Adobe Puts Free Photoshop Online

Amit Agarwal writes "Adobe today launched a basic version of Adobe Photoshop available for free online. Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. According to Yahoo! News, Adobe says providing Photoshop Express for free is part marketing and part a strategy to create up-sell opportunities. It hopes some customers will move from it to boxed software like its $99 Photoshop Elements or to a subscription-based version of Express that's in the works."

Comments

Already Free

[Frosty Piss]

I thought Photoshop was already free. Why would I want a Web-based version?

Re:Already Free

[calebt3]

Chances of prosecution go from infinitesimally small to nil. And those here with a conscience can set their minds at ease.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

And chances of infection go from unlikely to zOMG what happened to your tool?? Running executables from shady sources? No wonder you guys have problems with viruses.

If were going to talk about free photoshop, I propose we link to it. And free illustrator, and free indesign.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Gimp is NOT Photoshop, nor is it even remotely comparable. Inkscape, though a nice program, isn't quite up to the same bar as Illustrator (though it can most certainly get the job done). And InDesign is the best, with Scribus and Quark being in a close second.

Gimp is absolutely not a "free Photoshop" though.

Re:Already Free

[chexy]

If your on a windows system why not use Paint.net http://www.getpaint.net/

Re:Already Free

[billcopc]

I CBA to sign up for this crap, but my hunch is this will lead more users to get the warezed version.

There's one thing Photoshop did to me, it warped my brain in such a bizarre way that trying to use any other image editing software gives me Tourettes! I'm not saying Photoshop is any better, but Adobe's anal-retentive UI paradigms force you to unlearn common sense, to make room for the mask-based editing concepts.

I tried the Gimp, and frankly I couldn't wrap my head around it, not because it wasn't good enough, but because it's not Photoshop. I suspect many new users will go through the same painful addiction.

Re:Already Free

[blhack]

Gimp is NOT Photoshop, nor is it even remotely comparable. Inkscape, though a nice program, isn't quite up to the same bar as Illustrator (though it can most certainly get the job done). And InDesign is the best, with Scribus and Quark being in a close second. Probably a flame, but I'll bite.
What specifically can you do in Photoshop that I can't do in Gimp? Its probably just a matter of what you're used to. I grew up on gimp. If you stuck me in front of a Photoshop rig, there is very little chance that I would be able to do ANYTHING with it.
As far as Inkscape, have you used version 0.46 yet? Its really really good. It just came out a couple of days ago, so I suggest you check that out. Honestly, people talk about firefox, or gimp being great examples of what OSS can do, but IMHO, Inkscape is one of the BEST examples of just how awesome F/OSS software can be.

As far as scribus goes: I use it EVERY SINGLE DAY. The ONLY thing that it can't do that commercial software can is Spot Colors out of the box. This is pretty simple to fix though, you just need to edit a config file. If you're a designer, you really ought to have a pantone book laying around, so just match up the colors you want, and put the names in the Config. Google it, its pretty simple.

Really, if this was more than a flame i would love to know. What really can you do in Adobe products that I can't do in OSS ones?

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't even support pressure sensitivity with tablets.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a flame, but it is the dealbreaker he is talking about when it comes to GIMP vs Photoshop: GIMP's inability to do CMYK or something along those lines. So it is not professional grade (I may be simplifying it), not something you can turn in to a professional printing company, but for the hobbyist and/or FOSS fan, it's enough.

It's cropped up often enough in these type of GIMP vs Photoshop stories.

Re:Already Free

[i_liek_turtles]

Actually, for photos I use emacs.

Re:Already Free

[glwtta]

Doesn't even support pressure sensitivity with tablets.

Oh and the Flash-based thing does? Impressive!

I've been happily using Paint.NET for the sort of trivial, software development-related image editing needs that I used to use, uh, "extended evaluation" copies of Photoshop for. It covers the basics quite well.

Re:Already Free

[blhack]

it is not professional grade (I may be simplifying it), not something you can turn in to a professional printing company, but for the hobbyist and/or FOSS fan, it's enough. This would be news to every printing company I've ever worked with.

Re:Already Free

[wellmington]

Probably a flame, but I'll bite.
What specifically can you do in Photoshop that I can't do in Gimp? Its probably just a matter of what you're used to. I grew up on gimp. If you stuck me in front of a Photoshop rig, there is very little chance that I would be able to do ANYTHING with it. CMYK, Pantone in particular but mostly it's down to the horrible interface that GIMP comes with. Gimp is basically a programmers idea of how a creative tool should look.

Re:Already Free

[wellmington]

Oh and GIMPs font rendering leaves a LOT to be desired.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

This has been repeated ad nauseum, every time a GIMP or Photoshop article has found its way to slashdot.

• 16 bit images. Extremely important for preserving dynamic range in an image when adjusting contrast and colour saturation.
• Adjustment Layers. Very, very useful for non-destructive contrast and colour adjustments.

There are probably more but they are the most outstanding in my mind. In short, GIMP is useful for most web and electronic imagery, but less than adequate for print - especially saleable print. As far as other OSS products are concerned - I think Krita supports 16 bit images but last time I tried it, it was still a little flakey. Cinepaint supports 16 bit images and HDR, but have you ever tried to use it? Paint.net is pretty awesome but a little unstable as well, and though it's free I am not too sure about its code's status. I quite like Inkscape though.

Re:Already Free

[Ford Prefect]

Oh and GIMPs font rendering leaves a LOT to be desired.

Yes. Yes it does.

One image, and another. One from Photoshop CS3 10.0.1, the other from The GIMP 2.4.4. Same font.

But which? Choose now!

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

By the way - as a supplement to the comment above, here is a simple example of the difference between 8 bit and 16 bit colour:

Benefits Of Working With 16-Bit Images In Photoshop, Page 2

Re:Already Free

[mrchaotica]

I don't get it. I can tell they look different, but they both look equally good. I guess #2 is a little sharper; is that the GIMP one?

Re:Already Free

[blhack]

I don't get it. I can tell they look different, but they both look equally good. I guess #2 is a little sharper; is that the GIMP one? Do you hear that whooshing sound?
You might want to sit down.

Re:Already Free

[geekoid]

Wait a second.

In this context, it's a fair question. I get the point, but I wonder which is which.

Re:Already Free

[darthdavid]

1) Gimp can't do CMYK colors which makes it useless for anything even remotely like professional printing
2) Gimp is vastly inferior with regards to animation (though neither is really the ideal tool for animating stuff)

That's not to say it's bad or that there aren't things it can do better (it has better scripting, it's easier to modify and there are plenty of plugins that are either unique or better than their closest photoshop equivalent), but there are definite advantages to photoshop and pretending there aren't just serves as an excuse not to try and close the gap.

Re:Already Free

[blhack]

As a supplement to your comment, here is the very next page of the link you posted:

Link

Yeah...16 bit color makes a HUUUUUGE and TOTALLY NOTICEABLE difference.

Now if only the open source community could come up with a Solution to this HUGE problem.

Re:Already Free

[Ford Prefect]

I don't get it. I can tell they look different, but they both look equally good. I guess #2 is a little sharper; is that the GIMP one?

Nope, that's Photoshop!

The only change I made to the text rendering settings was to disable hinting in The GIMP - which is a single click in the checkbox just beneath the font size, so it's not a remotely hidden option.

Photoshop's got even more rendering options, and its text editor thingy is way more capable, allowing different styles in the same text (kind of like a word processor) - but the idea that The GIMP's actual text rendering is rubbish is just a myth...

Re:Already Free

[calebt3]

So they are diffrent... As long as Gimp, the exported image, and the print all look alike, I don't see how this is a problem. If it doesn't look how the designer wants it, it can be tweaked. I do not expect a designer would be completely satisfied with either default, so he/she would be tweaking it anyways.

Re:Already Free

[Ralgha]

What specifically can you do in Photoshop that I can't do in Gimp?

Anything with 16 or 32 bit images, which I do a lot.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

What print professionals do you work with? I would like to avoid them.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

I tend to agree that it is a huge and noticeable difference. As for Cinepaint, please see my parent thread, specifically my reference to Cinepaint.

Re:Already Free

[mixmatch]

I was just checking out GIMP. Maybe I'm just retarded, but I can't seem to find the ability to create layer filters that change based on the content of the layer. I also can't find the slice or save for web tool. Where are the file optimization settings? How do you export as a PDF? Where is the ability to record actions and execute them on folders/files? How do I go to full screen with the ability to drag the canvas anywhere on screen that I want? Where is the ability to dock my tool windows? You actually send RGB files to print? Honestly, GIMP is a great program, but if you really can't see what Photoshop has to offer from a productivity standpoint I wouldn't want you in my design shop.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

As a supplement to the parent comment, and just to vindicate support for your very relevant link, I will relay a section from near the end of that page:

[8 bit image]

Yikes! Just as with the gradient, the 8-bit version of the image suffered quite a lot of damage thanks to the edit. There is very noticeable color banding, especially in the water, which now looks more like some sort of painting effect than a full color photo. You can also see banding in the beach ball itself, and in the sand at the bottom of the photo. At this point, the 8-bit image is of little use to us anymore.

[16 bit image]

Once again, just as with the gradient, the 16-bit version survived without a scratch! It looks every bit as good as it did before the edit, while the 8-bit version lost a ton of detail. And it's all because the 16-bit version has such a tremendous amount of possible colors available at its disposal. Even after an edit as drastic as the one I performed, I was unable to make the slightest dent in the quality of the image thanks to it being in 16-bit mode.

Re:Already Free

[JohnBailey]

CMYK, Pantone in particular but mostly it's down to the horrible interface that GIMP comes with. Gimp is basically a programmers idea of how a creative tool should look. The two missing features I'll give you. Although one is just a licensing issue, and the other is only relevant if you are working on images that are intended for print. I'd add the fact that Gimp only does 8 bit colour, while Photoshop does at least 16 bit which is much more important than the two omissions you mentioned.

But can someone tell me what exactly is so terrible about the Gimp interface?

This is a genuine question, as I've used both, and don't find either particularly difficult to get my head around. But then, I'm not a power user when it comes to graphics packages. No doubt the differences would be pretty important to someone using either one day in day out.. But I've never seen anybody actually cite examples of the terrible Gimp interface in anything but the vaguest terms as opposed to the silky smooth and obvious ways of doing the same thing with Photoshop.

Re:Already Free

[Heembo]

Those of you who have never used GIMP, I dare you to download it and just crop a simple file. It's such a retarded piece of software. I still love ps7. loads fast + does everything I need. Online PS is rather impressive, actually. Nicely done.

Re:Already Free

[2nd Post!]

If you don't tell us the font, family, weight, etc, how are we supposed to judge which is more correctly rendered?

Re:Already Free

[InlawBiker]

I think most people dislike the Gimp interface because it's just so different from Photoshop's. Photoshop has been top dog for a very VERY long time and people are used to how it works. Any graphic design software will instantly be compared to Photoshop, Gimp or other.

FWIW I used to use Photoshop on a daily basis, but now I have simple imaging needs, and Gimp is just fine. Sure, it's a pain to learn a new interface, but eventually I figured it out. A lot of professional digital artists I've worked with, if you told them they had to use Gimp instead of PS they would quit.

A great many extremely talented artists have spent their whole career with Photoshop. I can think of no other software with such an insurmountable market share.

Re:Already Free

[Goaway]

But I've never seen anybody actually cite examples of the terrible Gimp interface in anything but the vaguest terms as opposed to the silky smooth and obvious ways of doing the same thing with Photoshop. That because that's how interfaces are. They are very subtle and nebulous things. Good interface design is nowhere near as easy as "that button is in the wrong place". And learning how to evaluate and design them is not a small task.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Photoshop, actually the entire Adobe CS3 Master Collection, was certainly free to me.... as will be CS4, CS5, CS6 and so on.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

GIMP is fine for cropping files. The interface is just different.

Re:Already Free

[bazonkers]

Can you easily stitch panoramas together? Can you take three bracketed photos and use HDR to make one image exposed correctly for shadows and highlights? I'm not trying to flame, I've never used gimp so I'm curious. I'd agree that most of the rest of PS seems like it should be doable in something like Gimp.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

This doesn't matter to a hobbyist crowd with a vested interest in promoting some manufactured cause in the name of its pet software.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

Probably the most poignant and relevant post in this thread.

Re:Already Free

[gbarta]

Well the first is much better than the second. I'll refrain from speculating which is which though!

Re:Already Free

[CastrTroy]

Maybe it's just me, but could this have anything to do with the fact that the image is a JPG?

Re:Already Free

[blhack]

One thing that most graphic designers struggle with at first is the concept that they are (usually) not designing things for other graphic designers.

Regular people aren't going to notice something like what was illustrated in the photos in the linked page (I didn't).

Now, I'm sure that if I sent that to our large format printer, put it under the color-correct lights, and looked at it on a white background with nothing else in the room to distract me, i MIGHT be able notice the stuff that was pointed out at first glance.

But probably not.

So, to me is it worth re-learning EVERYTHING that i can do in the gimp?

no.

Re:Already Free

[CastrTroy]

File, Open, Locate File, Double Click
Select tool for Selection (rectangle, ellipse, freehand, etc...)
Click and drag to select desired area.
Enter Key to confirm selection
Image, Crop to selection.

I don't see what's so hard about that. How much easier is that process made by photoshop.

Re:Already Free

[CastrTroy]

I did a little trial with my wife. I said, here's GIMP, it's free. I then gave her a trial version of Photoshop, and said, here's Photoshop, and if you like it that much better than GIMP, we'll buy it. To my surprise, she actually liked GIMP better. It's not that bad of a program, and if you've never had experience with GIMP, you probably won't find too many usability issues. Photoshop is a good tool for professional graphic designers, but I don't think most people need a professional level tool.

Re:Already Free

[Heembo]

Photoshop: File Open, Locate file, single click select generic crop tool Click and drag to select desired area. enter Gimp has 2 non-intuitive steps, not to mention try to crop very small images.

Re:Already Free

[masdog]

It really is much simpler. It goes something like this - 1. File - Open - Select File and double click or click open. 2. Select Cropping tool from Palette. 2a. Enter pixel or inch size and resolution. (Optional Step) 3. Click and drag to select desired area. 4. Double click or hit enter to crop. It's one step simpler if you're doing a free-form crop (ie, not setting an image size or resolution), or the same number of steps if you're going for a specific image size and resolution.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

That's fine but off-topic. You asked what specifically Photoshop can do that GIMP cannot, I responded with two items, which you then attempted to bin by relegating them to the status of irrelevant. I shoot stitched panoramic landscapes and I would say the largest transition in image quality for me was when I made the jump from using 8 bit jpgs as my base exposures to 12 bit Canon RAW converted to 16 bit TIFF. 16 bit image support is very relevant to me, not so relevant to you, but its relevance to either of us individually doesn't negate its value.

Re:Already Free

[tikal2k]

The leading is off. If this is what the Production Designer made based on what the Art Director wanted, you might want to consult with Creative to see what kind of spacing to use.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

If you try the same thing with an 8 bit TIF or PNG you will get the same result.

Re:Already Free

[CastrTroy]

So, let's compare what we got here.

GIMP

1. File, Open, Locate File, Double Click
2. Select tool for Selection (rectangle, ellipse, freehand, etc...)
3. Click and drag to select desired area. (Pressing enter isn't necessary, but I listed it in my previous post)
4. Image, Crop to selection.

Photoshop


1. File - Open - Select File and double click or click open.
2. Select Cropping tool from Palette.
3. Click and drag to select desired area.
4. Double click or hit enter to crop.

So, both have 4 steps, the first 3 of which are exactly the same. While GIMP's 4th step is a little more difficult than a double click, it's a little easier to discover it on your own. Although I'm pretty sure that Photoshop has the option to crop under a menu also.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

photoshop-or-gimp-1.png is definitely worse quality, there's some pretty bad blurring on the font edges. I suspect that's The Gimp but I may be wrong - Photoshop can create some horrible fonts too if you use an inappropriate setting (sharp vs smooth vs clear, etc, depending on the medium).

Re:Already Free

[CastrTroy]

If you have a very small image just use + to zoom in and your image appears very large on the screen. Makes it alot easier to select the desired portion of a small image.

Re:Already Free

[CastrTroy]

I wasn't sure, which is why I asked. I'm just wondering why the whole process was started with a JPG when it was trying to do a comparison of picture quality. JPG is notoriously bad for picture quality.

Re:Already Free

[JohnBailey]

That because that's how interfaces are. They are very subtle and nebulous things. Good interface design is nowhere near as easy as "that button is in the wrong place". And learning how to evaluate and design them is not a small task. Thanks. That's pretty much what I thought.. Gimp has such a horrible interface because it isn't a direct clone of Photoshop. So the reverse is also true. Photoshop has such a horrible interface because it isn't Gimp. Apart from the 16 bit colour space, personally they seem pretty similar to me.

I know that Adobe has put a great deal of effort into keeping the interface as consistent as possible, and I think they have done a very smart thing. The last thing anybody wants is to have to relearn each version of a commonly used tool. But the same can be said of Gimp. They might be able to do a mode where there was a close copy of Photoshop, but that would piss off the Gimp users who would then accuse the makers of tryiong to copy Photoshop.

Still quite a hollow argument though which basically comes down to moaning about having to learn something new.

Re:Already Free

[piojo]

Really, if this was more than a flame i would love to know. What really can you do in Adobe products that I can't do in OSS ones? Primarily, I think it's the interface, and for me, it has to do with layers. When a tool is used in photoshop (like drawing a square or adding text), a layer is created that represents that addition. This layer is easy to move. When I create a text layer in the gimp, I have to click within a very small portion of the added text to move the layer. That's merely annoying, but it's just one example of how design is harder to do in the gimp. Another is that layers can't be grouped in order to apply effects to all of them. Also, these "ghost layers" seem to be created more often in photoshop than in the gimp. This makes design easier. (What I'm trying to substantiate is that photoshop feels easier, and I don't have very much evidence, I admit.) Here's another example: how hard is it to draw a circle or square in the gimp? Make a selection (the gimp has excellent selection tools, I know), then do "selection to path" then "feather path". I would really just prefer a few shape drawing tools.

These criticisms really just apply to design. For editing of something that already exists, I'm not sure photoshop has anything over the gimp. Also, the ability to script the gimp with scheme (or python, I think) is a big win--I've only used this once, but I would never have wanted to [resize, sharpen, adjust contrast] 600 images by hand!

Re:Already Free

[ChrisA90278]

What specifically can you do in Photoshop that I can't do in Gimp?

I used to use Gimp too. Used it for years. But Photoshop is just miles and miles ahead. First off photoshop works in 16-bit per channel color and not just in RGB but in other color spaces. The fact that Gimp can't do this means it can't be used for any serious work. 8-bits just can't cut it. I could go on listing hundreds of tools that PS has but that is just picking nits.

Re:Already Free

[AaronW]

Gimp does not handle more than 8 bits per color. That renders it useless for my purposes since I need at least 12 when doing operations like shadow recovery of raw image files from my camera. I use this feature all the time.

Besides that, the user interface is too horrible for me to use for my applications... quickly editing hundreds of photos with the Gimp would be an absolute nightmare. I go through this process of editing dozens or hundreds of photos at least once a month.

Until they fix these two issues I won't use it. They've been talking about fixing the first one for ages.

Bibble easily fills both of these requirements, plus a bunch of other features that are missing in Gimp. Most of the features I use are only one or two clicks away. I find the workflow environment invaluable. Plus, it works extremely well with the raw output from my camera at both 12 and 14 bits per color.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the Adobe Suite follows typographic conventions more strictly and defaults to a larger tracking than most OSS software. The other difference that will affect print output is that the default Adobe kerning is better, for example between o-t-o. GIMP handles the basics well and only needs a little more hand-holding (as PS also needs some hand-holding to get tracking and kerning just right) to produce a finished product. Unfortunately, when more advanced typographic features are wanted, they are more difficult to find in GIMP. (Such things as alternative stylistic sets and different number styles are often two or three clicks away in PS.) To go with the parent, even advanced typography is doable in GIMP--though it can take many extra steps.

Re:Already Free

[pipingguy]

Why is parent modded funny? Paint.net is quite the neat, free program (hint, it's *not* MS Paint). I still prefer my old copy of PSP8 though.

Re:Already Free

[Hadlock]

Also: Being able to adjust the cropping area after creating it is hugely usefulin photoshop. I use gimp at work and photoshop at home and I can crop both equally fast. But the cropping adjustment is really helpful in avoiding having to recrop 2 or 3 times.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't seriously think Scribus can compare to QuarkXPress can you? InDesign is crap compare to QuarkXpress in my opinion, but that doesn't make Scribus a good program either. Its undo is broken, support for different languages are buggy, bugs I opened two years ago still wasn't address at all, no advanced resource management, styles would get lost when importing, no low quality preview (very slow when huge pictures are imported), you name it. Grant, it can still be used to make publications, but it is no competation.

Re:Already Free

[Cruciform]

After all the effort Donny Hoyle put into his Photoshop tutorials, despite his failed marriage and active facebook dating life, you'd even consider using Gimp?

Shame on you! Shame!

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

The whole process can't have started with a JPG because JPG doesn't support 16 bit colour. Since at the end of the article he recommends opening from a RAW file in 16 bit colour mode, I would posit that that is what he initially did. The fact that he is playing with a 16 bit image with a jpg extension suggests to me that he started with a RAW, converted it to 8 bit for the initial edit, saved as a JPG, then stepped back into the history to 16 bit mode and edited it again. That's what I would have done.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Gimp cannot handle 16bit images, or the 16bit camera raw that many pro photographers work with. Gimp can only open/handle 8bit images. Also the CMYK support in Gimp is not quite up to par with Photoshops. This matters in the print business.

Re:Already Free

[Chris Mattern]

I don't know much about the subject, but not being able to work CYMK color channels seems an awfully big impediment to doing work intended for print.

Re:Already Free

[Keen Anthony]

I find nothing terrible about the GIMP interface per se. The few times I've worked with it, I found GIMP very jarring for me. I have been using Photoshop since early 1993. That's a very long time to be using a specific application, and it's hard to adjust to a new interface. I've also had difficulty adjusting to various alternatives coming from Macromedia and Corel over the years. I would say that someone who's only been a casual PS user for just a few years has a far better incentive to switch to GIMP than someone like myself. But just as a disclaimer, I haven't yet tried that version of GIMP that has the Photoshop style interface, and since the release of Aperture and Lightroom; about 80% of my work no longer requires Photoshop.

Is there an OSS equivalent to Aperture, anyone?

Re:Already Free

[jamesh]

I prefer Tux Paint

Re:Already Free

[JohnBailey]

I think most people dislike the Gimp interface because it's just so different from Photoshop's. Photoshop has been top dog for a very VERY long time and people are used to how it works. Any graphic design software will instantly be compared to Photoshop, Gimp or other. FWIW I used to use Photoshop on a daily basis, but now I have simple imaging needs, and Gimp is just fine. Sure, it's a pain to learn a new interface, but eventually I figured it out. A lot of professional digital artists I've worked with, if you told them they had to use Gimp instead of PS they would quit. A great many extremely talented artists have spent their whole career with Photoshop. I can think of no other software with such an insurmountable market share. Pretty common problem. It seems weird to me that many people are so terrified of having options.

Re:Already Free

[blhack]

Yes, because companies are who are willing to work with what you give them should be avoided at all costs.

Whats that sir? You work in an environment that you are comfortable with? Well in that case we refuse to do business with you! Get back to us 4 years from now when you have relearned every skill that you have in a software suite that we support!

Sounds like a software company that the majority of slashdot hates.

Re:Already Free

[sydneyfong]

I'll give one. Not long ago using the Gimp crop tool involves selecting an area, and when you begin selecting the area a window pops up, sometimes obscuring your view of the image, and thus you have no idea what you are selecting.

To be fair they finally replaced that interface with a new one that's so much better. I have no idea how they do crop in photoshop though....

Re:Already Free

[Ferzelic]

I can't seem to find the ability to create layer filters that change based on the content of the layer.

Current versions of GIMP don't have filter layers. Valid point.
(Though they are only a convenience, in that you can achieve the same effects with regular filters, just not in a non-destructive way.)

I also can't find the slice

Image -> Transform -> Guillotine.
If you want it to create the HTML code for you as well, there are several plugins you can download (eg Py-Slice).

or save for web tool.
Where are the file optimization settings?

Save as -> GIF, PNG or JPG. Adjustments are in the save dialog.
Toggle the preview checkbox for lossy-compressed formats such as JPG.

How do you export as a PDF?

I'll grant you there's no built-in function for it, but I also can't conceive of a useful reason for doing so.
Converting a single bitmap image into a PDF is a grossly inefficient operation for no benefit.
(Where the file format can sensibly be exported to PDF, most open source software does provide it; eg Inkscape.)

Where is the ability to record actions and execute them on folders/files?

Instead of macros, GIMP is fully scriptable. Considerably less convenient, but much more powerful.
(Of course, in an ideal world GIMP would support both.)

How do I go to full screen with the ability to drag the canvas anywhere on screen that I want?

Uh, View -> Fullscreen? Middle-click drags the canvas.

Where is the ability to dock my tool windows?

Drag the dialog to a dock window. You get two by default: the main toolbox and Layers/Channels/Paths.
You can have one or many. Predefined sets are available under Dialogs -> Create New Dock

You actually send RGB files to print?

Another valid point. Lack of proper color control is a well-known deficiency with GIMP.
(It does now support color profiles, but it's a bit of a hack.)

I wouldn't use it for professional print purposes; but for my personal artwork, yeah, I have sent RGB for print. I've got a local print shop that does a really good job of converting screen-space color. Good enough for my needs, and it's not like my home PC has a color-calibrated monitor anyway.

Lack of CMYK support and 16-bit+ color are real legitimate complaints against GIMP. I'll grant you filter layers too, as they would be handy (and are in development). Most other complaints are just unfamiliarity with the interface.

Here are my three main gripes about Photoshop's interface:

• Why is undo (ctrl-Z) single-level by default? If I'm using a tablet, one pen stroke usually ends up as multiple steps. Why do I have to hold down ctrl-ALT-Z?
• Why am I forced to select something before doing most operations? If nothing is selected, surely it's logical I want to do it on the whole image.
• What is Photoshop's equivalent to "Alpha to Selection", which I use all the time? (I'm sure it has one but damned if I can find it)

Want me to go on?

Re:Already Free

[Keen Anthony]

Print and photo work. GIMP fans may scoff, but this is a major distinction. It has always been Photoshop's role in print and photography that has kept it an industry standard. For general image manipulation and web design, there are far better and cheaper alternatives such as Fireworks, PhotoPaint, Paint Shop Pro, and GIMP. It really isn't appropriate to place GIMP and Photoshop in the same domain, and so these "vs" debates ought to stop. I once knew a guy who authored all his papers using PageMaker. It did the job, but it was no more a proper word processor for having done so. If GIMP compares to anything, it would be Paint Shop Pro.

I've been using Photoshop since late '92. I have had a hard time since adjusting to other interfaces such as that of Xara and Fireworks, and especially GIMP. If you've been using GIMP since '95, then you can understand my pain. I would hate to see GIMP become a Photoshop. I prefer smaller, specialized apps that don't feel tacked on the way Photoshop feels to me. Now that Aperture and Lightroom exists, most of my Photoshop need is gone. GIMP, for the moment, loses ground with professionals who already committed to Photoshop and the many commercial plugins that are available for it. After all, the money has been spent, and the devotion to building a competitive advantage in it has been made. However, GIMP gains for the fact that you can take it and build on it to create a GIMP for professional photographers and a GIMP for web designers without encumbering either with features they don't need.

Re:Already Free

[sentientbrendan]

>>CMYK, Pantone in particular but mostly it's down to the horrible interface that GIMP comes with. >>Gimp is basically a programmers idea of how a creative tool should look.

>The two missing features I'll give you.
>Although one is just a licensing issue,
>and the other is only relevant if you are working on images that are intended for print

For photographers and other professionals doing graphics work, CMYK and color accuracy are deal breakers. Excuses don't matter to people who build their careers on a tool, if GIMP doesn't have what they need to do their job, then they won't consider using it.

There's a reason why people pay enormous sums for copies of photoshop even when there's plenty of cheap or free tools that do 60% of what photoshop does, and that's because every pro is going to have at least one feature missing from the 60% product that is a total show stopper for them.

This is a lesson on half assed software, that's good enough for the developer that wrote it, but not good enough for the market. Coding to your personal needs isn't good enough for products that are going to non developers. Linus doesn't say "well, there are some problems with Linux on big IBM mainframes, but I don't personally use a mainframe, so I won't work on that fix." When you are serious about software, you talk to the people that will be *using* your software, and you code to *their* standards in addition to your own.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither of those look particularly good. It looks like the antialiasing was set to smooth instead of crisp. If I had say though, the second one looks worse.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this? You aren't able to work with CMYK? I'm sorry, why don't you come back when you become true professionals instead of the amateurs that you are...

Re:Already Free

[tsa]

Inkscape is really good. I can do most things that I do with Corel Draw with it. The only problem is that I spend much time looking for the right commands. The layout of the menus in Inkscape could be better. But I was really surprised how good it works when I started using it. I haven't tried version 0.46 yet but I'm curious. Amazing: it's not even close to version 1 and it's already very good. It never crashes on me, even when it has to do very memory-intensive things.

Re:Already Free

[jhol13]

What specifically can you do in Photoshop that I can't do in Gimp? Accurate and easy rotated rectangles (I cannot just drag the corners where I want them, not to mention that there is no "real" rectangle).

Resizable selections. Yes, they can be resized, but every help says "... so difficult that it is easier just to try to get it right in the first attempt" for a very good reason. Why cannot I grab the corners?

Printing. It just does not work. Or maybe it does, but after 15 minutes I gave up. Gqview prints fast (takes maybe half a minute).

OTOH, Lava is much easier in Gimp and I miss that in the other picture modification programs I use - NOT (Gimp is cluttered, having rectangle instead of "lava" would make a lot of sense).

P.S. I have never used Photoshop. What I mentioned are just something that really should work better (e.g. PSP).

Re:Already Free

[nametaken]

Well, I know you're waiting for some to say that it has a lot to do with what you're used to, and that's true, but Gimp can be pretty aggravating. Most of the functionality in GIMP is buried in right-click menus (nothing contextual about them), instead of visually obvious toolbars and top menus. I don't know if GIMP has a quick macroing feature like PS, but if it does I never did figure out how to use it. Photoshop's pathing is much easier to work with, IMHO. The tool boxes bother me... oddly large and rearranging them manually bugs me (compare with PS's arrangement options). Layer effects were borderline non-existent. All of the text tool in gimp should probably be thrown out and redone... and I'm pretty sure I could think of a few more with time. That on top of the previously mentioned stuff I guess.

I liked Gimp, but I like Photoshop better, and it seems people tend to agree.

As for this Photoshop Express thing, it doesn't even vaguely resemble photoshop. It's picassa done in flash, is all.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but then again PS' tone mapping leaves a lot to be desired (hallo halos!). Something like Enfuse can give better results for that, I could even whip up a python script to run it from Gimp in a few minutes.

Re:Already Free

[Amiralul]

...and Krita. I love Krita. Very easy to use, compared to GIMP, though it doesn't support so many formats (you can't export to GIF, for instance). I dare saying that it's easier than Photoshop.

Re:Already Free

[chrispalasz]

What really can you do in Adobe products that I can't do in OSS ones?

Pay heaps and heaps of money?

Support bureaucracy?

Did I win yet?

Re:Already Free

[forgotten_my_nick]

Your right about the CMYK. But can you think of anything else? Unless your a serious print shop CMYK is pointless. IIRC there are plugins to help mitigate this.

As for the interface that has been changed around in the last year or so. Certainly its initial incantations were annoying to use, but latest version is very easy to use. I would recommend you find a tutorial on how to use it.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Current versions of GIMP don't have filter layers. Valid point.

- For many, that's all you had to say.

Image -> Transform -> Guillotine.
If you want it to create the HTML code for you as well, there are several plugins you can download (eg Py-Slice).

- The guillotine is poor by comparison. If you're familiar with PS, you know all the various components that are missing.

Save as -> GIF, PNG or JPG. Adjustments are in the save dialog.
Toggle the preview checkbox for lossy-compressed formats such as JPG.

- Again, almost kind-of has it... but not really. Optimization options are limited and the preview capabilities are a joke by comparison.

I'll grant you there's no built-in function for it, but I also can't conceive of a useful reason for doing so.
Converting a single bitmap image into a PDF is a grossly inefficient operation for no benefit.
(Where the file format can sensibly be exported to PDF, most open source software does provide it; eg Inkscape.)

- Again, all you had to say was, "can't". Truth is, whether you like it or not, people use this a lot, and they're going to continue to.

Where is the ability to record actions and execute them on folders/files?
Instead of macros, GIMP is fully scriptable. Considerably less convenient, but much more powerful.
(Of course, in an ideal world GIMP would support both.)

- You could pretty much do away with regular user access to all regular user access to python and virtually nobody would notice. It is not the quick macro tools built in to PS that any user can leverage to perform long operations with ease.

Uh, View -> Fullscreen? Middle-click drags the canvas.

- I just tried this, except I had to make a new document first, and then it hid my tool boxes.

Why am I forced to select something before doing most operations? If nothing is selected, surely it's logical I want to do it on the whole image.

- Not sure what you mean. If you mean image operations, you don't have to select anything. If you're talking about layer operations, you have to select a layer.. makes sense to me.

What is Photoshop's equivalent to "Alpha to Selection", which I use all the time? (I'm sure it has one but damned if I can find it)

- Control-Click the layer. Hope that helps.

Want me to go on?

- No.

Re:Already Free

[Builder]

16-bit images. Dealbreaker.

Re:Already Free

[fyrewulff]

I always recommend Paint.NET over GIMP now to people. It actually has an interface humans can use, and the developer(s) actually listen to feedback on their forums instead of plugging their ears.

Re:Already Free

[ianezz]

But can someone tell me what exactly is so terrible about the Gimp interface?

Premise: I'm not a pro, just doing the occasional retouch. Often I find myself wondering if it wouldn't be better to have move, resize, scale and shear in a single combined tool.

Re:Already Free

[amuzulo]

A great many extremely talented artists have spent their whole career with Photoshop. I can think of no other software with such an insurmountable market share.

How about Microsoft Office??

Re:Already Free

[Azundris]

But can someone tell me what exactly is so terrible about the Gimp interface?

Plugins that only let you "draw" in a crappy preview rather than the actual picture, with no zoom etc. and no proper undo/redo.

Re:Already Free

[Drew_9999]

What specifically can you do in Photoshop that I can't do in Gimp? Its probably just a matter of what you're used to. I went to check it out to see if the brush engine has improved since I last used it. After checking out the documentation, forum, and a google image search it seems that its just as weak as ever. Granted, that's not an issue for many people. But for most illustrators, a powerful brush engine is vital for quality and speed. There's no way I can use GIMP for personal or professional projects until that improves.

Re:Already Free

[Pecisk]

Propably someone has already pointed out, but color control and layer filters will be possible with implementation of GEGL library, which is fast reaching stable state. It could be end of this year/next begining.

Re:Already Free

[novakyu]

I don't know much about the subject, but not being able to work CYMK color channels seems an awfully big impediment to doing work intended for print. Because working with CMYK converted in real-time to RGB by your monitor is great for matching colors for the printed work?

Forgetting for the moment that more than half of Photoshop functionality doesn't work for CMYK images, since most effects and filters will work only in RGB mode, RGB to CMYK conversion is best done at the print shop, since it's bound to be very device/media-dependent.

And really, do you trust anything other than the proof pages, or better yet, the final product when you really have to match colors so carefully that the fact that you can't do RGB to CMYK conversion yourself is hurting you?

Granted, this is one of the things GIMP lacks that it might be nice to have ... but there are a hundred more things that ought to have higher priority than this. Show me a professional who works exclusively in CMYK, and I'll show you someone who just needs a good RGB to CMYK conversion table, not a fancy photo-editing application like Photoshop.

Re:Already Free

[h4rm0ny]

Your right about the CMYK. But can you think of anything else? Unless your a serious print shop CMYK is pointless.

This is true and I, as a GIMP user, don't feel impaired by lack of CMYK support. But there is a trickle down effect on popularity. If a product successfully gets used by the serious users, it increases usage amongst the less serious users. As just one example of this, it would be great to ask advice about something and find someone who used the same tools as you, rather than just assuming Photoshop as a given.

Re:Already Free

[novakyu]

By the way - as a supplement to the comment above, here is a simple example of the difference between 8 bit and 16 bit colour: Except, of course, the examples touch on corner cases that most people will never have to deal with. The guy had to degrade each picture severely and then restore (two lossy processes) before he could show any difference between 16 bit and 8 bit. Even if you are a professional, how often do you need to deal with badly degraded pictures that needs its contrast boosted by a huge amount, potentially leaving gaps in the spectrum?

To me, this looks just like an audiophile trying to justify the need for a $1000 power cable for his stereo system. Amateurs wouldn't care (for the most part) about the 8-bit vs. 16-bit difference, since the quality difference in the final product is minimal for what they need. Professionals shouldn't care about this difference, since, being a professional, he ought to have better equipments (camera with fast lenses, scanners that can do this sort of adjustment while scanning, not after the fact), and wouldn't need to resort to such drastic enhancements that show the difference between 8-bit and 16-bit.

I'm not saying that flexibility 16-bit gives (BTW, it's only on levels and such things---you can't actually do most of the work in 16-bit, since most actions are disabled in Photoshop until you convert that picture to 8-bit) isn't good. I'm just saying it's not *that* good.

Re:Already Free

[stephend]

With the caveat that it was a while ago that I used the GIMP, my main problem with the interface was the choice of defaults. Just selecting a tool and using the defaults tended to work okay in Photoshop and poorly in the GIMP. I wasn't keen on the proliferation of floating windows either, but the killer was that I could get better results with less work going the Adobe route.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

I generally agree with your comments about features the gimp lacks that photo shop has, but

Most of the functionality in GIMP is buried in right-click menus (nothing contextual about them), instead of visually obvious toolbars and top menus.

That hasn't been true for years.

Re:Already Free

[Mistshadow2k4]

I have no idea how they do crop in photoshop though....

Click the crop tool at your left, select an area of the image using your left mouse button and then stop pressing the mouse button. The area you selected will now be highlighted and on Photoshop's toolbar at the top, somewhat to the right, two buttons will appear, a cancel button (circle with a line through it) and an ok button (a check mark). If you want to crop, click the check mark; if not, click the marked out circle. OR, click your image menu -- top left menus -- and select "crop" (all other options will be grayed out). Much, much simpler to actually do it than tell someone how to do it.

Nerds and non-nerds will argue about whether or not the Gimp's interface sucks until they all lose their voices. All I can say is that I used to use the Gimp and hotly defended it but finally gave it up for Photoshop 7 and Paint Shop Pro 9 about a year ago (yes, I know my software is outdated but I don't care). I've tried just about all the image editing programs available on Windows and Linux now, and the Gimp's really does seem to be the hardest the learn. Several basic functions are in different menus than is most other programs, but the worst part is that some have frustrating limitations and/or trying to just figure out how to make it work after you've found it. Most of the tools shared by most image editors works the same way, but the same tool may very well not work the same in the Gimp. It's as if it were designed by an alien who just had a couple of screenshots. And the Gimp's GUI is so different from every other image editor out there that you have to hunt them all down, whereas most tools are on the same menus in Photoshop, PSP, PhotoImpact or what-have-you.

Re:Already Free

[Mistshadow2k4]

GIMP is fine for cropping files. The interface is just different.

That was the OP's point exactly, I think. Why is it different? Croppping works the same on every image editor I've tried except the Gimp. Why reinvent the wheel and turn it into a hexagon?

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

Except, of course, the examples touch on corner cases that most people will never have to deal with.

I often find that even 16 bit isn't enough to capture the full spectrum of, say, a cityscape at sunset, which is why I often bracket and merge into 32 bit HDR then tone map.

To me, this looks just like an audiophile trying to justify the need for a $1000 power cable for his stereo system

To you it may look like that, but to me a better analogy would be an audiophile trying to justify the need for 192kbit mp3 bitrate because it just sounds so much better than 96. I am not necessarily saying 'go out and buy photoshop' to someone who uses GIMP and likes it, I am simply saying that support for 16 and higher bit imaging is a very important aspect most professionals working with images consider when choosing their software. This is why CinePaint exists (and a major component of why it was forked from GIMP, for that matter), and why most other free and commercial software supports at least 16 bit and is moving beyond (eg. Krita now supports 32 bit HDR, and photoshop introduced support for this in CS2).

Amateurs wouldn't care (for the most part) about the 8-bit vs. 16-bit difference

Which I guess is why software with native 16 bit and 32 bit imaging capability dominates in enthusiast and professional imaging circles.

he ought to have better equipments (camera with fast lenses ...

A camera with a fast lens is no help when you have a scene in front of you with an enormous tonal range. All it lets you do is shoot the same scene faster at a higher aperture (which may not be what you want anyway, especially if you want a high depth of field in the image ... but I digress).

... scanners that can do this sort of adjustment while scanning, not after the fact)

Many dedicated film scanners do precisely this (however many of them also provide significantly inferior controls), but I can't for the life of me fathom why you would want to downsample an image's bit depth simply to cater for software limitations.

you can't actually do most of the work in 16-bit, since most actions are disabled in Photoshop until you convert that picture to 8-bit

I guess you haven't used photoshop lately. Or Corel Photopaint (a very worthy equivalent at a tenth of the price of photoshop).

I'm not saying that flexibility 16-bit gives ... isn't good. I'm just saying it's not *that* good.

That's great, stick with 8 bit then. Just don't begrudge those who have a significantly different opinion, and prefer to work in a format that offers more flexibility and allows you to completely change the lighting and tone in an image, at will, without compressing the tones to a point where banding is visible, or reshooting. *shakes head*

Believe me, I am a fan of GIMP and am waiting for the day it supports 16 and 32 bit imaging natively so that I can use it more often for the type of imaging work I like to do. I just get a little more cynical when I look at every version update and see that it is 'on the horizon'.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

Agreed. I guess I didn't have a big problem getting it to work, but the break in interface from Every Other Imaging Software Package(tm) to GIMP is definitely a sticking point and a thorn in GIMP's side.

Re:Already Free

[plumby]

But can someone tell me what exactly is so terrible about the Gimp interface?

Don't know if it's changed recently, but the #1 thing that I hated about it was that each separate toolbar (or whatever they called them) was a totally independent window. Tab to another application, and you can't just click on the "Gimp" window to bring the whole thing to the front - you've got to click on every single window separately.

Re:Already Free

[Ezku]

On your first gripe I agree.

Why am I forced to select something before doing most operations? If nothing is selected, surely it's logical I want to do it on the whole image.

You don't need a selection, but you do need an active layer to operate on. Just click on one in the layers tab. Perhaps it's only me being grown with Photoshop, but this seems coherent with the way layers are supposed to work.

What is Photoshop's equivalent to "Alpha to Selection", which I use all the time? (I'm sure it has one but damned if I can find it)

Ctrl+click on a layer.

I'm obviously not trying to refute any of your statements; just trying to be helpful.

Re:Already Free

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

If what you say is true :

This is a lesson on half assed software, that's good enough for the developer that wrote it, but not good enough for the market. Coding to your personal needs isn't good enough for products that are going to non developers.

Then open source software is a dead end. Your next comments are a special case, an exception to the rule, they are not a good fit for most programs.

Linus doesn't say "well, there are some problems with Linux on big IBM mainframes, but I don't personally use a mainframe, so I won't work on that fix." When you are serious about software, you talk to the people that will be *using* your software, and you code to *their* standards in addition to your own.

Actually he does (just check his comments on LKML, you'll find this type of stuff often enough). First he does have a "mainframe" (or did, he's married so the chances that he can hold on to very large computer systems are not good, you'll know what I mean if you get married). And IBM is currently paying for linux development.

This works, because the people working for IBM are both using linux AND know a lot about computer systems. For the GIMP, there are too few people that are good graphic artists AND very good computer engineers.

Also adobe gets a look at gimp code, but not the other way. This puts limits, given that adobe can pay engineers to have at least equally good understanding of computers as gimp. So photoshop is always going to be AT LEAST as good as gimp, but the gimp can be worse than photoshop, virtually assuring that it will, in fact, be less good. Furthermore, adobe are not idiots, they'll make sure the extra features are really something.

Re:Already Free

[scarlac]

I tried replacing PS with the Gimp, but came to the conclusion that the GIMP cannot replace Photoshop for one very sad reason:
- Lacking PSD Support.

Effects, masks and layers aren't loaded correctly, so I have to ask the designer to rasterize all effects and drop the layer groups. This is not a viable solution for a professional.

Besides that, the GIMP is an excellent tool for having fun and doing most operations.

Re:Already Free

[tsjaikdus]

I think it is sad what they've done with PSP8. PSP5 used to be very easy to use, then they've added all kinds of junk and created a really frustrating program.

Re:Already Free

[TomorrowPlusX]

What is Photoshop's equivalent to "Alpha to Selection", which I use all the time? (I'm sure it has one but damned if I can find it)

Command click the layer's image icon in the layer palette. I assume it's ctrl-click on PC.

( I'm staying out of this argument. I say use what you want )

Re:Already Free

[PhotoGuy]

I was pretty excited when I first tried Scribus the other day. But then it started crashing on me, repeatedly. Sigh. (And there were some basic things, like snapping to objects, not just grids, that were missing.) Sadly, InDesign still blows it away. Scribus will likely catch up someday, but it isn't quite there yet.

Re:Already Free

[strabes]

I love the GIMP; I use it several times a week for general purpose image editing, but the one thing that it doesn't have which I used to like in Photoshop was layer styles. This is irrelevant for my purposes now (cropping / resizing images) but would be a problem for a designer.

Re:Already Free

[bhtooefr]

I would say Microsoft Excel.

I do believe VBA macros aren't supported in OOo, and that's a HUGE omission for many existing Excel files.

Re:Already Free

[bhtooefr]

The beauty of open source is... if the GIMP team doesn't want to make a Photoshop-clone interface, you can fork GIMP, and make a version with a Photoshop-clone interface.

Re:Already Free

[Keeper Of Keys]

Does anyone else think they both look shit? Using a slanty font throws up aliasing issues all over the place, which is no doubt why both tools offer further enhancements. It would be a more useful test to switch on the best enhancement each tool offers (though, as you say, Photoshop has many, which are more or less appropriate to different situations).

Re:Already Free

[readerszone]

photoshop is not free http://readerszone.com/

Re:Already Free

[mikael_j]

I have no idea how they do crop in photoshop though....

There are actually two ways to crop a picture in Photoshop that are commonly used:

The first is to use the Canvas Size tool, I normally only use this when I know exactly how much I need to crop (like say, 372px on the left side and 53px on bottom), this tool is accessed through the Image menu or by pressing Cmd+Alt+C

The second way to crop is the regular crop tool, press C to select the crop tool and then hold down your left mouse buttons and just drag and release the mouse button, now everything outside the area you selected is shaded by default and you can adjust the select area before either clicking the button in the top toolbar or double-clicking the selected area to finish the crop.

/Mikael

Re:Already Free

[boyko.at.netqos]

It's not the text rendering quality. It's the fact that in Photoshop, you can write the words on a path, you can twist them and transform them, you can do a number of things very simply. Sure, less simply, you can do that in GIMP as well, but here's the difference. You can't just go in and correct a typo or change the wording on a piece of text, because GIMP's text is raster based while Photoshop's is vector based. Or in other words: It's not the type rendering of plain text but of mushed up, changed text that is the deal killer.

Re:Already Free

[nils]

Unfortunately for those who need their fix of Photoshop UI, gimpshop hasn't been maintained for a long time. If you have specific ideas how to improve GIMP's UI (other than "do it like PS"), I'm sure the guys at the GIMP UI brainstorm would like to hear about it.

Re:Already Free

[Goaway]

Thanks. That's pretty much what I thought.. Gimp has such a horrible interface because it isn't a direct clone of Photoshop. So the reverse is also true. Photoshop has such a horrible interface because it isn't Gimp. Apart from the 16 bit colour space, personally they seem pretty similar to me. Absolutely and unconditionally wrong on all counts.

Still quite a hollow argument though which basically comes down to moaning about having to learn something new. What?

Re:Already Free

[The_reformant]

I prefer vi's colour correction

Re:Already Free

[blhack]

Honestly, if the limiting factor in your artwork is the photo editor you're using, you're not much of an artist.

Re:Already Free

[orasio]

If you don't tell us the font, family, weight, etc, how are we supposed to judge which is more correctly rendered? Duh. And how are you going to judge that? Comparing the fonts to their Adobe rendering?
Other than drawing with pencils, or using pre-Adobe printouts, it would be very difficult to find fonts to compare that are not rendered by Adobe. That wouldn't be fair.

Re:Already Free

[orasio]

CMYK, Pantone in particular but mostly it's down to the horrible interface that GIMP comes with. Gimp is basically a programmers idea of how a creative tool should look. I understand that Gimp interface will always be wrong, because it's not the one from Adobe Photoshop, and lots of people are already trained for it, or have friends who are.

Other than that, what makes you think that photoshop is more "creative" friendly?
Aside from the fact than working on Photoshop doesn't look to me as more of a creative activity than using a wordprocessor, it's interface was not so much designed, but more evolved (only it was created less than 6000 years ago). Its menus and palettes are not very human friendly, they are the way they are due to the limitations of older computer systems. If someone designed a new user interface for a similar program they could take advantage of new concepts, and technology, like for example being able to use each and every tool and filter directly on the spot, rather than on separate windows.

About CMYK, well, print is not dead, but most people who use Photoshop don't care about CMYK. It's probably not it's killer feature.

Re:Already Free

[Erikderzweite]

>CMYK, Pantone in particular but mostly it's down to the horrible interface that GIMP comes with. Gimp is basically a programmers idea of how a creative tool should look.

Well, GIMP interface is horrible in Windows alright. It is because of awful feature-missing window manager. But if you switch to more advanced window managers (dozens of Linux WM-s) then it is a blessing. Early versions of Photoshop were having multi-window UI (they were created with MacOS in mind).

Re:Already Free

[nils]

Resizable selections. Yes, they can be resized, but every help says "... so difficult that it is easier just to try to get it right in the first attempt" for a very good reason. Why cannot I grab the corners?

You should have tried the current version (and not trusted "every help" whatever that is): You can do just that: Choose the rectangle select tool, select something, grab one of its corners or edges and resize it.

Accurate and easy rotated rectangles (I cannot just drag the corners where I want them, not to mention that there is no "real" rectangle).

Just select what you want rotated (see above), choose the rotate tool, then just click somewhere inside the image and rotate it. Difficult?

Printing. It just does not work. Or maybe it does, but after 15 minutes I gave up.

Well it does work over here. Care to be more specific?

Re:Already Free

[gauauu]

Paint.net falls way short of the Gimp when dealing with large images. While any image editor will have slowdown with extremely large images, Gimp does a good job of remaining responsive, showing progress, etc when dealing with these images. Paint.net just freezes for long periods of time.

I found this out while my wife was trying to get into digital scrapbooking. They make these images that print to 12x12 sheets of paper, with zillions of layers. Paint.net failed the task miserably, while the Gimp did surprisingly well. Even more surprisingly, my wife, who is non-techy and hates learning new programs, had very little trouble with the Gimp's UI.

Re:Already Free

[Tanman]

Want me to go on?

Yes, please do. Lets continue to compare and contrast things that either show that you don't like how photoshop implemented a feature, or how you cannot find a feature vs. how GIMP is missing features completely.

Re:Already Free

[2nd Post!]

You compare to the print version. Isn't that the point? WYSIWYG?

The print version is the benchmark, the video version is supposed to look like it!

Re:Already Free

[JohnBailey]

Thanks. That's pretty much what I thought.. Gimp has such a horrible interface because it isn't a direct clone of Photoshop. So the reverse is also true. Photoshop has such a horrible interface because it isn't Gimp. Apart from the 16 bit colour space, personally they seem pretty similar to me.

Absolutely and unconditionally wrong on all counts. Why? I freely agreeing up front that Photoshop has some features that Gimp does not. The colour space is a big problem for quality of output, and both Cinepaint and Krita go up to 32 bit colour, so there is no technical limitation to having this feature. I also agree that the other features that are not currently present in Gimp can be show stoppers for the person who needs that particular feature. So no argument there either. There are things that Photoshop does that Gimp can not do at this point in time.

The fact that they are not included in the current version however, does not mean they are never going to be included. Either part of a new version of Gimp, or as a fork. Being open source, there is nothing stopping some interested parties doing exactly that. And While I'm not holding my breath, It isn't impossible. I'm not even suggesting the Gimp is competing with Photoshop in the professional graphics market, or that Gimp is better for all tasks.

But I am questioning the snotty "Bwahaaaa... Gimp's interface is shit" comments that keep popping up with nothing tangible to back them up.
Without a good argument the issue is reduced to one laughing at another kid because he has different laces in his over priced, but otherwise identical trainers. In other words, a non argument.

So give me examples of how the Gimp interface is horrible and the Photoshop one is so wonderful that do not rely on familiarity with one over the other. It is a fair question.

Remember, we are talking about the interface alone, so the buttons that are pushed, and the controls. Not colour space options and the like. Lack of features is a different subject, which I agree Photoshop wins ever time. Nebulous does not make for justification of the statement "the gimp has a horrible interface". And familiarity with only one does not make for an unbiased comparison.

If it makes it easier to understand my question.. Imagine you have been hired to improve the interface of Gimp. You are not allowed to add new features to the application, but you can, if it makes the thought experiment easier, assume this is some alternate universe where the two apps are feature identical. You are allowed to change any interface aspect you like. The only limitation is that you can not make it a direct Photoshop clone.

The point that I am trying to make is that if all the technical things that make Gimp out of the question today were fixed, such as the pantone palette, the colour gamut, and the CMYK support, and anything else you might like to throw in. There would still be hoards of graphic design wannabes who would use some vague "but the interface is crap" argument that can never be countered because the only real problem is not that one is inferior to the other, but that one is different to the other. Inferior can be worked on, but different is a personal preference. Consensus is impossible.

Re:Already Free

[greymond]

I love how both are png files where gif would be better for displaying text on a monitor...

Re:Already Free

[mikael_j]

Here are my three main gripes about Photoshop's interface: Why is undo (ctrl-Z) single-level by default? If I'm using a tablet, one pen stroke usually ends up as multiple steps. Why do I have to hold down ctrl-ALT-Z?

I actually find this convenient as I often like hopping back and forth to see if the last edit I made looks "right".

Why am I forced to select something before doing most operations? If nothing is selected, surely it's logical I want to do it on the whole image.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this.

What is Photoshop's equivalent to "Alpha to Selection", which I use all the time? (I'm sure it has one but damned if I can find it)

Switch to the Channels view and Ctrl/Cmd-click the alpha channel you want to use as the selection

/Mikael

Re:Already Free

[sootman]

THE GIMP's UI SUCKS ROCKS.

Let's start with the fact that the Gimp launches each part of the program as separate programs. That is to say, in Windows, if I launch the Gimp and create a new document, I've now got three separate apps running: one called 'GIMP' which has the tools (brush, want, etc) and tool settings, one called (I shit you not) 'Layers, Channels, Paths, Undo | FG/BG, Brushes, Patterns, Gradients', and one called '*Untitled-1.0 (RGB, 1 layer) 420x300.' When I say 'separate apps' I mean that there are three separate buttons in my task bar, and when I alt-tab they show up as three separate icons. There is no good way to have a nice empty screen with nothing but your image and the tools. For someone who works like I do--create some images, save them, alt-tab to a browser, reload the web page that contains them all, look at them all together and decide what needs fixing next, and alt-tab back to the image editor--it's is an absolute clusterfuck.

It is impossible to have a nice clean screen with nothing but your image editor running with an image showing and its related tools available. If you maximize the image window, the tools disappear into the background along with Notepad and Solitaire as soon as you click on the image to apply a single brushstroke. God help you if you want to *gasp* work on more than one image at a time. And if you want to get back to your desktop, you've got to minimize (2+N) windows, where 'N' = how many images you're working on. Time to edit again? Now you get to hunt and click (2+N) buttons in your taskbar.

Let's see, what else... 'GIMP' and '*Untitled-1.0...' BOTH have menus. If the image window is small, some menu items disappear. The menus are available by right-clicking, but what's the point? I'd rather have the right button create a proper, useful, *ahem* contextual menu, as it does in every other app on the planet.

Most of these comments are left over from the last time I tried the Gimp five years ago. (Hey, at least they fixed the bug where keyboard shortcuts--like 'b' to choose the 'brush' tool--only worked when the toolbox window was active!) I actually downloaded and installed it to see if it's still as bad as I remember and yup, it sure is. I'm sure I could use it for a while longer and come up with many more bad things to say--not "this isn't like Photoshop!" bad, but "objectively, provably bad" things--but using the Gimp to find what's wrong with it is as fun as trying to come up with all the different reasons I don't like sticking forks in my eyes. (The resulting loss of vision, the mess, the pain, two more forks to wash. etc.)

"I'm not a power user when it comes to graphics packages." Ah. There it is. I'm sure many graphics professionals would have a hard time getting wound up in a Vi vs Emacs vs Notepad vs Eclipse discussion. Trust me. I've been using Windows, Linux, Macintosh computers, and Photoshop for over ten years. The Gimp was one of the first apps I played with when I first started using Linux and I've dabbled with it many times over the years. Every time, trying to do even the simplest task is like masturbating with a cheese grater. There are plenty of Linux apps I do use and get along with just fine, but the Gimp just stands out like a sore thumb. I can assure you that "the Gimp's UI sucks!" is not just a cliche, and not something you'll only hear from Photoshop fanbois.

Re:Already Free

[JohnBailey]

>>CMYK, Pantone in particular but mostly it's down to the horrible interface that GIMP comes with. >>Gimp is basically a programmers idea of how a creative tool should look. >The two missing features I'll give you. >Although one is just a licensing issue, >and the other is only relevant if you are working on images that are intended for print For photographers and other professionals doing graphics work, CMYK and color accuracy are deal breakers. Excuses don't matter to people who build their careers on a tool, if GIMP doesn't have what they need to do their job, then they won't consider using it. I was referring specifically to the interface. A feature missing is a shortcoming I'll freely admit, and already have above. But the question I have is relating to the statement "mostly it's down to the horrible interface that GIMP comes with." So if the CMYK and pantone features are secondary, then what is wrong with the interface that can't be fixed?

There's a reason why people pay enormous sums for copies of photoshop even when there's plenty of cheap or free tools that do 60% of what photoshop does, and that's because every pro is going to have at least one feature missing from the 60% product that is a total show stopper for them. Irrelevant to my question. I'm specifically referring to interface, not feature set, or other programs.

This is a lesson on half assed software, that's good enough for the developer that wrote it, but not good enough for the market. Coding to your personal needs isn't good enough for products that are going to non developers. Linus doesn't say "well, there are some problems with Linux on big IBM mainframes, but I don't personally use a mainframe, so I won't work on that fix." When you are serious about software, you talk to the people that will be *using* your software, and you code to *their* standards in addition to your own. Yep.. Its a flawed product. Just like everything else. But what are the flaws specifically relating to the UI. Not the missing features, but the interface. The way in which you interact with the program to use the existing features.

Re:Already Free

[sootman]

Pfft. Easy.

localhost:~ $ curl -s http://www.hylobatidae.org/misc/photoshop-or-gimp-1.png | strings | head -n5
IHDR
sRGB
IDATx
Jn?(
051PA
localhost:~ $ curl -s http://www.hylobatidae.org/misc/photoshop-or-gimp-2.png | strings | head -n5
IHDR
pHYs
OiCCPPhotoshop ICC profile
SgTS
H3Q5?

#2 is from Photoshop. What do I win? :-)

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Both look like ass to me.

Re:Already Free

[moonshinerat]

Gimp's not exactly half assed software and as a programmer I don't really feel that it was designed for programmers either. Adobe has got a lot of cash to spend on a lot of developers, how many has Gimp got? I really think you need to look at what the developers have tried to create with Gimp because there's no other software on the market apart from Photoshop with the same amount of features, regardless of how naff the interface is. Don't get me wrong, I really don't like Gimp - too many windows and when I need the whole app bringing up from the task bar I spend all of my time opening windows. I can't believe that it's so bloody hard to just draw a simple square with a colour fill on it either. Then there's Photoshop. How many items on menus can a program provide? For someone who is not Photoshop bred, navigation is a nightmare. You also seem to need a monumental number of plugins if you actually want to create good graphics rather than just manipulate photos. I have created a fair few websites as favours for business clients and they're all happy with the results, as well as their customers. Believe it or not it has been easier to use TuxPaint and to get the graphics I needed (none of the websites are child orientated by the way).

Re:Already Free

[JohnBailey]

That is exactly what I was hoping for. Valid specific criticism of the UI features. Not the usual it can't possibly succeed in the market and other fluff. I agree. Gimp has failings, but it is still a useful tool, and who knows, these problems may eventually be overcome. It works well enough for me right now, and every new version refines the app. The Linux multiple desktop mechanism and dual monitors seem to be a way around some problems, perhaps other issues will be fixed or worked around in time.

Re:Already Free

[TemporalBeing]

How do you export as a PDF?

I'll grant you there's no built-in function for it, but I also can't conceive of a useful reason for doing so. Converting a single bitmap image into a PDF is a grossly inefficient operation for no benefit. (Where the file format can sensibly be exported to PDF, most open source software does provide it; eg Inkscape.)

Some companies use PDF for a lot of things - such as proofs, etc. Also, a lot of print shops use PDFs for proofs and as part of the process just prior to printing as the PDF format yields the exact printing output.

Re:Already Free

[Goaway]

The point I was making, which you keep refusing to listen to, is that you hear these vague complaints about the interface because interfaces are vague, and most people don't have the experience and language needed to talk about them. They just know they don't like it, but they can't quite tell you why, just like a person can tell a doctor he feel sick, but can't tell him why.

Even if I could give you a thorough analysis of the problems with the Gimp's interface - and I can't, I'm just an amateur in these matters, doing my best to pick up enough knowledge to not make utterly horrible GUIs - you would probably not even understand most of them, because you too lack the relevant specialized knowledge required to properly discuss and design a good GUI.

If I sat down and used the Gimp, something I try my best to avoid, I could probably list you some random suggestions that absolutely need to be fixed. But that takes quite a bit of work on my part, and I'm not going to do that for some random guy on the internet who can't do anything about it. And I would only be addressing minor symptoms, not the underlying cause - what Gimp really needs is a real HCI expert who can make the effort to analyze and re-design the interface as a whole, probably from scratch.

However, this is unlikely to happen any time soon. The Gimp team, and large parts of the open source fandom, share your misguided rationalization that people only complain because it's different, not because it is fundamentally broken.

Re:Already Free

[jhol13]

Resizeable selections: Still lot harder than in PSP (unless I misunderstand you - my Gimp is 2.2.17 in which it is practically impossible).

Rotated rectangles: Yes, I do know I can resize and rotate them. But it is extremely difficult to get three corners to be exactly where I want.

Printing: Samsung CLP-300N. Normal 2M pixel colour photography.

Re:Already Free

[nils]

You really should try out gimp 2.4, it's been out since October last year and has vast improvements over 2.2 (2.4.5 is the current minor version). There both rectangular and elliptical selections can be resized (while they're "fresh", i.e. as long as no other tool is used/selection has been put on top of them which would "finalize" the selection, i.e. make a bitmap out of it).

I don't think there's a way to resize and rotate in one go, but I just did the following and it went quite well: Select what you want to resize/rotate, cut and paste it (so it becomes floating), move one corner to the desired location, select the rotate tool, move the rotation center on top of that corner, drag the second corner to its designated location (it won't resize now, but have the correct angle), use the resize tool, drag the second corner to its location. This will move the first one a bit, but you can drag it back again.

As for printing, gimp 2.4 has a much easier to use print plugin than gimp-print/gutenprint which where used with 2.2. You still can install and use the gutenprint-plugin if you need the level of configuration it offers.

Re:Already Free

[theolein]

Here are my three main gripes about Photoshop's interface:

• Why is undo (ctrl-Z) single-level by default? If I'm using a tablet, one pen stroke usually ends up as multiple steps. Why do I have to hold down ctrl-ALT-Z?
• Why am I forced to select something before doing most operations? If nothing is selected, surely it's logical I want to do it on the whole image.
• What is Photoshop's equivalent to "Alpha to Selection", which I use all the time? (I'm sure it has one but damned if I can find it)

Want me to go on? 1. I suppose it's a throwback to the days (Photoshop 4 and earlier) when there was no multiple undo. You can, however, just as in the GIMP, change it. Edit--Keyboard Shortcuts
2. I'm not too sure what you mean here. Most of the Filter operations that do not need a selection area will work without out one (Gaussian Blur, or Sharpen etc), but those that do (Tear, Ragged Edges etc) won't.
3. There are several ways of doing this. Q will switch from Quickmask to selection so that you can paint a selection. You can Ctrl (or Cmd on Mac) click on an alpha channel in the channels palette to get a selection from it, or you can Cmd (or Ctrl) click on a layer and only the visible or non masked sections will become a selection. You can also Ctrl (or Cmd) click on a layer mask to get a selection. There are other tools too.

P.S. Photoshop and most of the other Adobe applications are all scriptable these days. They also come with an IDE to do the scripting (Javascript, Applescript or VBA)

Re:Already Free

[mixmatch]

Other people addressed many of the issues/solutions you brought up, but I felt that these 2 were not addressed properly:

How do I go to full screen with the ability to drag the canvas anywhere on screen that I want?

Uh, View -> Fullscreen? Middle-click drags the canvas. This is not the same functionality I get in Photoshop. In Photoshop, if I open a new document and hit the 'f' key 2 or 3 times, I get a full screen document with the ability to drag at will. That means that if I want to work on the corner of my document, I can bring it to the very center of my screen. Why is this important to me? If you are familiar with drawing tablets, you would know how aggravating it can be to have to work on the corner of one. If I am able to move the corners and sides of my document to the center of the screen, I avoid this problem. Also, as already mentioned, your solution hides all the tools, which may not be the desired effect.

Where is the ability to dock my tool windows?

Drag the dialog to a dock window. You get two by default: the main toolbox and Layers/Channels/Paths.
You can have one or many. Predefined sets are available under Dialogs -> Create New Dock The docs in Gimp are very static and difficult to manipulate. In Photoshop, I can minimize docs, maximize docs, snap them to different sides of the screen, resize them, move them around the screen, put docs on a dock bar with pop-outs, minimize the dock bar, maximize the dock bar, show and hide them all simply by using the 'Tab' key. You don't realize how much time you spend working around the tools that clutter up your screen until you can rearrange them and size them exactly as you want to make your space useful and optimize your workflow.

Re:Already Free

[tepples]

Show me a professional who works exclusively in CMYK, and I'll show you someone who just needs a good RGB to CMYK conversion table Have you considered that the fast and accurate methods of applying RGB to CMYK tables might be patented in one or more major markets?

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all you're really not a "programmer". At most, you are a Code Monkey, but even that is debatable.

Second, since you don't use Photoshop in any true professional context, what makes you think you have anything of value to add?

Turn on the lights and get out of your mom's basement.

Re:Already Free

[Ferzelic]

(I know nobody will read this being 3 days later, but I'll reply for completeness' sake.)

Lets continue to compare and contrast things that either show that you don't like how photoshop implemented a feature, or how you cannot find a feature vs. how GIMP is missing features completely.

That was kind of my point in the original reply. Most (certainly not all, but most) complaints about Gimp relate to differences in implementation rather than complete absence of capability. I knew my questions about Photoshop must have had answers (thanks to everyone who replied with tips); I was just highlighting that they weren't obvious or were frustrating to me, having come from a different application.

Gimp, as it stands, is unsuitable for professional print work. That's undeniable due to lack of CMYK and 16-bit channel support.
But there's plenty of image editing that isn't destined for print publishing.

It also lacks the polish of Photoshop, and it's missing some useful tools of convenience. (Filter layers seem to be a biggie.)
But for the most part it's capable of producing the same results.
Given a specific image editing task, I'm confident a proficient Gimp user could produce an equivalent result to a proficient Photoshop user.

Re:Already Free

[JohnBailey]

Not sure about the plugins from memory, but there is an undo - redo in the edit menu. Ctrl Z and Y respectivly.

Re:Already Free

[Ed Avis]

Or indeed Paint.NET on Linux.

Re:Already Free

[terrymr]

Not sure how, I was coding RGB -> CYMK 20 years ago for printer drivers

Re:Already Free

[chexy]

Ok, didn't see that one coming. + to mono

Re:Already Free

[sentientbrendan]

"Also adobe gets a look at gimp code, but not the other way. This puts limits, given that adobe can pay engineers to have at least equally good understanding of computers as gimp. So photoshop is always going to be AT LEAST as good as gimp, but the gimp can be worse than photoshop, virtually assuring that it will, in fact, be less good."

No adobe developers are going to look at GIMP code, both for legal reasons and because it wouldn't actually be helpful. Stealing code between code bases is usually impossible for practical reasons. Copying algorithms is usually pointless, because these graphics algorithms are largely published as part of academic papers.

Photoshop is better than GIMP because the people working on it have consistently done a better job. Give praise where praise is due.

You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[New_Age_Reform_Act]

Read the ToS:

Section 8 (a):

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

Thanks I will stick with GIMP instead.

Of course, if you need free stuff, there is always The Pirate Bay.

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[The End Of Days]

...that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services... Reading comprehension FTW!

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[Frosty Piss]

All they are saying is that if you upload shit to their Web site image library, they can do what they want with it. This is not a problem for most people. Gimp is a problem for most people, but you can stick with it if it floats your boat.

The bottom line for this thing is that it's not that hard to get a copy of Photoshop, and Elementsa is cheap. I don't see this getting a lot of use.

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[CowboyNealOption]

Uploading goatse FTW!

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[Anonymous Coward]

section 8b
"Publicly accessible" areas of the Services are those areas of the Adobe network of properties that are intended by Adobe to be available to the general public. However, publicly accessible areas of the Services do not include Services intended for private communication or areas off the Adobe network of properties such as portions of World Wide Web sites that are accessible via hypertext or other links but are not hosted or served by Adobe.

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[calebt3]

it's not that hard to get a copy of Photoshop, and Elements is cheap Heh, if one is going to pirate software, it's best to pirate the superior program.

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[future assassin]

You can also get Paint Shop Photo X2 from the Corel website http://www.corel.com/ for like $55 with this coupon UG40OFFSEP

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[charlieman]

Once they make a native version for GNU/Linux, I'll probably get a copy. Meanwhile, the Gimp is more than enought for me. That their software is good doesn't mean i have to bear (or pay for) crappy OS...

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Of course, if you need free stuff, there is always The Pirate Bay.

That statement and the one in your comment's title seem incongruous somehow...

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[Lobster Quadrille]

Hoorays! Now you use distortion effects to make that hole look even bigger.

You sicko.

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[Joe Decker]

This is not a problem for most people.

I very much doubt that you are correct in the extreme examples of what the license allows, e.g., putting Aunt Martha's picture with snot coming out of her nose on a network television broadcast.

That having been said, I doubt that particular commercial is in Adobe's business plan, either.

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[Mike1024]

Reading comprehension FTW! That quote once more:

with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free yadda yadda yadda Seems to me you can parse this as Your Content that you (submit or make available) for inclusion on publicly accessible areas; or as Your Content that you (submit) or (make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas) and arrive at two different conclusions about its meaning.

Of course, it's most likely Adobe intend the former meaning. Still, ambiguously worded legal agreements FTL.

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[Anonymous Coward]

Very good. The words of the agreement every reads (?) and agrees to. Great on the part of Adobe and all the rest to get free stuff from unwitting consumers. Another reason I do not use Adobe unless I have to. Check out their lack of licensing agreements with MSFT and who they license to ( interesting)

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[Joe Decker]

Looks like Adobe is already planning to revise the license.

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[WWWWolf]

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

That is just the usual clause in website user agreements that basically boils down to "we don't want to contact your lawyer if we want to generate a thumbnail or whatever of a picture you uploaded". Or list it on the public photo sharing website in question with other images, possibly with Google ads. Or they just don't want to contact you if they change the look of the website. Because, you know, you're the copyright holder and you have the ultimate control over the use of the image - all other uses, no matter how common sense they seem to be, are absolutely forbidden.

Otherwise, they probably would have to hear from people all the time: "Oh, I like this gallery of pictures you have here, but could you make my picture thumbnail twice as large as the others? You know, my sixteen-page contract with you guys says I get 400 pixel wide thumbnails if I want to." Someone has to set the terms on the presentation of the image on the website. It's usually the party that publishes the images.

There have been similar moral panics about these clauses - dig around Slashdot and you'll probably find the stories about Yahoo!/Geocities and LiveJournal adding that sort of clauses. They have been also toned down to specifically address the concerns from people who say this clause could mean "we'll do whatever you want with your image". I imagine this will be, too.

And yes, I'll stick with GIMP. =)

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[Anonymous Coward]

So it is ok to steal? Even from "evil" company? Do you mind if I just come and "borrow" your car to drive-test it for few days?

Not working properly on Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

Not able to register on Safari browser

Re:Not working properly on Mac

[IANAAC]

Did you try it in firefox on the Mac? Or another browser?

I ask because it works on a bog-standard Linux distro with firefox 2.0.*. I suspect your should have written that it's not working properly in Safari, but would work in another browser.

Re:Not working properly on Mac

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Not able to register on Safari browser

I didn't try to register, but using the test drive feature seems to work. It seemed functional, with the exception of applying the distortion filters. (Safari 3.1 and OS X 10.5.2)

Re:Not working properly on Mac

[tgd]

Doesn't work on Mac FireFox for me, or Safari.

Ahoy

[Apoorv Khatreja]

Adobe is becoming smarter by the day, and this is one of the moves that would give them an advantage over the other competitors in the photo-editing market.

Re:Ahoy

[iamhigh]

Adobe is becoming smarter by the day I wish they would put some of that smarts into the products they buy and ruin.

More on-topic, this is something we are going to have to get used to. In 10 years my guess is that all major software will have something like this and in 20 years MS Office, Adobe Acrobat and many others might be completely online, forcing (or attempting) to force you to purchase licenses for the software.

Re:Ahoy

[Apoorv Khatreja]

force you to purchase licenses for the software.

That's what Apple II, Atari 800 and Commodore 64 did. We all know what happened after that.

Re:Ahoy

[zonky]

Adobe smart? Aren't they still shooting themselves in the foot by not having 64bit flash?

Re:Ahoy

[Anonymous Coward]

They already have an enormous advantage because all their competitors' software is junk.

Re:Ahoy

[Ilgaz]

Except making it "USA Only" without any single logical reason the day it launched. They are getting smarter, they just need to fire whoever came up with "Lets make it USA only so rest of World will swear at us".

If you make something "USA Only", block all Non USA IP blocks from reaching that "registration" page and show them a polite message, a lie or not.

You write all your details in that inconvenient Flash form (which I took my time to create/copy/paste random pwd) and you notice "USA Only" as last thing or when you try to select your country.

The music guys have very good excuse, the evil RIAA/MPAA. What excuse does Adobe have? Adobe should make it "International first" since they have overseas distributors only interested in CS3 and will laugh at your face if you request info about consumer stuff like Elements.

More companies

[sskagent]

I hope this leads to more companies following in Adobe's footsteps. Free, while toned down, versions of software has often led me to buying the full version later on.

Re:More companies

[twistedcubic]

I think their idea is to prevent uptake of competitors' software. This is great forward-thinking on their part, because the Gimp (or Apple's product) has yet to become a real threat. VMWare was a little late with their free version, and now we have KVM which runs perfectly on the latest CPUs, as well as others, which people actually prefer. MS Office is kinda de facto free, and it's definitely killed all the competition. I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe could have the same effect by unleashing the reigns a little on its full version of Photoshop. I never met a Photoshop pirate who actually needed features specific to Photoshop. The pros are usually happy to pay for it.

Re:More companies

[Provocateur]

I've always been using the toned-down version that came with my scanne...wait, where's the scanner?!? OMG!

I'm A PIRATE! NnnoooooooooooyAAAARRRRRR!!!

Upsell? I think not!

[Bryansix]

Why would I want to move from this to Photoshop Elements. Elements sucks hardcore. It is hard to use while proporting to be easy to use. It holds your hand wand walks you right off a cliff. I'd much rather either have this simple express version or the full fledged CS3 version for many hundreds of dollars. It's as simple as that. If I wanted something in the middle I would use GIMP and Inkscape for free.

Re:Upsell? I think not!

[jawtheshark]

It is hard to use while proporting to be easy to use. It holds your hand wand walks you right off a cliff.

Use the GIMP, it leads you straight to the cliff.... Just kidding. My mom uses Ubuntu Linux and she knows by now how to resize her pictures by using the Gimp to 800x600 so that she can sent them by email. The Gimp ain't hard, just like in photoshop you need to explain how it works.

Photo manipulation is not easy and that's the whole thing to remember.

Re:Upsell? I think not!

[vtcodger]

For those with simple photosizing, rotation, etc needs and who are not GIMP compatible, irfan runs perfectly well under WINE. (http://www.irfanview.com/)

Re:Upsell? I think not!

[RDW]

The latest version of Elements is actually a pretty nice, powerful package now that Adobe has (finally!) stopped playing games and is no longer leaving out vital tools like Curves:

http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews_adobe_photoshop_elements_6.php

The Express edition is just a very basic editor written in Flash that barely competes with Picasa, but with Photoshop branding.

Re:Upsell? I think not!

[Anonymous Coward]

..or if you're running GNU/Linux (and probably any BSD, too), you could use `convert' which is part of imageMagick.

convert infile.jpg -resize 800x600 -quality 70 outfile.jpg ..and a host of other options. `man convert' for more.

Re:Upsell? I think not!

[CastrTroy]

The best thing about using Ubuntu (or any linux distro) is that you don't have to resize images to put them on your desktop, and not have the aspect ratio all messed up.

Re:Upsell? I think not!

[notmyusualnickname]

Another vote for Irfanview here.

Re:Upsell? I think not!

[DigitalCrackPipe]

Elements 1.0 was actually decent. I got it free with my scanner and it had the same workflow as pro, with just a few pro features missing. I declined to "upgrade" to newer versions due to the hand-holding/holding back issue.

For my other computer, however, I went with GIMP because I don't like the new Elements.

I am VERY wary of online computing

[Ralph Spoilsport]

If I'm not directly involved with being online, I tend to not have the modem even on, and I find this kind of thing creepy and somewhat offensive.

RS

Re:I am VERY wary of online computing

[moderatorrater]

I, for one, am grateful that you turned your modem on, connected it to your computer, got over your creepy and offended feelings, then posted (in an uninvolved sort of way) about your habits.

Re:I am VERY wary of online computing

[Blakey Rat]

Oh no! Adobe has alienated you! Surely Photoshop Express is doomed to failure, since Ralph Spoilsport refuses to turn on his modem! (Except, apparently, to make inane self-important posts on Slashdot.)

Re:I am VERY wary of online computing

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeebus frickin' lol! I don't know how to do the joke over head thing

Re:I am VERY wary of online computing

[fyrewulff]

Unless you're on DSL - just hit the standby button on a cable modem. Same effect without killing your plugs.

Re:I am VERY wary of online computing

[The-Bus]

You can also think of it this way: for photo retouching, this works pretty well for when I'm not home and don't have access to Photoshop. Works better than pbrush.exe at least.

This is ... complicated

[Tribbin]

This is:

a. one less reason to stick with Windows
b. one less reason to switch to linux

Re:This is ... complicated

[psychodelicacy]

I understand a), but what's your rationale for b)?

Re:This is ... complicated

[calebt3]

Why? As far as Photoshop in concerned, you already lacked incentive to stay with Windows: It's on Mac (and is now purported to be very well supported in WINE). As for not switching to Linux...

Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser.

Re:This is ... complicated

[wizardforce]

a makes sense, b just begs the question wtf?

will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser.

what does this have to do with not using linux? it was my understanding that one of the major reasons [read excuses] people used for not moving away from windows to linux was that their apps from windows would only work in windows, removing that obstacle for certain adobe software would seem to make it one less reason *not* to use linux [damn double negatives]

Re:This is ... complicated

[Tribbin]

So it was sort of a far fetched wordplay meant to lightly confuse. Hm, it made perfect sense in my head but seems kinda awkward reading it back.

What I meant:

a. One less reason to stick with Windows.
b. One less reason to switch (the developers of Photoshop) to linux.

Re:This is ... complicated

[Angostura]

...just begs the question...

Nope, it really doesn't. It certainly raises a question, however.

Re:This is ... complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe he thinks gimp is linux only and paint.net doesn't exist.

Re:This is ... complicated

[seriesrover]

Actually I read both of them as a single "one less reason to care about what OS you are running".

Fucking Flash.

[SanityInAnarchy]

From TFS:

will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser.

Except, of course, operating systems or browsers which don't have flash...

Can we invent a new term for sites like these? "Web-based" is misleading -- it makes you think of open standards and compatibility. I propose "Flash-based."

Re:Fucking Flash.

[Apoorv Khatreja]

So that excludes the people who would want Photoshop to go Web-based, the MOST.

I'm talking about people using Opera or Konqueror on Linux. The Adobe Flash Player 7 and even 9 Beta works very, very poorly with these browsers, on Linux, and doesn't seem to be improving at all. The only browser being given attention is Firefox.

Guess we Linux users will have to wait for a long time, before we really starting using the internet and get recognised by the world.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[LunaticTippy]

I can't picture how you could do real-time editing of a picture without Flash. The only ways I can think to do it at all would be slow and very server intensive.

Personally, I would like to see a nice lynx photo-editing app, but I am not going to hold my breath.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[MMC Monster]

So that excludes the people who would want Photoshop to go Web-based, the MOST.

I'm talking about people using Opera or Konqueror on Linux. The Adobe Flash Player 7 and even 9 Beta works very, very poorly with these browsers, on Linux, and doesn't seem to be improving at all. The only browser being given attention is Firefox.

Guess we Linux users will have to wait for a long time, before we really starting using the internet and get recognised by the world. Unless, of course, you try using firefox sometimes.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[Apoorv Khatreja]

You're right. In fact, I did try out the Firefox 3 Beta 4, and loved it, was amazed, had absolutely no intentions of turning back to Opera, until yesterday, when they kicked some balls and made 100% on the Acid3 test. Opera FTW.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you Linux users could go help out with Gnash development.

Or just keep on bitching and moaning, I guess. Whatever.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[MMC Monster]

It's a matter of the right tool for the right job. If your job involves rendering sites similar to acid3, a version of Opera that will come out later this year is likely for you. If your job involves flash on linux, apparently firefox is a better fit.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[Captain Splendid]

Mod parent up. Browser zealotry is just stupid. I might not like it, but once in a blue moon, I have to run IE (or the IE Tab extension). It's not a big deal.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[JohnBailey]

So that excludes the people who would want Photoshop to go Web-based, the MOST.

I'm talking about people using Opera or Konqueror on Linux. The Adobe Flash Player 7 and even 9 Beta works very, very poorly with these browsers, on Linux, and doesn't seem to be improving at all. The only browser being given attention is Firefox.

Guess we Linux users will have to wait for a long time, before we really starting using the internet and get recognised by the world. Is the demo section different to the actual app then? It seems to work fine with Konqueror on Fedora 8. I just played around with it a bit, but didn't sign up yet. Nothing against Photoshop, but Gimp is plenty for my modest needs.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[Xogede]

I don't know about you, but "Web-based" has not made me think of "open standards and compatibility" since I wrote my first HTML page at the age of 12.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[Rich0]

Uh, Java? Sure, it has limitations as well but at least the language is well-documented and you can get a VM for just about anything...

Re:Fucking Flash.

[ForbairtMedia]

What you mean it won't run on Lynx ? :D

Re:Fucking Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus H Christ. You whine and whine about not being able to use photoshop on your linux box, they make a web version, then you complain that they made it in flash so you can't use it in f'ing Opera and Konqurer on Linux? You just went from like 1% of the world down to .00000003% of the world. Adobe is not going to accommodate that. In fact, nobody will make special accommodations for that combination. If you're going to be pissy about something, let it be that this looks and works nothing like Photoshop, at all.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I can understand insisting on using Linux over Windows, but no offense, if you refuse even to run a different BROWSER within Linux, I don't think you have much room to complain about how much the world fails to "recognize" you.

Firefox is a 9.2MB download. I'm sure you can find room for it.

Re:Fucking Flash.

[Fenice]

And, please, don't forget the x86_64/amd64 arch's...

Re:Fucking Flash.

[rastoboy29]

When I have my game company established, I plan on releasing all game patches on Linux, first.

This will cause the 15 year olds who can't wait a week to install Linux to get my game patches, first.

Thus, I urge you to play my game!

Re:Fucking Flash.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Java is one way. SVG+JavaScript is another, although that would be more of a vector program than a photo editing program. And this is Adobe, so it's not like I expected them to do it any other way.

It's not the idea of Flash that I object to, it's the implementation. If Adobe would at least release enough specs to finish Gnash -- or if they'd just give up and GPL the whole Flash player -- I'd have much less to complain about; it'd be about accessibility, then, and it's possible to engineer around that -- to make a site that's flash if you have it, and HTML if you're on lynx.

But as it is, I'm on 64-bit Linux, and I like Konqueror. Which means I have to go out of my way, and introduce at least two levels of indirection to hack to where I can even run the Flash plugin, and then I have to pray it works properly.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for one to switch to FOSS instead.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[calebt3]

Please, give a better argument than "OSS rulz!". There are perfectly good non-FOSS software out there that won't require you to give up your copyrights (CS3 is probably the best, but it's not the only one) And in this case, you only use your copyright if you make it available on their public galleries. If you are going to promote FOSS, please argue on its more unique merits (I understand that OOo is better for writing books than MS Office)

Adobe Photoshop Express

[Vk_NY]

I think it's a great idea to give people a taste of what Photoshop is like. Funny how a co-worker sent me the email announcing the launch telling me that my days as a freelance graphic artist were numbered...

Re:Adobe Photoshop Express

[Anonymous Coward]

Photoshop Express is nothing like the real Photoshop. I took a quick "test drive" and it's an online gallery that allows you to apply some global effects to the pictures (change hue, brightness, etc).

Re:Adobe Photoshop Express

[Ford Prefect]

I think it's a great idea to give people a taste of what Photoshop is like.

... Except it's nothing whatsoever like Photoshop. At all.

I had a quick go at 'editing' a photo in the test-drive thing, and there didn't seem any way of actually drawing anything. I'd say it's much closer in concept to a drastically simplified Photoshop Lightroom - it's even got the same colour scheme and vague general layout. Except where Lightroom will manage untold gigabytes of photos on your own computer, doing on-the-fly conversions and adjustments from raw format, Express looks more like an advanced, online photo management system.

It's definitely not Photoshop Photoshop.

Re:Adobe Photoshop Express

[antikaos]

Yeah, this is NOT "Photoshop", just a simple photo editor, nothing revolutionary here. Not going to have any impact on PS usership, much less an effect on decisions to or not to switch to 'nix, Gimp is much much nicer than PS Express and I hate Gimp.

Re:Adobe Photoshop Express

[SeaFox]

Funny how a co-worker sent me the email announcing the launch telling me that my days as a freelance graphic artist were numbered...

It only shows he knows nothing about your job. It's funny how people get the idea that any job that involves using a computer program like Photoshop or taking pictures is easy because "the computer is doing all the work" or "the camera is doing all the work" and all you do is press buttons.

Anyone can sit down and apply filters on top of each other and draw on the image. It takes a skilled individual to do this in moderation. Others will either end up with something boring/ugly, or fry the image from overprocessing.

Why not just use The Gimp?

[Snipor]

The Gimp is free and works great. I haven't used Photoshop in years.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[serviscope_minor]

I can't use GIMP because I NEED CMYK (seriously, how many people on /. need CMYK?) and I'm a professional photo editor (according to GIMP related threads, /. is positively infested with photographic professionals). And because I've spent so long pirating it that I am incapable of learning another UI. Oh, and apparently the name prevents me from using it as well.

Yeah, I know, mod me troll, but this is how about half of the posts on the GIMP related threads read. Most people aren't like that. In fact, I don't know anyone who is. For them and me, the GIMP is great, and free.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Apoorv Khatreja]

I wish the GIMP devs understood the need for an Integrated working environment. GIMP is great, has a lot of power and tools, but I really don't like the idea of 3 different boxes floating around on my desktop while I'm editing a single picture. An easy to access toolbox, embedded in the window in which I have my picture, would be much more convienient and would certainly increase productivity.

Before a flame war starts here, I have to say - after Photoshop, GIMP is the best photo-editing tool I've used.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Lobster Quadrille]

I'm in information security now, but I studied illustration in college and CMYK is definitely a must, if you ever want to send your work to press.

Gimp is an extremely awkward UI. Photoshop is nice and clean.

You seem to be complaining about the fact that people have legitimate reasons not to use gimp. I'm one of 2 linux users in an all-windows shop, and I hate non-open software as much as any /.er, but Photoshop is one of the few examples of absolutely phenomenal closed-source software.

Do I wish it was open? Hells yes. I have no doubt it'd be a lot better.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[nine-times]

(seriously, how many people on /. need CMYK?)

I can't tell you numbers, but anyone who's doing professional work for print media needs CMYK. It's not that unusual if your doing any kind of graphic design or photo work.

according to GIMP related threads, /. is positively infested with photographic professionals

It shouldn't be too shocking if there are a lot of people who need to do something that involves professional-level features. Anyone working in graphic design, advertising, or even a creative branch of some other kind of company might need some particular features (including CMYK). I worked for an engineering firm that wanted to send some presentation materials to a professional printer so they looked nice. Those needed to be in CMYK.

I am incapable of learning another UI

Or maybe you're in a position where it'd cause a big mess to try to force an entire department of graphic designers to use a UI they don't like?

Oh, and apparently the name prevents me from using it as well.

Or maybe it prevents you from selling your PHB on using deploying it in a large company, especially when the name could sound like it's related to sex acts or making fun of people with disabilities.

Sorry, you're right that all these things do come up every time people talk about the GIMP. I guess it's because some people refuse to accept that the GIMP has some shortcomings, despite being a very good and very useful program.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Ford Prefect]

I can't use GIMP because I NEED CMYK (seriously, how many people on /. need CMYK?) and I'm a professional photo editor (according to GIMP related threads, /. is positively infested with photographic professionals).

Heh. These same 'photographic professionals' will be bitterly disappointed with higher-end software like Apple's Aperture and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - I didn't see any references to CMYK in the fully-functional trial versions I played round with the other week. Plus I liked the latter program so much that I bought it - and the only colour-space options I can find are 'ProPhoto RGB', 'AdobeRGB (1998)' and 'sRGB'.

Oh no! However will those Slashdot pundits cope?

As for Photoshop Photoshop - I'd been using The GIMP since version 0.99something, nearly ten years ago, and the other week I finally got round to switching to Photoshop CS3. Photoshop is definitely a smoother, more streamlined and more capable program, and most of my image-editing skills have transferred intact (creation of texture maps for computer games and the like, so pretty involved) - but for most stuff, the latest version of The GIMP manages just fine. And its colour management has progressed way beyond the previous pretend-it-doesn't-exist status of not so long ago...

Can Photoshop Express replace The GIMP? Err ... no, except perhaps for some very vague, ultra-simple tasks. If anything, the two could complement each other - in a vaguely similar way to how I have both Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom installed on this 'ere Mac.

Photoshop Express? Online image management, and very basic rotation and correction.
The GIMP? A full-scale image editor.

Completely different.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Em Adespoton]

I guess this is a good place to point out that GIMP now supports CMYK. My only issue with GIMP nowadays is that the keybinding-follows-frontmost-window/focus feature really doesn't work well and clashes horrendiously with the OS X interface.

Modern Photoshop isn't a picnic either, but I don't spend time actively fighting against the UI to try to get things done like I do with GIMP. I don't care one bit about learning a different workflow, but it shouldn't involve workarounds to the UI itself.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Kjella]

I'm not incapable of learning another UI. I just don't want to learn one that looks like ass and that I hate. Pretty much every other application lets me arrange it the way I want it, GIMP insists on splattering windows all over my desktop so they look like a mess with whatever is underneath. I don't way to walk down the One Gnome Way, give me a normal workspace with dockable widgets. Gimpshop and the other hacks are nice but they don't come as "sudo apt-get gimp" to install and I got better things to do than fucking around with my time making trivialities like that work. Hell, even Gentoo users have better use of their time. For that reason (and because I prefer KDE for so many other reasons), I use Krita for most of my edits which is clearly less powerful but at least it's user-friendly. Gnomish answers like "get used to it and the pain will go away" I got enough of with Microsoft, thank you.

P.S. I have also tried CS3, and it's IMO the best both on UI and features. It's just not worth the price...

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[blhack]

I can't use GIMP because I NEED CMYK (seriously, how many people on /. need CMYK?) and I'm a professional photo editor (according to GIMP related threads, /. is positively infested with photographic professionals). And because I've spent so long pirating it that I am incapable of learning another UI. Oh, and apparently the name prevents me from using it as well. I do all the design work for my company in Scribus/Gimp/Inkscape. I have NEVER had a problem sending something to a printer.
Ever.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Xabraxas]

It shouldn't be too shocking if there are a lot of people who need to do something that involves professional-level features. Anyone working in graphic design, advertising, or even a creative branch of some other kind of company might need some particular features (including CMYK). I worked for an engineering firm that wanted to send some presentation materials to a professional printer so they looked nice. Those needed to be in CMYK.

I work in a prepress job and I've noticed two things:

1. Marketing and advertising people know nothing about CMYK, color gamut, color seperation, or any of that. Just yesterday we were sent a screenshot of an art file made in Word to use for a poster and the customer wanted to know why the proof was all pixelated! We're sent all kinds of crap that takes a lot of effort to get into a state where it can be printed accurately. Most customers grudgingly give in and pay for us to transform their crap images into workable images. They just don't know anything about what it takes to print images made on a computer.
2. Photoshop is rarely used unless you are working for a magazine or something of that nature. Most things printed are vector graphics and text. Most design work involves logo design, color correction, and layout. Just as customers send us screenshots and things of that nature, they also just send us compressed jpegs when they send pictures. In a perfect work everyone would send us proper files that can be printed easily but they don't and its our job to get it to press.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Ford Prefect]

Pretty much every other application lets me arrange it the way I want it, GIMP insists on splattering windows all over my desktop so they look like a mess with whatever is underneath. I don't way to walk down the One Gnome Way, give me a normal workspace with dockable widgets.

Er... The GIMP does have dockable widget thingies. Drag a toolbar heading or tab to where you want it to be - you can amalgamate the usual two windows into the main 'GIMP' toolbox window if you like. No, you can't merge them into an image window, but I don't think you can do that on Photoshop either.

(In fact, this 'ere Photoshop CS3 on a Mac is pleasingly familiar for a long-time GIMP user...)

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[dbcad7]

I'm too lazy to install Krita.. How does it deal with editing multiple photos ? are they tabs do you have to open up multiple instances, or do new windows pop up ?

I bring this up because.. there are only two windows in gimp.. The toolbar window and the photo your editing.. until you load another photo then there are 3 windows the 2 photos your working on and the toolbar... The system of having the "save" and "save as" dialogs on the window of the photo your editing makes it less likely that you will accidentally save changes to a photo that you didn't want to do... for example, you have 4 photos that you are cutting from and one new photo that you are pasting to.. If the save dialog was maintained by the toolbar window it would get a bit messy to decide which photos get saved and which don't.. so it's not a bad system really.

But really to each their own.. I don't do a lot of photo editing, and gimp works fine for me after I went through the learning curve.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[serviscope_minor]

I guess this is a good place to point out that GIMP now supports CMYK. My only issue with GIMP nowadays is that the keybinding-follows-frontmost-window/focus feature really doesn't work well and clashes horrendiously with the OS X interface.

Huh, well, you learn something new every day. Now I know of another feature I'll never use :-) On another note, the GIMP UI seems to be designed for focus-follows-mouse, don't-raise-focused window managers. One can configure many X11 window managers to operate like this. You might find the UI much easuer if you try ehis settings (I don't know anything about configureing OSX's default WM for X11).

Modern Photoshop isn't a picnic either, but I don't spend time actively fighting against the UI to try to get things done like I do with GIMP. I don't care one bit about learning a different workflow, but it shouldn't involve workarounds to the UI itself.

For what it's worth many UI's suck when they're used under the "wrong" window management scheme. All sorts of assumptions about what's where are broken.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded GIMP to try it only because you said it now supports CMYK , however...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP#Color_support

http://www.printernational.org/rich-black-plain-black.php

FWIW, I do like the interface for GIMP (after trying it out for the first time for two minutes).

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[serviscope_minor]

(seriously, how many people on /. need CMYK?)

I can't tell you numbers, but anyone who's doing professional work for print media needs CMYK. It's not that unusual if your doing any kind of graphic design or photo work.

Firstly, it's just plain not true. I'm a scientist and I've published colour figures in real print journals. IIRC, it was RGB colours generated by matlab. Not once did I ever see CMYK. Someone further down the line may have done, but I, as the person making the figures, did not.

Secondly, at what point did I day professionals don't need CMYK? I said I simply don't believe that there are as many professionals in this area as there seem to be in GIMP related threads.

according to GIMP related threads, /. is positively infested with photographic professionals

It shouldn't be too shocking if there are a lot of people who need to do something that involves professional-level features. Anyone working in graphic design, advertising, or even a creative branch of some other kind of company might need some particular features (including CMYK). I worked for an engineering firm that wanted to send some presentation materials to a professional printer so they looked nice. Those needed to be in CMYK.

This side it in general "news for nerds", not "news for professional graphic designers". Yes, there are people who need professional features, but I do not believe that they are as common here as they appear in the GIMP related threads. And people working in graphic design and adverting will never need CMYK if their work is destined for the internet, because monitors work in the RGB colourspace.

Finally, if I ever need something to look good in print, I'll ahve to hand it off to some other professional since I, like everyone else I know does not have a calibrated monitor (2 different cheap 19" TFTs). Since that's the case, it will come out different on a printer wheather or not I use CMYK. Anyway, apparently GIMP does CMYK these days anyway.

I am incapable of learning another

  UI Or maybe you're in a position where it'd cause a big mess to try to force an entire department of graphic designers to use a UI they don't like?

Seriously, you should learn to read posts before replying to them. When did I ever suggest anything like that? Remember this sub-thread is about using GIMP instead of a free cut-down photoshop version. That department of yours is not going to be using that.

Oh, and apparently the name prevents me from using it as well.

Or maybe it prevents you from selling your PHB on using deploying it in a large company, especially when the name could sound like it's related to sex acts or making fun of people with disabilities.

  Sorry, you're right that all these things do come up every time people talk about the GIMP. I guess it's because some people refuse to accept that the GIMP has some shortcomings, despite being a very good and very useful program.

Perhaps they're thinking about a narrow piece of ornamental fabric and can't fathom why this has anything to do with images. Not one person I have ever introduced it to personally and professionally has ever mentioned the name. Ever.

Yes, GIMP has some shortcomings, but just remember this:
1. 50% of the slashdot inhabitants aren't graphic design or photographic professionals
2. Of the proportion of people you know how many even know what CMYK is?
3. Not that it matters, since apparently GIMP does CMYK.
4. This thread is about comparing GIMP to a very cutdown flash based version of photoshop.
5. How many people do you know who would miss features in the full photoshop whic haren't in the GIMP
6. See #4.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[slurry47]

I'm with you brother.

Why you need 300 dpi for a print image is difficult to convey to someone who's never had to worry about resolution in their life.

52" plasmas, factory settings, component cables . . .

I dunno, ignorance is bliss they say.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Sinbios]

Heh. These same 'photographic professionals' will be bitterly disappointed with higher-end software like Apple's Aperture and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - I didn't see any references to CMYK in the fully-functional trial versions I played round with the other week. Plus I liked the latter program so much that I bought it - and the only colour-space options I can find are 'ProPhoto RGB', 'AdobeRGB (1998)' and 'sRGB'.

CMYK, unlike sRGB, is not a colour space, it is a colour model.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Swampash]

My top five reasons why the GIMP is unusable:

1. The user interface.
2. 8-bit color only.
3. No CMYK support.
4. Half-assed implementation of layers.
5. The user interface.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Anonymous Coward]

one word: ACR
thanks and bye.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess this is a good place to point out that GIMP now supports CMYK.

No it doesn't.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Er yes, but any given color model combined with it's gamut gives the color space. It's not totally incorrect to refer to the CMYK color space.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[nine-times]

I said I simply don't believe that there are as many professionals in this area as there seem to be in GIMP related threads.

Um... yeah, and what I'm saying is that it's not that unusual for someone who's not a graphic professional to need to export something to CMYK. Just a couple months ago, my company needed to print up some business cards in a hurry. We couldn't use our normal printer because it was needed within 2 days. So we found a quickie print service, but that printer required CMYK. Now, I don't believe that it was actually necessary that it was in CMYK, since they were black and white anyway, but the printer wouldn't accept RGB.

This side it in general "news for nerds", not "news for professional graphic designers".

And who does IT support for professional graphic designers? Us nerds. So there you go...

Remember this sub-thread is about using GIMP instead of a free cut-down photoshop version.

And yet you felt the need to raise these issues. I just responded to the subject matter you raised.

How many people do you know who would miss features in the full photoshop whic haren't in the GIMP

Quite a few. Of course, I've worked with various kinds of graphics professionals, but I doubt it's really all that unusual (to work in graphic design, graphic processing, print media, advertising, etc. or know people who do)

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[The Phantom Mensch]

CMYK isn't that big a deal. Only folks that publish magazines really need to worry much about CMYK. But 16 bit depth support and better color management are serious shortfalls in GIMP. The latest GIMP I tried (2.4 release candidate) used sRGB as a default color space and that's ridiculous. sRGB is the least common denominator of color spaces. The recommended approach for color management is to work in a very wide-gamut color space (eg. ProPhoto RGB) while editing an image then export to a target color space as a final step before printing/uploading/delivering the image. Using sRGB internally makes GIMP only suitable for web graphics. Any other application will benefit from a wider gamut and better targeted color space.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Anonymous Coward]

This online flash version supports CMYK? Cool, where are the options for that?

You did try it, insightful as you are?

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[xhrit]

Why do I even need a window manager if every application reproduces that functionality? Windows inside windows, cascading and tiling windows inside cascading and tiling windows; Often times I find myself with 30 images open, all from different projects; I keep one project on one face ov my cube, and another other project on a different face. And what if I want layers and tools dialogs on each face? In the gimp, I can just create a new dialog, and add tabs to it. I can have a layers dialog for each image open. I can move images between projects by moving the window the image is in to a different cube face.

Even if a) microsoft windows or mac osx had a virtual desktop pager, and b)you managed to open separate instances ov photoshop for each virtual desktop, and c) you had enough memory left over to open more then one image file, you would not be able to move the images from one project to another, and you can't create more then one ov each specific dialog.

Therefore, my only conclusion is that Photoshop has an extremely awkward UI and a poorly designed workflow model, and GIMP is not only nice and clean, but far more powerful. MDI is a workaround for platform specific limitations; if microsoft windows did a good job at actually managing windows, then application developers would not have to write a window manager into the applications they develop.

Disclaimer: I am not a graphic artist. I am a programmer, who happens to be asked to do things to graphic art; mostly to make the graphics that the artists make work in the programs I am writing. Most graphic artists see my desktop, get confused and get a headache. too many windows they say! then they go open macrodobie macroaftereffects, stretch it across 2 monitors, open 20 windows inside it and say how much cleaner their workflow is. Then they spend half their day minimizing and maximizing, shuffling around windows inside windows. I never minimize windows anymore - I just rotate my cube.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, a post from someone other than an Adobe astroturf shill or a confused GIMP user who believes the Adobe propaganda. Thank you!

I am one of those customers who sends things in to print shops on a regular basis. Because I do not work with images that will be printed at very large scale and very high resolution, I have never run into a problem using GIMP and Inkscape to make these images. With new vendors I always contact their production departments before submitting anything, to assure that my first submission will work for them.

Unless your monitor is calibrated to correspond to the color profile of the actual printers that will be used to produce your images, CMYK is irrelevant. The print shop will have to make a final editing pass on ANY raster image in ANY format, to adjust for their hardware's own quirks. That's what proofs are for: To confirm that the print shop guessed your intentions correctly. And by the way, the GIMP does support color profiles so if your printing vendor offers them, use them, to make life a little bit easier on all involved.

For the less than 1% of image editing software users who need more color depth than a monitor can display, there's always Cinepaint, a.k.a. the Film GIMP.

The Adobe monopoly on professional image editing is OVER. To those who are deeply invested in the walled garden of Photoshop-only graphics, I can only say, "Welcome to the future - if you are actually good at what you do, you will make out fine here no matter what toolkit you favor."

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Em Adespoton]

I guess I should have elaborated... it supports it by plugin:
http://cue.yellowmagic.info/softwares/separate.html

It also has CMYK palettes that get converted to RGB.

FWIW, I consider the plugin method to be the best way to handle CMYK in any case -- CMYK should be displayed on separate layers.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Em Adespoton]

That is exactly the issue here; the standard X11 clashes with the Aqua WM. Apple X11 can be configured to do FFM, but that really clashes with Aqua's Focus-follows-frontmost-app-window paradigm.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Xabraxas]

Unless your monitor is calibrated to correspond to the color profile of the actual printers that will be used to produce your images, CMYK is irrelevant. The print shop will have to make a final editing pass on ANY raster image in ANY format, to adjust for their hardware's own quirks. That's what proofs are for: To confirm that the print shop guessed your intentions correctly. And by the way, the GIMP does support color profiles so if your printing vendor offers them, use them, to make life a little bit easier on all involved.

You make a great point about color gamut, that it is particular to the machine it is being printed on. To be honest the only reason I can see Photoshop being a necessity is if you work as a professional photographer who prints your own photographs (not likely) or are a prepress designer who makes final adjustments to an image before it is printed.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Kjella]

I'm too lazy to install Krita.. How does it deal with editing multiple photos? (...)

I bring this up because.. there are only two windows in gimp.. The toolbar window and the photo your editing.. Short answer, it doesn't (unless you open another Krita window). I don't know what GIMP you're using, but mine brings up one window called GIMP, one "Layers, Channels, Paths, Undo" and a third for the picture itself and it's the default install.

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[dbcad7]

Gimp 2.4.5

Sounds like Picnik

[Skidge]

Sounds kind of like Picnik, which provides free basic photo editing and is integrated directly into Flickr. It's pretty handy for doing some tweaks on your photos. Picnik has some advanced, paying-account-required features, though, so maybe Photoshop Express will be better in that regard.

Easy photoshops

[Drakin020]

So does that mean it will be easier to make funny photoshop pictures now? This may be good for those that don't feel like installing the application.

excellent opportunity for FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently used Photoshop CS3 on an OS X Mac. While Photoshop used to be THE Mac application, it's still stuck 10 years in the past.

This is an excellent opportunity for Free Open Source Software. The GIMP's two biggest problems are: 1) butt ugly 2) poor color support.

OS X/Cocoa provide a nice user interface AND excellent built in CMYK color support. I think we should rewrite GIMP (or better yet, start a new project entirely) designed to take advantage of the Cocoa/OpenStep/GNUStep and kick photoshop's proprietary ass.

Re:excellent opportunity for FOSS

[glitch23]

Adobe InDesign from the CS3 Master collection also starts slower on OSX compared to Windows. Not sure why.

? Questions.??

[Zymergy]

Why is it ONLY Flash 9 based?

Why not download something locally that checks in for updates and new features only but runs locally? (Sometimes I require the ability to edit images in the field while only having a remote EDGE Cell Connection.)

Why is it so DOG Slow?

How do you turn on the decades-old proven standard Photoshop tool bars?

Why does it require my images to be uploaded to be edited? (I do not want any of my copyrighted media to cross the line of possession demarcation.)

Does Adobe use retain share or gain any legal use of my uploaded images?

Am I the only one noticing this "service" appears to be only intended for amateurs in image manipulation?

How is this ANY better than the FREE GIMP?? http://www.gimp.org/

Re:? Questions.??

[brunascle]

Why does it require my images to be uploaded to be edited?

because Flash doesnt have access to your filesystem. if it did, it would be quite a security issue.

Re:? Questions.??

[theNetImp]

Why is it so DOG Slow?

Two symbols. /.

Re:? Questions.??

[MishgoDog]

Because you've totally confused the intent of Photoshop Express with a fully fledged image editing tool.
It's not intended to be 'just a free version of photoshop', it's partly an experiment in online applications (doesn't everyone these days keep talking about moving apps online?), and it's aimed at people who (like me) hop computers a lot and get frustrated with the fact they don't have simple image editors on every computer they use.
I don't want to (and on some computers I use, with no Admin access, I can't) install local files. I just want to edit photos so I can email an edited version to a friend, or (etc).
Yes, if I wanted a more feature filled, offline version, I'd go buy Elements or CS, or use GIMP, or some other strategy.
Don't confuse channel strategy - online is a different strategy to offline, and there are benefits to each. You are obviously not the target for the online channel - but that's no need to claim it as redundant.

Re:? Questions.??

[Anonymous Coward]

Any how is this better than Paint.NET (for all of us Windows users)?

Re:? Questions.??

[krazo]

Why is it ONLY Flash 9 based?

Because it uses Flex 2.

Why not download something locally that checks in for updates and new features only but runs locally? (Sometimes I require the ability to edit images in the field while only having a remote EDGE Cell Connection.)

Adobe invented AIR for this use case. There will be an AIR version that should probably do just this.

Why is it so DOG Slow?

Wasn't too bad for me. I would assume it's because their server is swamped since the headline is all over the net. Slashdotting++?

How do you turn on the decades-old proven standard Photoshop tool bars?

You don't. It's not a photoshop replacement. It's not meant to be a photoshop replacement.

Why does it require my images to be uploaded to be edited? (I do not want any of my copyrighted media to cross the line of possession demarcation.)

That's a privacy issue no doubt. But I'd assume that the server is doing a lot of the "photoshop" work. I doubt it's possible in Flex. So it needs the photos on the server to do that.

Does Adobe use retain share or gain any legal use of my uploaded images?

Maybe. They shouldn't but I wouldn't put it past them.

Am I the only one noticing this "service" appears to be only intended for amateurs in image manipulation?

Hopefully not since that's who it was designed for.

How is this ANY better than the FREE GIMP?? http://www.gimp.org/

If you're a "non-rank non-amateur" it probably isn't. I don't find the GIMP particularly easy to use. I'd use this photoshop express tool to put a stack of photos up, quickly page through, crop and edit some of them and then share them with whomever I wanted to. But I'm pretty amateur in my needs. Still, that's the use case it's targetted for and I'd argue that for that particular case (upload, resize, crop, rotate, remove red eye, change saturation, publish to facebook) it's probably way easier and faster to use than the GIMP.

Re:? Questions.??

[margretli]

Am I the only one noticing this "service" appears to be only intended for amateurs in image manipulation? No, apparently both Wired.com and Ars Technica noticed this is aimed at "amateurs".

Re:? Questions.??

[bay43270]

It requires flash 9 because it's a Flex 3 app. They used Flex 3 so they could make an Air version, which will solve your second and fifth questions. It's dog slow because its a flex app. It doesn't have photoshop toolbars because it doesn't have photoshop's tools. It's for entry level users (as you later point out). Adobe does retain the rights to your images... probably copy/pasted from the EULAs at Facebook, Myspace, etc. It's not better than GIMP for those experienced in image manipulation (that's what Photoshop is for). It's targeting less sophisticated users, and is much more useful for that market than GIMP.

Re:? Questions.??

[Blakey Rat]

Why does it require my images to be uploaded to be edited? (I do not want any of my copyrighted media to cross the line of possession demarcation.)

Because Flash plug-ins don't have access to your filesystem, duh.

Am I the only one noticing this "service" appears to be only intended for amateurs in image manipulation?

It's a Flash site. Duh. You can't get professional tools over Flash, last time I checked Photoshop was over a gig.

How is this ANY better than the FREE GIMP?? http://www.gimp.org/

Well, for one, the name "Photoshop Express" doesn't bring to mind crippled people and/or bizarre sexual acts. (Besides, there are better free paint programs than GIMP... Paint.NET springs instantly to mind.)

The other questions, you'll have to address to Adobe.

Re:? Questions.??

[Joe Decker]

Does Adobe use retain share or gain any legal use of my uploaded images?

Yes. As I understand it from discussing the matter with a lawyer earlier today, the license agreement gives them the right to take images you load to public areas of their web site, and gives them free reign to do with them as they will. They *don't* have your copyright, you can do with them as you will as well, but they can, for example, put those images in a TV ad for their product, they can sell rights to use your image for money, they can sell the rights to use your image to someone else to sell for money, they can sell the rights to use your image to causes you are vehemently opposed to.

Re:? Questions.??

[Joe Decker]

Maybe. They shouldn't but I wouldn't put it past them.

The answer is "yes", as it turns out. The appropriate sections of the license agreement are already copied a buncha times on this thread, so I won't repeat them, but yes, Adobe can, under their license, use the images, sell the use of those images to other people, and pretty much do with them anything they want short of preventing you from doing the same.

Re:? Questions.??

[CastrTroy]

Why not use Java? If they used a signed applet, it could have access to your file system, and could probably add quite a bit of functionality this way.

Re:? Questions.??

[CastrTroy]

If it has almost none of the features of the real photoshop, why call it photoshop? If this is the first taste somebody has of "photoshop", they may well be turning away a lot of customers. It would be like making a product called MS Word Express, and giving them notepad.

Re:? Questions.??

[ChrisMaple]

The flash plugin itself may not have access to my filesystem (I don't know), but the browser using the plugin has access to the filesystem. If I view a flash image, it's stored as a file in the cache directory. I can exit the browser, restart the browser, read the file and display it. I can rename the file XXXX.swf, move it anywhere, view it any time.

Re:? Questions.??

[Blakey Rat]

That's great, but the Flash plugin doesn't have access to your browser's cache either. And even if it did, how could you copy a file *out* of the browser cache? Since the browser has no capability for that, and since Flash has no filesystem access, it'd be pointless-- when your browser decided to clear its cache, boom, your file is gone. Or if you use another computer.

Adobe's solution is the best for the 99.999% of the population that doesn't give a flying whit where their files are stored. For people like you, well, suck it up and use a different product, whiner.

Re:? Questions.??

[LiquidFire_HK]

Because this is still Adobe. They'd probably rather use their own platform, Flash, even if it limits them somewhat.

parent post grossly underrated

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people don't even read the EULA / ToS before using any software, especially if it is free.

Well they already have serious competition...

[Anonymous Coward]

a.viary is in beta (but you can sign up for a quick invites) and offers a pretty impressive online image editing suite. I'm not much into image editing / manipulation but the things people are already doing with it are pretty damn impressive.

Re:Well they already have serious competition...

[anakuran]

Well I wouldn't necessarily call them competition. I think they target different spaces. Photoshop express seems like it's targeting the casual consumer market. Touchups, redeye reduction whatnot. Phoenix (Aviary's image editing software) is closer to a full fledged layer based image editor ala 'real' photoshop.

Terms of Service give Adobe unlimited rights...

[abh]

The scary thing which isn't getting much play is that the terms of service indicate that if you use their hosting/gallery service, Adobe has a royalty-free, unlimited license to use your photos in any way they choose...

Re:Terms of Service give Adobe unlimited rights...

[glitch23]

So don't post your images to public areas of the service, otherwise they do not have the right to do anything with them. From their ToS which someone else already pointed out (emphasis mine):

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

Publicly accessible areas of the Services are those areas of the Adobe network of properties that are intended by Adobe to be available to the general public. However, publicly accessible areas of the Services do not include Services intended for private communication or areas off the Adobe network of properties such as portions of World Wide Web sites that are accessible via hypertext or other links but are not hosted or served by Adobe.

Bottom line: just don't post your images to publicly accessible areas of the service and you'll be fine. For those who this is targeting, I doubt they would care. For anyone else, you wouldn't be using this service anyway and would already have Photoshop installed (legally or otherwise) on your workstation.

Re:Terms of Service give Adobe unlimited rights...

[Joe Decker]

I'm pretty annoyed by the way that licensing is hidden under a banner of "free". I charge for the rights to use my images, if I have to give those rights away to use a web site then, from my perspective, that site isn't "free".

Signed up to see what the fuss was about.

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Here is what I have noticed so far.

Requires Flash 9. to install.
They have a notice that basically says
Account creation is heavy today it may take 60 minutes to recieve your e-mail.

Mine (done 4 min. ago) took about 1 min.

Super fast uploading! 1 3mb pic took all of 3 seconds to upload!

Very basic editing tools, but has a few cool distortion features. One neat thing to note is links to external sites such as Picassa, Photobucket and Phacebook! (er uh Facebook!)

Gallery and gallery sharing is neat, but slow (probably due to high use right now)
This won't come close to replacing your pirated versions of PS you all have at home. It'll be interesting to see if they add new tools or leave it as is.

Re:Signed up to see what the fuss was about.

[margretli]

I personally like the fact that I can pull and edit the photos on Picasa and Facebook.

Other features I like so far: Drag and drop photos between sites and albums. Simple touch up tools, and colour correction tools as the parent poster mentioned. Interface is neat and easy to use.

It's mentioned on other sites that this is a beta release of PSX. I would assume there will be more functions added on. Also, don't forget, there will most likely be a subscription fee in the future...

Re:Signed up to see what the fuss was about.

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

"Interface is neat and easy to use."
I agree, but must conceede that it may be due to lack of features.

"It's mentioned on other sites that this is a beta release of PSX."
Also a very important thing to note, but so is G-mail. (just kidding)

  "I would assume there will be more functions added on. Also, don't forget, there will most likely be a subscription fee in the future..."

Here is where I would have to argue a bit. (well I don't have to, but I read /. so I must pretend to know everything)
Unless they drastically increase their features, there is no way this will go to a subscription supported app. It's just too "LITE." Picassa does everything this does, comes w/ the same amount of space, is free, and also performs some neat searching functions.

Beta is cool and all, maybe they are hiding some neat stuff in the basement for a true "LIVE" subscription based launch. Maybe they just wanted to load test a server, but I just can't think of how in it's current form (or close to it) would be fee based. NO one who can use picassa, flicker, myspace, photobucket, snapfish, to store photos is going to switch unless they are service spanning... (not that I would do this unethical thing... 8')

Any kind of OS and browser?

[serviscope_minor]

Sweet! It works in lynx!

Re:Any kind of OS and browser?

[Constantine XVI]

So it even works on w3m on AIX?

Re:Any kind of OS and browser?

[trb]

Sweet! It works in lynx!

Now I can edit my cache of ascii art!

Adobe Online Productivity Office

[PortHaven]

Adobe's Online Office Productivity Suite:

Photoshop Express (Photo Editor)
https://www.photoshop.com/express

Buzzword (Word Processor)
http://www.buzzword.com/

Sliderocket (Presentation Software)
http://www.sliderocket.com/

Blist (Spreadsheet)
http://www.blist.com/

***

Did you buy stock? I did a while ago... :)

Re:Adobe Online Productivity Office

[babyrat]

Did you buy stock? I did a while ago... :)

Why are you smiling? Their stock is down over 20% from 3 months ago, and unless you timed one of the slight dips, is essentially unchanged since December 2005.

Re:Adobe Online Productivity Office

[panaceaa]

They're all Flash based, for sure, but only Photoshop Express and Buzzword are owned by Adobe so far.

Re:Adobe Online Productivity Office

[PortHaven]

Of course I waited for a dip, I'm no dip...

And while it is fairly unchanged since I've bought it. So was my Netflix stock. Of course, while my stinkin IRA did little to perform. My Netflix stock over the past three years almost doubled...

Re:Adobe Online Productivity Office

[PortHaven]

"not yet"...

And they may never need to buy them. But if the functionality arrives, it can start to make an impact. Especially once these apps like Buzzword & Sliderocket are ported to AIR.

Beware license RIGHT GRAB

[future assassin]

This is on the Adobe website at https://www.photoshop.com/express/terms.html

Please pay attention to this - fully sublicensable license

8. Use of Your Content.

1. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

Re:Beware license RIGHT GRAB

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

1. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed. Part of me is digusted by this, part of me wonders how Adobe could possibly defend themselves from frivilous lawsuits otherwise. (I'm thinking about that story from yonks ago where somebody sued somebody else because there was a 'copy' of their content in their browser cache.)

Lame.

Re:Beware license RIGHT GRAB

[seanalltogether]

How is this any different from Youtube or Flickr's terms of service?

Re:Beware license RIGHT GRAB

[Junior J. Junior III]

No problem; I just uploaded a .png image of a EULA that I wrote which states that by accepting the upload of this file, the recipient agrees to turn over all assets in their possession to me, and to transfer any and all rights associated with them.

I now own Adobe.

I mean, fair's fair, right?

Re:Beware license RIGHT GRAB

[pushf popf]

That really takes balls.

So far, I've only uploaded a PD image to play with. It will certainly be my last.

Not that I'm Ansel Adams; I just don't like places that sneak in sleazy contract clauses to take my stuff.

Awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I have zero reasons to upgrade my slowly becoming antique Photoshop 5 LE that I've been using for many years now. I love adobe products but not their prices... til now that is.

Just tried it out for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

I just used it for a while and am very unimpressed. I thought it would be decent at least but it isn't. This is about the dumbest idea I have even seen. Calling this thing Photoshop Express is an insult to Photoshop. It should be given some goofy web2.0 name and advertised as such. This is more a Flikr thing than it is a Photoshop ting.

This _might_ be useful if you can browse the web but can not install software for some reason (Wii, PS3, WebTV or such). Otherwise on Linux or Windows Gimp is free and 100 times better.

MOD PARENT REDUNDANT

[Anonymous Coward]

The Original Post is here:

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=502054&cid=22886666

Re:MOD PARENT REDUNDANT

[Thinboy00]

O RLY? I never would have guessed.

oh, and to the mod: MOD PARENT REDUNDANT please, as this is like his third post or something.

MOD PARENT REDUNDANT

[Anonymous Coward]

First post:

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=502054&cid=22886666

Photoshop is currently 1,5 Gb, 22000 files...

[Joce640k]

Last time I installed PS it installed 22,000-odd files and gobbled up 1.5Gb of disk space. Photoshop Elements isn't much lighter.

So how do they propose to reduce all that to a flash add-in...?

They can't.

Re:Photoshop is currently 1,5 Gb, 22000 files...

[pushing-robot]

If you strip out the garbage (and most of the filters), you can have a functioning copy of CS2 in ~25MB. Google "photoshop portable".

Any OS/Browser?

[nurb432]

Doesn't seem to work on my hand built OS running Grail as the browser.. Or my atari running STiK..

On a more serious note, why would i want to choose this over something free that runs locally that i know wont be yanked in 6 months due to a change in the weather at Adobe, and effectively orphaning my files?

Hooray for Photoshop Express at work

[theurge14]

Finally. Now I don't have to suffer with Microsoft Paint at work on Windows machines I don't have access to install software on. It's rather amazing after all these years Windows still doesn't have something to properly crop and resize images with.

Re:Hooray for Photoshop Express at work

[shurikt]

You can crop and resize using MS HTML Help Image Editor. And your IT department probably won't complain about installing it for you. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms669985.aspx

Re:Hooray for Photoshop Express at work

[Blakey Rat]

If they did, you'd see long rants on Slashdot how an OS should do nothing but run applications. Unless it's Linux, in which case it should include several different, competing, kitchen sinks.

Frankly, I agree with you, but Microsoft improving bundled software goes against the Slashdot zeitgeist. I'd recommend Paint.NET, but you can't install software so... uh... sorry.

No thanks

[dmsuperman]

Won't even load in firefox, and in IE it continues to insist that I don't have flash installed when I've clearly run the installer that they themselves redirected me to. I'll stick with my TPB'ed free Photoshop. Runs faster anyway.

It's not actually web-based either.

[Reverend528]

From the site:

This content requires the latest Adobe Flash Player.

Re:It's not actually web-based either.

[timeOday]

Darn, I was hoping they re-implemented Photoshop in 100% pure HTML 1.0.

Re:It's not actually web-based either.

[CastrTroy]

Well at least they didn't use ActiveX.

Re:It's not actually web-based either.

[timeOday]

I am still confounded as to why Java applets wouldn't be perfect for this sort of thing. Bandwidth, memory, and CPU are all fast enough to handle Java now, yet the applet revolution that looked so promising 10 years ago stillstubbornly refuses to occur.

Re:It's not actually web-based either.

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, I mean they have entire applications written in Java, and it's run on web servers and everything, I just don't see why Java applets are so unpopular. It takes a while to get rid of the negative momentum. It's kind of like with Javascript (yes, I know, no relation), I still hate it from the memories of NS4 VS. IE. Even though now with the DOM, it's actually quite nice to program in, and you rarely have to do browser hacks. I think one thing they need to do is get the JVM plugin to start faster. It really sucks when you visit a site and your computer pauses for 20 seconds while it loads the plugin.

Doesn't work on Flash9-Linux

[sd.fhasldff]

I tried it, but it just says my Flash isn't supported and redirects me to Macromedia.com, which then directs me back to to adobe.com for a new flash download.

Flash 9.0 r48, Firefox, Ubuntu Gutsy 64bit.

Not sure if it REALLY wants a newer version of Flash or if the 64bit-ness is confusing it.

Re:Doesn't work on Flash9-Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian Sid(ish) 32-bit Flash 9,0,48,0 on Iceweasel a no-go as well.

Re:Doesn't work on Flash9-Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

r48 had some sort of security hole didn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe required the newest version just to get people off of 48.

Just a silly observation

[Apoorv Khatreja]

In Adobe Photoshop Express, check out the Asian girl at the top-left, whose title says "Smile".

Notice that the "Exposure" filter that they claim "Made you Look" actually made you look at how racist the tool is, they made her coloured from white.

Re:Just a silly observation

[YrWrstNtmr]

Notice that the "Exposure" filter that they claim "Made you Look" actually made you look at how racist the tool is, they made her coloured from white.

Oh please. They took a washed out photo (all too common), and put some color/saturation into it. Look at the water and scrubgrass.

shareware

[Rob T Firefly]

I liked this idea better when it was called "shareware" and you just had to mail a fiver to some BBS kid in Missouri.

Free?

[kcredden]

It has been free for a number of years. It's called 'The GIMP' and it's skin; 'GIMPShop' Just took a class in Photoshop, and guess what? With a bit of research, I'm using GIMPShop for all my homework. So far, so free :) - Kc

Well, it works on my Flash9-Linux (32-bit)

[ClickOnThis]

Not sure if it REALLY wants a newer version of Flash or if the 64bit-ness is confusing it. Could be either, I suppose. I'm running Slackware 12.0, Firefox 2.0.0.12 and Shockwave Flash 9.0 r115, all 32-bit. The site seems to work fine.

Re:TOTAL FAILURE OF THE SLASHDOT MODERATION SYSTEM

[derrida]

I see a general trend of discrimnation against Slashdot subscribers. I am sure sooner or later this site is going to lose revenue.

On the other hand writing clearly "First post" instead of "fisrt p0ts" I think deserves the money.

No thanks!

[vertickle]

Paint.NET http://www.getpaint.net/ is an excellent free alternative.

Re:No thanks!

[ksm2552]

I totally agree. Small, fast and easy to use for 90% of the stuff you need Photoshop for.

Want amateur image manipulation?

[nilloc]

Use Picasa! http://www.picasa.com/ And you have to don't give up your rights to your pictures. By the way, they even have a Linux version available. :)

Re:Want amateur image manipulation?

[AmigaHeretic]

Thank you.

I was wondering if anyone would mention that. This "Photoshop" express has nothing to do with the real Photoshop. I can't understand how people are even comparing to Photoshop or GIMP??

This is much more like a 'cut down' version of Picasa actually, which itself is just basic image manipluation tool. But Picasa has some cool effects & is easy to manipulate a large number of pics quickly. Also, Picasa isn't DOG slow like this web based version seems to be.

"Any" operating system? Not Linux!

[Doug52392]

I can't even open this damn "program". I get a message that says:

"Express install is not supported by this version of the Flash Player..."

Photoshop Express broken by yet another Adobe product...

Re:"Any" operating system? Not Linux!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

"Any" operating system? Not Linux! I can't even open this damn "program". I get a message that says: "Express install is not supported by this version of the Flash Player..."

And you didn't think upgrading your Flash player would be a good idea? It works fine for me with Firefox and Flash 9 under Ubuntu. (Mind you Flash installation, or really any commercial software, could be a lot easier.)

Re:"Any" operating system? Not Linux!

[Christoph]

And you didn't think upgrading your Flash player would be a good idea? It works fine for me with Firefox and Flash 9 under Ubuntu. (Mind you Flash installation, or really any commercial software, could be a lot easier.)

On the landing page, I right-click on the flash intro to verify my version of Flash Player: "About Adobe Flash Player 9" Seems like Flash Player 9 is working OK, yet navigating further into the site by clicking on any other link gets me an error about Flash Player: "Express Install is not supported by this version of Flash Player". I got the same behavior on two different Linux machines, Gentoo and Fedora Core, one running Firefox 2.0.0.4 and the other 2.0.0.12. I tried re-installing Flash 9, didn't make any difference. Flash works fine for me on most every other website, but this Adobe site is not usable for me.

Re:"Any" operating system? Not Linux!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I got the same behavior on two different Linux machines, Gentoo and Fedora Core, one running Firefox 2.0.0.4 and the other 2.0.0.12. I tried re-installing Flash 9, didn't make any difference.

Well my configuration is certainly different. I have Flash Player 9.0.115, Firefox 3Beta4, and Ubuntu 8.04. I had to manually install the Flash player because of a known bug. Apparently Adobe released a new version of Flash 9 in December and on many systems the install checks the MD5 checksum, sees it is different, and silently fails while reporting that it was installed. You might want to try installing Flash by hand or just trying this site again in May, after all the distros manage to patch this. I would argue that since it works for me on Linux, your problem is probably a bug in the version of Firefox or is an issue of an outdated version of Flash combined with a bug in your package management.

This certainly does bring up a long standing complaint I have with every desktop Linux distribution I've tried. Linux is in the lead as far as package managers are concerned... and with ease of finding and installing open source, freeware. At the same time, package managers on Linux are terrible when it comes to commercial software, especially shareware/payware and behind the curve for software portability. I really wish Redhat, Sun, IBM, Canonical, and Apple would all sit down together and create a standard package format based upon GNUStep, and define a set of protocols needed for discovery, transfer, compilation, registration, licensing, installation, and uninstallation of software. I fear, however, that Linux's use as a server and appliance will prevent any such advancement under the auspices of preventing "bloat" with an unhealthy dose of Not Invented Here Syndrome.

It's A Trap!

[Blue Stone]

You say that, as a criticism of the gp, and you're correct - using the service to edit your photos does not give Adobe carte blanche over your images, but just how many people using photoshop express will think it's also neat to be able to share their content with their friends - a one stop shop - upload and edit and then use adobe's 2gigs of 'free' space to share their images?

A fair number, I imagine. It'd be so convenient. And that's the idea. And in so doing, they'd fall right into the trap Adobe has set them: use the free webspace and Adobe gets to profit from or to bastardise or do anything else they so please to your images.

This is not Flickr, it's a copyright grab under the guise of offering a service. And it's not explicitly stated, in BOLD, upfront. It's tucked away in the terms - and not the first page of terms - you have to click through them to find it.

You use the Photoshop Express free webspace and you fall into Adobe's trap and Adobe gets copyright dibs, irrevocably, to sell your images to advertisers and anyone else and make profit which you won't see a penny of.

I believe that stinks and that Adobe are being grasping bastards here.

Actually, you are wrong.

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Windows XP has BATCH resizing capability as a download and you can crop in Paint.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe

Just tried it: instant review

[goombah99]

Just tired it. They have a guest page with pre-loaded photos for you to "edit". this ain't photoshop. this is "picassa" or "iphoto" in terms of what you can do to a photo. change the exposure, white balance, rotator... yawn.

it's slow even on a fast connection. the pictures are grainy when you are editing them. and it basically is painful.

What were they thinking? I guess it is excellent for a web app photo editor. Much better than what you get on say kodak photo or flickr. But crap why bother when you can use picassa or iphoto then upload.

a total steaming turd.

Interesting Possibility

[bill_mcgonigle]

Their terms include sublicenseability, so interesting things could happen if they grant the rights on to the community.

Instant massive CC-like image database?

Something better then "OSS RuleZ"?

[TehZorroness]

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

It is true that free software may not measure up in all areas (it is also true that free software surpasses proprietary software in some), but in the long run, those losses are truly survivable. If you are willing to adapt, you'll never have to "pirate" software again. The primary argument against the GIMP is that it lacks CMYK support (which is coming), but I am not effected since I am not in the printing biz. I suppose everyone using this flash isn't either though.

Re:Something better then "OSS RuleZ"?

[dreamchaser]

Except you basically answered the question with a prettier version of 'OSS Rulez'. If you're willing to buy the software you want then you'll never 'need' to 'pirate' it again either.

Talk about quality and features, not politics, and then maybe you'll be on to something as there are many many examples of high quality FOSS. Focusing on the political aspects loses a large part of the audience; the pragmatic ones.

Re:Something better then "OSS RuleZ"?

[TehZorroness]

I am not concerned with them.

CRAPOLA

[bill_mcgonigle]

Can we invent a new term for sites like these? "Web-based" is misleading -- it makes you think of open standards and compatibility. I propose "Flash-based.

Too specific. There's all kinds of junk like this, say sites that only work in IE, sites that require Silver-Light, etc. Sites that would be more usable as a desktop app in the firstplace, but sacrifice that for the sake of the 'web' moniker (with no significant additional benefits).

How about 'Compatible Rendering Abandoned Proprietary On-Line Application'?

Re:CRAPOLA

[SanityInAnarchy]

Sites that only work in IE are just about dead -- mostly replaced by sites that only work in IE/Firefox, or only in IE/Firefox/Safari. Opera is about fourth in the list, and Konquerer is pretty much nowhere. But these are understandable, and getting rarer, as by the time you have a site that works in IE/Firefox/Safari, you're hopefully reducing the number of browser-specific hacks you need, rather than increasing. Silverlight is both more open (it looks like Moonlight might actually be good) and less relevant -- practically no sites require Silverlight. Sites that would be more usable as a desktop app are also irrelevant, as they can still work in any browser. (I haven't seen any lately.) And ActiveX is pretty much dead. Compare all that to Flash, which is the real problem here -- Flash is insidious. It's installed on some ungodly number of computers -- it's more popular than Windows is -- and it's on mobile devices. Yet it's completely controlled by one company, making it worse than IE ever was. And it provides things that there's really not any other standard, cross-platform way of doing. Thus, for someone who only sees standards-compliance as a means to an end -- as a way of making your site more compatible for more people -- Flash seems like a sensible compromise. That is what makes it so dangerous. I mean, not that it would happen, but Adobe could literally throw an auto-update switch and every Flash-based site would instantly break. Or they could selectively disable sites they don't like -- goodbye YouTube. If we could replace Flash with something open, I honestly wouldn't mind about any of the rest, because we'd be back to 1% of the Internet that's incompatible with some browsers, instead of, say, 25% (conservative estimate).

Re:CRAPOLA

[SanityInAnarchy]

Damnit! Reposting...

Sites that only work in IE are just about dead -- mostly replaced by sites that only work in IE/Firefox, or only in IE/Firefox/Safari. Opera is about fourth in the list, and Konquerer is pretty much nowhere. But these are understandable, and getting rarer, as by the time you have a site that works in IE/Firefox/Safari, you're hopefully reducing the number of browser-specific hacks you need, rather than increasing.

Silverlight is both more open (it looks like Moonlight might actually be good) and less relevant -- practically no sites require Silverlight.

Sites that would be more usable as a desktop app are also irrelevant, as they can still work in any browser. (I haven't seen any lately.) And ActiveX is pretty much dead.

Compare all that to Flash, which is the real problem here -- Flash is insidious. It's installed on some ungodly number of computers -- it's more popular than Windows is -- and it's on mobile devices. Yet it's completely controlled by one company, making it worse than IE ever was. And it provides things that there's really not any other standard, cross-platform way of doing.

Thus, for someone who only sees standards-compliance as a means to an end -- as a way of making your site more compatible for more people -- Flash seems like a sensible compromise. That is what makes it so dangerous.

I mean, not that it would happen, but Adobe could literally throw an auto-update switch and every Flash-based site would instantly break. Or they could selectively disable sites they don't like -- goodbye YouTube.

If we could replace Flash with something open, I honestly wouldn't mind about any of the rest, because we'd be back to 1% of the Internet that's incompatible with some browsers, instead of, say, 25% (conservative estimate).

This Looks Shopped

[tikal2k]

I can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few shops in my time.

Web-based doesn't equal every browser

[Anonymous Coward]

"Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser."
Sorry doesn't work on my itouch since it's flash based, so it can't work on any browser or computer which the touch is.

GIMP interface

[pikine]

What's horrible about GIMP's interface, you ask? It's the non-judicial use of screen real-estate that annoys me the most. For example, what justifies the 5 pixel gap between the tool icons? That window could totally be made 20 pixels narrower. The dialog boxes could all be made more compact. Five pixels every here and there could save about 100 pixels, which is still a non-negligible amount of screen real-estate.

GIMP developers must have designed the UI for old people who need reading glasses. I happened to have used GIMP on a 30in monitor at 2560x1600 resolution once, and only on that monitor I find GIMP practically usable.

Re:GIMP interface

[xhrit]

>For example, what justifies the 5 pixel gap between the tool icons?

So are you trolling, or just ignorant and don't know that it can be changed? And I am not talking about downloading the source code, editing some lines ov programming, and recompiling. I am talking right clicking, and selecting preview size > small. The dialog boxes *CAN* all be made more compact. Or they can be made bigger, in case you have bad eyesight. How about you go try that in photoshop; I won't wait, because you can't do that in photoshop. Photoshop 0, GIMP 1.

http://xhrit.com/Images/snapshot1.png

Re:GIMP interface

[pikine]

I am talking right clicking, and selecting preview size > small. The dialog boxes *CAN* all be made more compact. Or they can be made bigger, in case you have bad eyesight

No, right clicking doesn't show a context menu that says "preview size". Which version of GIMP are you using? Sure, in "File/Preferences" dialog you can change theme to make icons and text smaller. But the waste of screen real-estate has to do with the particular way that GTK+ lays out the UI elements. You can make the icons and font just 1px in size and there would still be wasted space.

On the other hand, although you don't have the flexibility to theme Photoshop, you get a default interface that is pleasing to work with.

Those companies have a whole team of usability specialists who scrutinize every single pixel on the screen. Are you saying they're all idiots?

So are you trolling, or just ignorant and don't know that it can be changed? And I am not talking about downloading the source code, editing some lines ov programming, and recompiling.

So I'm thinking you're just full of yourself, arrogant, and can't take any criticism. I'm fine if open source developers don't want to improve their program. I'll personally tolerate these deficiencies as a user (or go out and buy the real thing when I can afford it), but please don't take issues when I defend someone else who thinks the program sucks. Because it does, and you just don't want to acknowledge that. What's so hard about it?

Re:GIMP interface

[xhrit]

>Please don't take issues when I defend someone else who thinks the program sucks. Because it does, and you just don't want to acknowledge that. What's so hard about it?

It works fine on my computers, it suits my needs, I don't think it sucks. It is nice that in your opinion the program sucks. Thanks for sharing, personal preference is great. While we are sharing opinions, let me share mine : if people actually liked good products and not just products with expensive marketing then maybe britney spears wouldn't be so popular.

>Those companies have a whole team of usability specialists who scrutinize every single pixel on the screen. Are you saying they're all idiots?

I have worked with companies before. PHB's call the shots. Do you think that usability specialists design software? Do you think the usability specialists get the final say? DO you think the usability specialists have more say in what gets signed off on then the marketing department? How do you think that the focus groups ov randomly chosen photoshop users would respond to an interface change? I mean photoshops interface hasn't had a major change since 5.5. And I am sure that no matter what any usability specialist says macrodobie will never remove their stupid logo off the toolbar.

Do you forget what program you are using much? Nice.

I post facts, you reply with opinions, I make jokes. In order to get all the categories you have to flame me now.

Re:GIMP interface

[pikine]

maybe britney spears wouldn't be so popular

Let it be pikine's law that an argument is over as soon as Britney Spears is mentioned in the discussion. Really, your perception about B.S.'s popularity is wrong. Her music was popular in the past when it was still bearable. People are now more interested in her tabloid headline than her music. Your misperception about people's music taste also shows your elitist attitude because you're patronizing over personal preferences. In plain language, you believe "what I like is better than thine," and I'm telling you that's the wrong attitude.

Do you think that usability specialists design software?

Do you think programmers have an aesthetic sense? Many don't even bother to maintain a consistent coding style. Programmers suck at consistency, and that's why you see so many bugs. All bugs are some form of inconsistency. And I argue that consistency is a major factor in aesthetics. That's why people design and appreciate symmetrical things.

It works fine on my computers, it suits my needs

I think we both have this in common. It suits my needs. Unlike you, and I'm agreeing to disagree, I think GIMP sucks.

Anyway, if you have nothing to do with GIMP development, I don't want to waste my time with you. Feel free to go away. Shoo.

Re:GIMP interface

[xhrit]

that troll was acceptable.

:)

Unusable in Opera

[sheepweevil]

Photoshop express is basically unusable in Opera because almost every action creates a couple of these warnings:

Information from this HTTPS page will be submitted to an unencrypted page on api.photoshop.com. The data will be transmitted without any security. Submitting sensitive information is strongly discouraged. Not sure whether this is a security issue or not, but Opera says it is.

window grouping

[gotih]

Gimp doesn't group windows in a way that is familiar to windows users. If I'm using photoshop, there's a main container window then the smaller windows. If I alt+tab between applications, all photoshop windows (pallet, history, open images, etc) are shown or hidden as a group.

Gimp's mass of windows getting lost among the windows is probably my the biggest complaint. I use linux and devote a virtual desktop to it.

The lack of a common "File, edit, ..." menu because there's no main window is another point of confusion.

Re:window grouping

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> I use linux and devote a virtual desktop to it.

Congratulations. You've just learned THE ENTIRE POINT of
virtual desktops: grouping related things

Re:window grouping

[mhall119]

Gimp doesn't group windows in a way that is familiar to windows users. If I'm using photoshop, there's a main container window then the smaller windows. If I alt+tab between applications, all photoshop windows (pallet, history, open images, etc) are shown or hidden as a group. Your window manager can probably do the same thing for you, as tracking window state is really it's responsibility, not the application's. Heck, you can probably even attach non-Gimp windows to the same window group, and it will be minimized/restored, even moved, when any of the other windows are. I know I can do this with Compiz anyway.

Anyone knows a Flash player on OpenBSD?

[brain5ide]

Is it on ANY platform, or on ANY platform with Macromedia Flash player available?

Re:Anyone knows a Flash player on OpenBSD?

[Fenice]

Contrary to adobe propaganda, Flash is no cross-plateform framework at all. You can always try the nspluginwrapper project which allows to use netscape plugins on *nix platforms. But it's not the ideal solution.

the Photoshop User Interface

[psyced]

Even as early as 1995 Linux developers were so keen on providing a Window Manager which would look and act like MS Windows 95 just to make it easier for people to switch.. but the ability to select "shutdown" on the "start" menu wasn't exactly what people were missing to move on to Linux.

In the case of GIMP I must say that I am confused each time I see it.. Why is it so hard to have programmable GUI menu structures so that a PhotoShop-compatibility UI becomes feasible? Can somebody do that? :D To be more photoshoppable would make it easier to switch to gimp, and be a lot more useful than window managers that look like some other OS.

Back on topic: Web-based Photoshop? I wished it was.. but it's just a bunch of effects.. Have seen similar Flash apps before. It shouldn't carry the "Photoshop" name.

No text

[seanyboy]

This (and other online options) are too restrictive.
Note to Adobe : The one thing I do the most with images is caption them. Until this can do that I'm not going to use it.

text created in the gimp does not export properly

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a big fan of the Gimp. I used linux on my notebook. I used openoffice and firefox and the gimp.

Everything was fine until I started working on a website for a customer. They gave me the PSD that they had from the previous designer. Nothing complicated, just some text labels on a logo/menu bar.

When I tried to manipulate the text, it was all line art, not font text.

When I created text labels within the gimp, they exported as line art and were not modifiable in photoshop.

I now have a dual-boot between xp and linux. I spend most of my time in the windows partition. Sometimes I use a vmware guest of a non-graphical linux.

The point is, I use Windows graphical tools because I cannot afford the incompatibilities in photoshop. Were the gimp as good as OpenOffice we would not be having this discussion.

You don't need CMYK... probably.

[jlazzaro74]

This issue may have already been put to rest, but with the amount of attention it got I felt it should be mentioned one more time. CMYK shouldn't even be an issue for the vast majority of people doing any sort of imaging work, especially for web but even for most print. Unless your work is being sent out to press, and I mean real-life-color-separation-full-on-bullshit, you likely shouldn't be using CMYK, and could be harming yourself if you do.

Most inkjet printers, even the high-end wide formats from Epson and HP, expect RGB input. If you are printing even on high-end printers with CMYK inks, most will convert your CMYK input to RGB, then convert it back to CMYK, and there is always the chance you are loosing color data in that unnecessary first step. How do you tell if your printer is RGB or CMYK? You can't know by looking at the inks, but there is a test pattern you can print, check this out. The exception is if you are using a RIP, but if you are using a RIP you probably already understand the difference.

Don't be fooled into thinking you're gaining a wider gammut by converting the RGB images that came out of your camera into CMYK. Keep them in RGB and use a broad color space like ProPhoto RGB in 16 bit. Of course if you shot that pic of aunt Mildred as a JPG instead of RAW, it's a moot point anyhow, as you're already compressed down to the miniscule sRBG color space and nothing on earth can get that color data back.

what's the difference

[Anonymous Coward]

I was using photoshop for years, working in a company - while now as a freelancer i could not afford a license - so i used gimp.

some things that i miss in gimp are: some tree-structure for layers (in ps u got those containers), round edges of not regular (rectangulare) shaped selections, gif animation (also this is related to another adobe tool not directly ps - missed the name right now) is hard work in gimp (exspecially if u want small files and therefore combine the layers) so i use a image-magik-script which does the "stupid" part, layereffects need to be redone after changes (in ps they are dynamical) - but this is fast done (i learned ps in version 3 when u had to do these effects only with "fill" "gaussian blur" "offset" and "clear" - so i know the basics)

these are all little things that make ps more productive than gimp (in my opinion) but the reasons why i am going to invest in adobe products are:
1. compatibility with psd files from others (effects get lost when opening in gimp - etc)
2. more than basic cmyk support (didnt check it out in gimp, but it's said to be basic)
3. the package i will afford will bring more great software (acrobat 3d, premiere, indesign, flash (as3 rox), ...)
4. pressure-levels for graphic-tablets (oh gimp-foundation this would be so enormous)

well as a summary i would say os-software is a great thing and should be supported in any way (as a programmer i probably will participate in some projects) but commercial software has features that justify to pay (perhaps not that much) for it. so everyone has to decide themselves what they need and what they are willing to pay.

gimp rox for web-graphics, inkspace is good for vector-stuff, but in print-media-production there is little room for os-software nowadays - hope this changes

Re: you can't just click on the "Gimp" window...

[rnturn]

``... to bring the whole thing to the front''

I take it that you haven't tried running the Gimp in its own virtual desktop? I do that regularly and it works like a charm.

do i loose imaginary property by uploading

[Anonymous Coward]

any clues about copyright, privacy and license issues - in google-online-office-license-agreement there are some strange clauses that make me use openoffice instead of the online-google-thing.
i do not want that anything i work on there could be used for ads or statistics or so...

Not to mention...

[argent]

Why would a professional be worried about whether the GIMP or Photoshop Express is a better tool?

Why does it matter if the Gimp is inferior?

[Piata]

I'm a web designer by trade. There isn't a day that goes by in which I don't use Photoshop. I've tried the Gimp on a few occasions as I like open source software and would prefer not to pay thousands of dollars for something that is essential in my occupation.

The Gimp simply doesn't measure up. If you were arguing the Gimp as a Photoshop Elements replacement, that would be a valid comparison, but Photoshop is in a league of it's own. I have yet to meet a single designer or photographer that can tolerate using the GIMP for an extended period of time. It's like trying to draw with crayons. The options, versatility, the fluidity of work flow... they just aren't there. I know lots of programmers that love it and that's exactly what makes the Gimp a bad product. It doesn't cater to it's target demographic (designers/photographers/artists), and then programmers get their backs against the wall because a tool that works for them doesn't work for the professionals and they don't understand why. You can do all the technical lists you want and compare feature lists, but the gimp is a wading pool for people that don't know how or don't want to swim.

third way to crop

[emilng]

You can also use the marquee tool to choose the area you want to crop then go to Image > Crop.

CMYK calling

[theolein]

We, a design company, use different printing establishments. To keep quality more consistent, as not all modern printers support RGB workflows, we send all our bitmap images in CMYK format.

In Photoshop, no matter if you're working with an RGB or CMYK workflow, you can select this profile and get work in proof mode which gives you a very good approximation of what the final result will be.

Poverty of opinion

[theolein]

If the UI were the only problem, the GIMP would have made more inroads into mainstream image manipulation a long time ago. The interface of the GIMP improved a lot with 2.0 and is no longer as terrible as it used to be with the very Unix style of doing with right clicks to find menus etc. Another thing is that the GIMP looks absolutely awful on Mac OSX. A good percentage of designers work on Mac, and the really bad UI on the Mac makes the GIMP a general non starter on OSX.

But for me, as someone who uses Photoshop on a daily basis at work, on Windows mostly, the thing that makes the GIMP useless is the fact that it doesn't support bicubic scaling. The GIMP's cubic scaling is really, really poor in comparison, and no one would accept images scaled with that algorithm where I work.

Re:Poverty of opinion

[JohnBailey]

If the UI were the only problem, the GIMP would have made more inroads into mainstream image manipulation a long time ago. The interface of the GIMP improved a lot with 2.0 and is no longer as terrible as it used to be with the very Unix style of doing with right clicks to find menus etc. Another thing is that the GIMP looks absolutely awful on Mac OSX. A good percentage of designers work on Mac, and the really bad UI on the Mac makes the GIMP a general non starter on OSX. I can see your point. Especially the usage shift involved in right clicking on a Mac. I've only used Gimp on Linux, where the Unix style of doing tings is not out of place. So I arguably have a better experience of it, and with the virtual desktops and window grouping/shading, it does tend to minimize the problems someone else mentioned having with keeping track of the multiple windows and not being able to dock them onto each other (hopefully solved with 2.6) on the Windows version. No fault of the respective OSs, but a native Linux app that is ported to something else is going to run into problems with differences on the respective platforms. I seem to remember reading that at least some versions of Photoshop were a bit easier to use on Apple systems than on Windows. Can't remember the reason given.

But for me, as someone who uses Photoshop on a daily basis at work, on Windows mostly, the thing that makes the GIMP useless is the fact that it doesn't support bicubic scaling. The GIMP's cubic scaling is really, really poor in comparison, and no one would accept images scaled with that algorithm where I work. How much better is bicubic than Lanczos 3. Or do the two not even merit a mention in the same sentence?

There are valid reasons to export to PDF

[seeker_1us]

There are reasons to put a bitmap into PDF.

How do you export as a PDF?

I'll grant you there's no built-in function for it, but I also can't conceive of a useful reason for doing so. Converting a single bitmap image into a PDF is a grossly inefficient operation for no benefit. (Where the file format can sensibly be exported to PDF, most open source software does provide it; eg Inkscape.)

Here is an example. Say you use pdftex. All your figures, even single bitmaps, must be in pdf format to be merged.

However, this is not an issue for the GIMP. You simply save them in encapsulated postscript format and run eps2pdf on them (and you can run them en-masse with a simple shell loop).

Anyone mention SplashUp?

[antimatter15]

here's something more like a _real_ online photoshop-still in flash though. http://splashup.com/

The good and bad news about photoshop

[Douglas Goodall]

The good news it that I can use photoshop express on my macbook pro. The bad news is that because I opted for an Extended, Journaled, Case-sensitive format on my main hard disk, Photoshop Elements 6 CANNOT BE INSTALLED on my MacBook Pro. At all, FINI. The package refuses to install and complains that it does not support that format for the system drive. It doesn't even offer you the opportunity to install on a different drive. As a unix system programmer, case-sensitive file system is important to me because when I unpack a tar file of source code, it often fails on a case-insensitive file system.

If Adobe wanted to do a port of Photoshop to the Mac, they should have supported the file systems that the Mac does. It wasted my time and money to find this out. And nowhere on the box or on the web site is this mentioned. You would think that the world's most used photo editing software would install without error on my expensive Mac. I will think long and hard before raching for the Photoshop on the shelf again in the future. At least gimp installs on my Mac ok.