deal with. Photoshop is optimized to perfection to allow a swift workflow, while the gimp seems optimized to perfection to hinder it. Focus is never where I need it, shortcuts to access tools don't work depending on which sub-window has focus, etc. So yes, I really need Photoshop.
I last tried Photoshop 7 under wine about a year ago. It was functional to an amazing degree (for someone who'd never seen or used wine before), but the rough edges were slightly too rough for me to be able to switch to Linux fulltime. I could trigger a dozen crashes in Photoshop at will just by resizing panels and doing other simple things like that, the program didn't feel native (alt-tabbing would keep the panels in the foreground, obscuring other programs), and focus sometimes strayed, amongst other lesser (but still annoyingly noticeable) issues.
I just tried the latest wine with these Google sponsored improvements, and wow. This is an amazing difference. Every single issue I saw a year ago is gone. Photoshop feels as responsive as it does under Windows (perhaps even more so), and I went through an hour long editing session without being slowed down or annoyed even once.
As far as I'm concerned, Linux is now ready to become my main OS.
Google: I don't like your lack of respect for my privacy, but for this work on Wine, I can say from the bottom of my heart: Thank you!
The linux release of Picasa is how Google got into the Wine game in the first place. Picasa for Linux is simply the Windows version packaged with a custom build of Wine.
Nobody is in charge. I have no problem with people making money selling Linux and services for Linux (or any other piece of software) either.
My question was: Who is it that is supposed to care what the proprietary world does? The GIMP developers aren't interested in making a Photoshop clone. They enjoy coding their application the way they think it should be coded.
Exactly how is "Linux" supposed to learn to acknowledge proprietary software without emulating it?
"Sooner or later he's going to realize he's just Bill's bitch on his own." Yep. Any decade now they'll wise up. It's just a matter of time.
That's the simple answer, and what Adobe would say to their stockholders.
The correct answer is this: It's impossible to estimate the return on investment and so they're erring on the side of not doing anything - since it's hard to blame someone for *not* taking an action that could be portrayed as risky.
When it comes to raw return on investment, a Linux port of the Adobe creative suite would probably pay for itself pretty quickly - porting is damn cheap compared to what they charge for a copy of their software.
The real issue here is one of business complexity. Corporate executives *hate* complexity because it makes it harder for them to hold all the business details in their head. They're perfectly willing to throw away a percent or two of revenue just to avoid the staff required to maintain and support something like a Linux port. It's not the cost of the staff, it's the slots on the organizational chart that allow for more risk of mismanagement.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Makes no difference if they don't. They'll just be stuck with Vista, and that won't bother me at all.
"Nobody is in charge"
Exactly.
We aren't really talking about Gimp so much as we are talking about Wine, but if you really believe that Gimp isn't following the proprietary world and trying to be a nice photoshop alternative by going for things the photoshop customers get from photoshop, well, then we disagree. Of course Gimp developers should look to Photoshop and mimic much. I know it's not the cool answer, but it's true. Of course, I think there is plenty of room for innovation and to do a better job, as Ubuntu does in many areas vs. XP. But that has nothing to do with the price of tea in china. We're talking about Wine, which quite obviously has to follow the Windows API, etc.
Linux is kinda dealt a bad hand. I don't really see why we don't see Adobe and others specifically tailoring software for Ubuntu. Support costs, I bet. Photoshop (or whatever) on Wine with 100% support is precisely what a bunch of folks would need to get rid of their bloated OS.
Can you see a world where Wine is not needed by the serious Linux user? Of course you can, if you rule out a ton of useful software. In other words, if you rule out Linux as a serious OS choice for tons of folks.
Actually, the return on investment is really easy to work out.
Photoshop is not, and was never intended to be, sold as a consumer application. It's market is professionals. At the moment, if you are a professional in one of a number of fields you use Photoshop. If you don't use Photoshop, you can't do professional work if only because you can't open the files your collaborators are sending and can't send the ones clients are expecting.
So, what is the market for Photoshop on Linux? Professionals who are more interested in Open Source principles than in earning a paycheque through their profession. I can tell you right now, that's a damn small group, and unlikely to buy it even if it was available. So, where is the payoff for Adobe here?
Try reading what I wrote; I didn't say "prefer writing for Windows" I said "creating off-the-shelf software." The religon behind OSS will keep those developers (and many investors) away.
On that note: thank you to Google and to Codeweavers.
I think the reason Adobe doesn't release Photoshop for Linux, is that it would be another platform that users would expect to have the entire suite run-upon. If it is just Photoshop, and none of the other (less used) products, to the buyer would seem inferior, and to the expert, not have all the tools on a common platform. (No need to convert to Linux if I have to boot up Windows or hop on my Mac when I need Illustrator).
.NET programmer to pay the bills).
With their acquisitions (Macromedia, et.al.), and having to convert their applications to Cocoa (from Carbon) to expect to run on Mac OS X 10.6, they have their hands full without trying to broaden their platform appeal. Adobe was instrumental in causing Apple to do as much "Classic" compatibility in OS X, and provide Carbon to OS 9 to bridge the gap between OS 9 and X. If Apple didn't hold such a significant portion of their customers at the hardware/operating system level, I would have imagined that they'd stopped Mac development to since they have such a broad portfolio of products that don't (aside from some print-features in the Mac OS) have a lot to do with operating system stuff (security/authentication such as AD/LDAP integration), Adobe would really benefit from platform monoculture.(Disclainer, I'm a lifelong Mac user and
I'd love to see Photoshop on Linux, and even more, a native recode of the Creative Suite, however, for the reason mentioned above, the GPU manufacturers lackluster support for Linux at the driver level, and the common perception (amongst PHBs and users whoever "heard about" Linux)that "free as in speech means free as in beer" makes Adobe's shot at a commercial Photoshop port very difficult, as much as I would love to see it.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
Adobe Photoshop is the standard for graphic designers for all intents and purposes.
GIMP is good enough for the rest of us. I design a website, touch up some photos and GIMP i good enough for my needs. It's not like GIMP is an MS Paint competitor. For many purposes it's just as good as Photoshop. I don't think that many Linux users would buy or even pirate Photoshop even if it was native Linux. Most of us "regular" users just don't need it.
For me, even installing a program from CD seems like a hassle I'm not used to (except for base system). Add to that that I need wine. Keeping it up-to-date seems even worse. Do windows even have an update-manager for third party programs? Is that "emulated" in wine?
While I can understand some people absolutely need Photoshop I can't see it being a showstoper for most. I can also understand how GIMP gives a bad impression if you tried it on Windows, it absolutely needs virtual screens to be used. Windows traditionally uses MDI interfaces instead and some Unix programs just don't port that good to the platform.
My operating system doesn't include Photoshop or Office. An operating system should not contain applications, generally speaking. It should contain utilities that perform administrative tasks... maybe a few tiny applications for things like migration, disk partitioning, and other very basic tasks... but it should not contain what would be considered non-administrative applications. That's outside the scope of an operating system.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You mean like Maya?
P.S. I hate the Motif toolkit.
Unfortunately, trying to coerce Photoshop into running well on LInux is not exactly the right path to go down. While it may be good for a few people who absolutely positively need to use Photoshop in short term, Linux needs more NATIVE software if it is to be stronger in the long run.
That said, I think it is important for Linux users to always try to look towards free software first. Even if that means being "religious" about it. I think this is more important, at least in principle, than having applicaitons like Photoshop. I think we'd see the spirit of LInux slowly leeched away by commercial interests if LInux users weren't passionate about Open Source Software. I'd like to see Linux stay "fun." Proprietary software is not fun, IME. It may get the job done, but it sucks to be dragged along by some corporate support line when things don't work the way they should.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
It should. The religion behind OSS seeks to destroy their business model by making them obsolete.
Well.. Gimp, free. Photoshop... $1000.
I'll stick to Gimp, with its limitations. For the price difference I can buy another computer!
Dispite the many claims, I really doubt that photoshop is seriously hindering Linux adoption. I mean, really, what percentage of users out there are photographic professionals?
Listening to the comments, one could get the impression that the number was close to 100%, as opposed to something around 0%.
So, I have a few comments. Firstly, I've introduced quite a number of people to the Gimp, for photo editing.
1- Noone complained about the name or even mentioned it.
2- They're not photographic prefessionals, and GIMP has frankly more than enough functionality for them.
3- They're staying all digital (ie photos stay on the computer), so they do not need CMYK seperation. Actually, the first bit isn't strictly true, but since they're not photographic professionals, they don't even know what CMYK seperation is. If they did, they don't have the calibrated monitors and printers required to make it really useful. Same goes for spot colours or whatever non RGB space you're talking about. See point 2.
4- Their cameras save pictures as 8 bit JPEGs, so the poor high bit depth support of GIMP doesn't matter. See point 2.
5- They're all people with too much time on their hands to bother pirating software. Or they need it at work for the odd basic task, where piracy is not an option.
6- None of them got free photoshop with a camera/scanner.
7- None of them had in fact ever uesd photoshop, so having a non-photoshop interface didn't matter. See point 2.
Finally, I fit happily in to the categories above. I've never used photoshop, GIMP does pretty much what I need in an easy, simple manner. I have never needed CMYK seperation. And FINALLY, I have a proper window manager which supports sloppy focus and focus-does-not-raise, and you know what? GIMP's interface actually works really, really, really well. Oh, and by the way, see point 2.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Maybe so, but if it were open source, we wouldn't be at the mercy of big software companies waiting for a port. Some indy developers could get together and write up a port themselves, instead of waiting for google to do it.
Why do topics like that always end up in the old flame war of proprietary vs free software? What about the freedom of choice?
I'm a professional photographer, meaning, I make a living of it.
I use Gimp on Linux for this, and I'm just fine with it. Especially since version 2.4 I haven't thought once of going back to PS. On the rare occasions I need to convert an image to CMYK for offset printing, I use Krita to do that. For other things I need workarounds, but I'll live.So, that's my choice.
But:
I happen to be lucky enough that, apart from being an artist, I also understand computers, meaning I could figure out on my own how the Gimp works.
Most professional photographers I know aren't. They get taught to use Photoshop when they are just starting out, and I'm sure everyone agrees that that the Gimp interface is quite different from the Photoshop interface, and also that re-learning always is harder than learning something new.
So, if the less tech savy people choose to use Photoshop because they know how to do that, what's wrong with that?
And if improvement for Photoshop on Linux is being worked on, Linux can only benefit.
I don't think that'll happen, I think there will be areas of software development where there's more people with money willing to pay for specific features than there are developers who want to do it for free. The open source development model has some serious shortcomings in getting cash from people willing to pay to people willing to develop, so why not let the free market have a go at it? Whichever combination of closed source, dual licensing, donations and volunteers or whatever that creates the best product wins. I think there are plenty reasons to want a free OS/kernel though, even if you don't want every application on your PC to be open source. For example, with an open shim between the hardware and the applications, you'll find it very hard to do any funny things in applications like DRM and such.
In short, I think Linux vs Windows will be more important for the long-term freedom of software than trying to take on every application battle. Obviously you need to get good applications running on Linux, but if you can get closed source ported instead of having to develop a Photoshop-killer and an Exchange-killer and every other big Windows lock-in, I'd say that's a win for open source. Once they're there you can keep eating away at them from the underside offering more and more with your distro, instead of offering some completely alien system which requires people to make this big switchover.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I believe that he was basically saying that GIMP is missing features which would be considered essential by many professionals for medium and high-end graphics work. From their point-of-view, the fact that it lacks certain things like *proper* CMYK support and 16-bit colour are probably deal-killers, even if the rest of the package is good. (*)
OTOH, Photoshop CS is overfeatured for most people, and GIMP is still a powerful and economical tool that will meet their needs. It's certainly not a "toy" like MS Paint, but I can understand why a professional might see it that way.
(*) It reminds me of my film SLR camera. In a lot of respects, it was a good model for the money. However, IMHO the fact that it lacks depth-of-field preview or any form of remote shutter release (amongst other things) are serious omissions that can't be reasonably overcome, and count against it regardless of how nice the rest of the camera is. Stupid omissions that were rectified in the replacement model, but ones that rule this one out from being considered remotely "professional" or even "serious amateur". Not that I'm saying that GIMP is that hobbled (it's actually pretty good), but you see what I'm getting at.
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I can think of several developers right now work for a company called UGS who write OSS projects in their spare time.
My blog
Off the top of my head, GIMP needs:
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The GIMP may be great, but that's not really the issue. Getting Wine, etc., to the point where the most important popular Windows apps run on Linux reduces the perceived transition costs (including retraining costs or lost productivity during the learning curve) and risks to companies and individuals that are already strongly attached to particular software to breaking free of the MS operating system stranglehold.
I disagree. I'm going to fork your comment. Therefore I'm in charge. And I'm going to devote minutes of my free time reinventing what you may have posted. But I'm going to do it MY way because I'm MY own boss. And if anyone disagrees with me, you're free to fork my comment and do it how you want. And at the end of the day we'll have X comments saying the same thing, in our own ways and we'll have gotten nothing done. And We can all make our own websites dedicated to our forked comment and we can all fight over the same market because we believe our method of the comment is right.
One extreme of this is Apple. Apple has One leader. From what we've heard it's a complete dictatorship. Features and designs live and die by what one person says. Consequently everything feels very well integrated and you can leverage numerous people to get more done and get it done better.
Well, yeah. Too bad it wasn't called "the GNU IMP" rather than "the GIMP".
"While I don't agree with the GP that the GIMP is a Photoshop replacement, I think you're being pretty harsh. It's a damn powerful piece of software, and the fact that it doesn't do _everything_ does NOT make it a toy."
I think before we let this line of discussion get too out of control, it needs to be brought up that there is such a wide variety of uses for photo editing that no two people are likely to come together to argue about using it for the same reason. I'll give you an example:
I work in Hollywood. I do a lot of texturing and matte work. I don't think there's a corner of Photoshop I don't touch in any given week. I've tried to use GIMP... Now, if you were to ask me what I thought of the GIMP, the first thing I'd do is call up in my mind the experience of using it. (In other words, context matters.) Then, without considering (or even knowing about) the point of view you're coming from, I'd respond with "The GIMP is totally useless." You'd think I was odd for having such a harsh opinion. Since I don't talk about my living much, you'd have little reason to know where I'm coming from. Given the harsh tone of my opinion, you wouldn't be too likely to ask me to clarify. Instead, you'd probably think I was a brand-biased jerk. (I don't say that to imply that you jump to conclusions, rather, I think you'd probably do that because I know *I* would probably do that and have done so in the past. I'm not proud.) And, from there, we'd argue. I wouldn't know how you're measuring the GIMP, and you wouldn't know how I'm measuring Photoshop.
There really is no baseline for comparing the two. Without out, this debate will endlessly circle the drain. I can honestly tell you that GIMP is not even in the ballpark of being a useful replacement to Photoshop with me. The $600 price difference doesn't even slightly narrow the gap. (I make money from Photoshop work, so if I can't work with the GIMP, it's not free, it's actually expensive.) I can also tell you that I don't think a lot of people commenting on Slashdot are in a similar field of work, so most would not see where I'm coming from. And frankly, they'd be right. Who am I to judge an app as versatile as the GIMP or Photoshop for their use? It's like arguing about whether a hammer or a screwdriver is a better tool. An IT guy would think a carpenter's a fucking idgit.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
That's nothing. Try keeping a straight face as you tell your boss that you use ACID with snort.
You make PS look and behave like AfterEffects and you will have a massive amount of pissed off Photoshop users. AfterEffects is just Photoshop altered for linear, time-based compositing and the UI reflects that. Photoshop is designed to to alter static images and the UI reflects a workflow to accommodate that. AfterEffects is a screen real estate hog. Photoshop, on the other hand, allows you to manage your screen real estate in a manner more befitting of working with still images. The UI paradigms don't gel with each other.
As for GIMP, if you're happy with a version of Photoshop that is about 11 years old... more power to you. GIMP really is about on par with where Photosop was at version 4. That's not to say it's bad. Photoshop 4 was an amazing release, but a lot of the simplest tasks were cumbersome to accomplish. Sure, I can mask just about anything out with alpha channels, some patience and time, but now I have tools to HELP automate (not completely replace) some of these more mundane and time consuming tasks, so I can get my work done far more efficiently and recoup my investment in PS.
It seems to me the people who are most vocal about what needs to be changed in PS, the people who scream the most for it on Linux, are the ones who probably need the raw power of the application the least. Stick with GIMP. It's a good image editor. No competitor to Photoshop, but far more flexible than Paint.
Pooty tweet
And what about when that one person is a stubborn asshat? You can't always depend on a benevolent dictator. Waiting doesn't always help; fork it if you know what you're doing and what you want out of it. (It's the only way things get done, after all.)
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Not possible I am afraid. Adobe has patented something related to most of the items which make the difference between Photoshop and the competition. It is nearly impossible to get past them.
The real solution here is to license the IP and create non-free plug-ins for GIMP. As a result the GIMP will continue to develop without resources going on a Wine Photoshop abomination. This is not necessary anyway, photoshop supports enough architectures to make an X native port trivial.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Thanks for sharing your opinion. I feel better just knowing it, even if I do think its wrong.
I smell the burning tinder of an approaching flame war, so let's get this straight.
GIMP does most things that Photoshop does, and does it fairly well. It does do a few things differently, and the cost of relearning is significant, so there is a high barrier to switching.
Having said that: There is one thing that GIMP really doesn't do that Photoshop does, and that is print. I don't mean "dump it to your colour postscript". I mean all of the stuff that you need to get your images faithfully reproduced on your offset printer as well as they are reproduced on your calibrated monitor. (Replace "offset printer" with whatever output device your printer/publisher is using.)
So in conclusion: The GIMP is not a toy. However, if you are working in print, then the GIMP isn't even close to being the right tool for your job.
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It's not just my opinion. It's the opinion of pretty much any graphics designer professional who has tried the Gimp. It's a simple fact that it is years or decades away from obsoleting Photoshop.
What does that have to do with the discussion?
Who if not a Google/Codeweavers combo is going to be motivated to port Photoshop to Linux? It's exactly what should be happening, and the GIMP project will continue to do things that are good for the GIMP project.
Will Wine run the cra--, er... unlimited demo version as well?
Move all sig!
I never said it was a Photoshop replacement. Was trying to suggest that putting money into Gimp to get things that "professionals" want might be better in the long term.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The people that I know that do 3D animation do it for Computational Fluid Dynamics. They use OpenGL. They use Unix (or Linux). Depends on what you are doing which platform is a toy...
It should. The religion behind OSS seeks to destroy their business model by making them obsolete. !? But if no one uses OSS, how will that be achieved? Refusing to accommodate proprietary software isn't going to help. How many Firefox users would there be if there wasn't a Windows version? Why the all or nothing approach?
Good show. Glad you're on the team. Now make us a list of all the projects that make up the operating system of each distribution, and all the ones you figure are userland. We'll contact each contributor to those projects, and organize some kind of understand with each of them that the userland people are to do their own thing, but the operating system people will be hell bent on destruction of the proprietary software world.
WTF?
Then rejoice ! The next major release of GIMP will be based on GEGL, which provides native 32bit floating point RGBA.
Krita has all the tools. Even tablet support.
And how the hell does that work anyway? the file bzImage and the contents of
Both of course!
All the work we did for Google was committed straight to the Wine repository. But that's just business as usual for us: we already submit 99% of the changes we make to Wine. The remaining 1% are those hacks that are rejected as too ugly by Alexandre (the Wine leader) but which we keep as a temporary fix / workaround.
See, the thing is that improving Wine is so central to our business that it's just part of our mission statement:
MissionTo transform Mac OS X and Linux into Windows®-compatible operating systems.
To help our customers leverage Windows technology on non-Windows operating systems.
To promote the growth of Free Software by supporting and extending the Wine Project.
You obviously don't know who I am if you think I'm not "in the know". *rolls eyes*
Linux is an operating system, whether you like it or not. There's a generally accepted set of core pieces that are shared by pretty much all the usable distros that most people think of as being "Linux". Nobody uses the term "Linux" to refer to the Linux kernel. They call that the Linux kernel. I have never in a single conversation with anyone heard someone use the term "Linux" to refer to the kernel without adding the word "kernel" after it.
From a purely pedantic technological perspective, you are correct. However, language is defined based on how it is used, not based on how an academic says it should be used. As such, Linux is generally used to refer to the Linux kernel plus collectively your choice of Linux distro. See there? I called it a Linux distro. If it were not an operating system, I couldn't call it a LInux distro. I'd have to call it an Open Source OS Distro Based on Linux, or at best, a Linux-based distro. For that matter, you used the term, too.
That said, my primary OS hasn't been Linux-based for a while now, and to be fair, even it has a handful of pieces that my purist approach says should probably be add-on pieces (though it does provide the option to not install them, IIRC). It does not, however, provide a paint program....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
GIMP opens psd files already. I'm not an artist by any means, nor do I aspire to be one, but I haven't had any problems with it.
Actually, Kuickshow can open psds too, although Kuickshow doesn't support layers and other useful features, but it's quite sufficient if you only need to view psd files and not edit them...
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
>>The religon behind OSS will keep those developers (and many investors) away.
>It should. The religion behind OSS seeks to destroy their business model by making them obsolete.
Which is why that approach to open source can never succeed. The open source movement needs developers and software companies to succeed, and as long as the religious fanatics in the movement keep up their talk of destroying commercial software development, the majority of developers are going to put their effort into proprietary software.
Open source can be good for business, but businesses and developers want to see a model that lets them use both closed and open source systems together so that they can continue to make a profit on their specialized proprietary systems while cutting cost by using open source systems for things like kernels and compilers that they don't want to write from scratch. When fanatics talk about open source like it is all or nothing, that scares off developers and makes them think more about burrying open source than supporting it.
Be sure that the open source movement is all about developers, and scaring them off by threatening to put them out of work is the last thing you want to do.
You cannot have more native applications if you don't have more users. But you cannot have more users if you don't have the applications they want. It's a vicious cycle. Wine has the potential to break that cycle by making 99% of the world's existing applications Linux-compatible. Improve one piece of software, get a hundred thousand applications Linux-compatible.
Then Windows and Native applications, commercial and open-source, can duke it out on a level playing field. Well... almost level, the native open-source Linux applications will be free (as in beer) and are likely to come pre-installed (e.g. Firefox, Open Office, etc). Does that remind you of something?
"Notepad" is not a part of the "operating system" just because it came on your XP disc.
Rule of thumb: If it runs in userland and not in kernel space, it's not part of the operating system.
Wouldn't surprise me if Notepad did run in kernel space.
Open source != developers working for free.
Quite a large number of developers writing OSS software are paid to do so by companies who use the software. And the reverse is also true, a number of closed source freeware applications are written by developers who are not paid in any way.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Not one bit true. Wordperfect was already in trouble long before its port to linux. Is because it was dominated by evil^H^H^H M$ word that pushed it to an infant linux market. And it didn't work. Now I hope this attracts Paintshop pro, the better graphic program.
Say hello to Gentoo or even Linux From Scratch
If the govt becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites man to become his own law, it invites anarchy
There isn't "no one" to use Free, Libre and OSS. As long as the people who use it continue to be able to be part of it by having the same freedom on it as the original author, and make it grow, it will grow, that's the point !
;) people saying "merde! there is no game, it sux!" now use their proprietary game under wine, etc...
;)
People who a few years ago were "achh! there is no decent graphical interface, it's pointless!" are now drooling using compiz-fusion... people saying "crap! there is no multimedia! it will never work!" now use vlc, mplayer, amarok, songbird, etc... (and gnash soon
You can spend energy today telling everyone how it will fail, how it will never interest anyone, but someday it might be ready and comfortable enough for you.. and then you might realize the true value of Freedom. (hint: it has no price.
- 16-bit-per-channel color
I would like to get that too for those few special cases when it's needed.
- Native CMYK
I'm good with current CMYK support, enough for offset printing.
- Better floating palette support for users who don't want to enable focus-follows-mouse.
Who need that? I have everything just like on photoshop, even better, i have more control of GUI than photoshop allows me to have.
What is last version of GIMP what you have tryed?
- Adjustment layers
Would do things little easier, it's currently possible to go "around" that. So not "must have" option for me.
- Free transform tool
I like how Gimp currently separates tools, but i think it wouldn't harm if there would be for photoshoppers same kind tool.
- Recordability of action scripts
This should be much easier to do, but possible.
- Better scripting language
2.4 brought python to gimp.
- Full support for all PSD files (e.g. supporting adjustment layers, for example)
I think this is #1 important thing if GIMP user want to work together with photoshop user.
- Human interface cleanup---organize menus more logically, make tools more visually distinguishable at a glance, etc.
Have you tryed 2.4 version? It has much better menu than Photoshop. But if you have already familiar with photoshop menus, any other applications menu structure is always "bad". I like GIMP menu structure way more than photoshops what does not always have a logic, but it's because Photoshop is not just for photographers, it's made for art and printing users too, and there are these typical terms what are different and workflow is different so photoshop is just somewhere "middle" of everything.
Oh well, Adobe admits it's GUI is not so usefull as it should be and next versions will bring better GUI and better menu structure.
Unless you plan to sit for a couple of days waiting for your procedural materials to render, you use 2d images mapped onto a 3d surface wherever you can get away with it, no matter which 3d application you use. Photoshop is one of the biggest tools in a 3d designers toolbox, to the point where a lot of designers will have photoshop and their 3d app open side by side.
Realistically, the gimp is good, its fantastic. But photoshop is better in a lot of cases
A.I. Research. The peculiar science in which we know the question and we know the answer, but can't show the working
It does have a price! But it was fair trade anyway.