Replacements For Adobe Creative Suite 3 Apps?

Gilmoure writes "With rumors of Adobe not supporting Creative Suite 3 applications on Mac OS X 10.6, I was wondering what Open Source apps folks would recommend to replace Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Dreamweaver? If the apps can work with the native file formats, all the better but if they provide the same functionality, that's still good. I have several designer friends that are looking forward to the speed boost of OS X 10.6 but don't want to go through the Adobe upgrades so soon after the CS2 to CS3 upgrades. Especially when Adobe's already working on CS5."

Comments

Don't bother

[kryptKnight]

I've been using the Snow Leopard developer preview for the past couple months, and Adobe CS3 is working fine.

There's a difference between not working and not being officially supported.

Respectively:

[bcmm]

Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus*, Nvu.

*I haven't actually used Scribus myself.

Gimp and Inkscape can import the native formats of Photoshop and Illustrator, respectively. There are many alternatives to Nvu, it's just the one I've used. However, I usually just write the HTML myself, for which Kate is very useful and user-friendly, supporting syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript and so on (at the same time, if necessary).

Re:Respectively:

[smartr]

I'm a big fan of GIMP. I just set up the GIMP on OS X... It's a mess and since X11 treats the separate windows like separate programs so you have to set up options for X11 to enable click-through (then again X11 is already pretty much violating everything under the sun in terms of how OS X user interface works). I'm surprised it doesn't mention on the front page in big letters to enable this setting. If the GIMP was already inaccessible to those new to it given all the right clicking (a mac favorite), the automatic behavior of click to focus, click to draw, click to focus, click to change to gradient tool, click to focus on layer window, click to add a layer, get a window slightly off the screen, move it, click "ok", click to focus on the drawing pane window, click to draw a gradient... If you aren't knowledgeable enough to realize that this extra clicking isn't normal behavior, then figure out to fix it, the GIMP looks like a flaming piece of junk on OS X. If you have used the GIMP significantly, it still makes for an obnoxious hurdle.

Re:Respectively:

[Miffe]

It's 16 bit per channel, ie 48 bits per pixel.

Re:Respectively:

[Anne Honime]

It's not a question of eye, it's a question of maths. As long as digital photography will create colours by interpolation between RGBG values of a matrix, you'll need empty 'holes' to re-create colours and avoid sampling artefacts. Applying filters (sharpening, border sharpening, USM etc.) also needs room to do their magic, otherwise you're accumulating errors that ultimately show as noise. When your postprocessing is done, then you can downgrade to 8 bits / channel without too much loss for printing or display.

Believe it or else, there's a real difference between a 8 bits and a 16 bits workflow; you'd need to try for yourself to be convinced, but for a pro, it's the difference between work or joblessness.

Try these

[nielo]

Hi,
Firstly if you're looking for opensource app replacements you can always try www.osalt.com.

Personally I'd try:
Photoshop: GIMP or GIMPShop or Krita
Illustrator: Inkscape or XaraXtreme
InDesign: scribus
Dreamweaver: KompoZer or Aptana or seamonkey or Amaya or href="http://net2.com/nvu/">NVU

I also found this website which might help: www.thefreesuite.com

Here are the relevant OSalt links:
photoshop
illustrator
indesign
dreamweaver