Adobe Photoshop Is Coming To Linux, Through Chromebooks

sfcrazy writes Adobe is bringing the king of all photo editing software, Photoshop, to Linux-based Chrome OS. Chrome OS-powered devices, such as Chromebooks and Chromeboxes, already have a decent line-up of 'applications' that can work offline and eliminate the need of a traditional desktop computer. So far it sounds like great news. The bad news is that the offering is in its beta stage and is available only to the customers of the Creative Cloud Education program residing in the U.S. I have a full subscription of Creative Cloud for Photographers, and LightRoom, but even I can't join the program at the moment.

Comments

Re:How important is that at this point?

[blackiner]

Take a careful look at what they released this beta for: Creative Cloud Education program. Chromebooks have gained a decent foothold in schools recently. This is Adobe looking out for their own interests, by trying to hook students at a young age. Which is totally acceptable, imo, plenty more people will benefit from this than just them.

Re:Finally

[ColdWetDog]

I still am not ready to buy into the Adobe CC thing, I don't like the idea that if I have a lot of PSD files, I've done work on, I may refer back to, say as templates for my business albums, etc...that if I quit paying rent, that I can no longer open and use my files I created.

If you have a .psd or better yet a .tiff file, you can open it up in all of it's glorious layered goodness in any one of a number of programs. Of course, if you are looking at a Photoshop specific manipulation or feature, you're unlikely to be able to do it in anything other than Photoshop. However, as you point out, there are not all that many late model Photoshop effects that are to-die-for.

I bought into the CS6 Production Premium Suite of tools...and so far, I've not see anything Adobe has done or added that is so groundbreakingly compelling that I would give up my standalone as long as I want them (in VM's if need be for OS changes) and use them.

I would agree. I have CS6 happily sitting on my hard drive, but also have a current subscription (hint: if you try to cancel, they give you the old price back. At $29.00 a month for the entire suite it can be a steal, depending on what you use).

I'm actually wondering if Adobe keeping the 'deals' running for so long is and indication that not quite as many have flocked to CC as they imagined. But regardless of that, I don't wanna rent my software, who's to tell when once they have you hooked, they start raising the prices? Also, what's to keep the fire lit under them to innovate once everyone is paying monthly and there is no stand alone option any more?

Hard to say. Adobe's SEC filings look pretty good. Other companies are jumping on the subscription band wagon which suggests that either it works or they're desperate. I suspect it's a little of both. It costs very little to add a customer (it's not like Adobe spends any money on customer support....). If they can get some rate of conversion to Endless Subscription, they've made some good money. If the user drops out after a while, well, they've made some money.

Remember, CS is professional software. They don't make much off us one of hobbyist / low grade professional shops. They make money on the big guys. And subscriptions make accountants happy for some weird reason. Further, Adobe, bless it's pointed little metallic head, really has made inroads into listening to professionals. You don't have to upgrade a version. Downgrading is easy. Running every version ever made (after 6) is easy.

Customer support still sucks, but it is Adobe.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

GIMP simply doesn't come close to Photoshop for professional photographic work

Care to run off a list of ways that "GIMP doesn't come close"? If it's really so bad, it shouldn't be that difficult to name at least a dozen or so...

I won't refute that GIMP still needs some work, both in terms of overall usability, and to be at least on feature-parity with commercial grade software like photoshop, but I expect when actually you try and explicitly list the alleged many shortcomings of GIMP, you might find that it's a lot closer to being fairly comparable to Photoshop than you first thought.

In actuality, I expect that enumerating the shortcomings of GIMP will not be in quantity, but in terms of a relatively small number of particularly desirable features that many may perceive as critically important in such software. And I'd be willing to bet that of these features, many may already be in the pipe, and slated for GIMP 3.0 (although there is no ETA on that... and it might still be a while yet)

Re:How important is that at this point?

[NanoGator]

Care to run off a list of ways that "GIMP doesn't come close"? If it's really so bad, it shouldn't be that difficult to name at least a dozen or so... In actuality, I expect that enumerating the shortcomings of GIMP will not be in quantity, but in terms of a relatively small number of particularly desirable features that many may perceive as critically important in such software.

Hi, professional artist here. Your latter point, at least from my perspective, is correct. I know Photoshop really well, but since I make my living doing this work I am not biased in a way that'd prevent me from using a free tool. Let me be extra clear: It would hurt me to be fanboyishly loyal to be any particular app. I do pick up and mess with GIMP from time to time, but it has two critical omissions from Photoshop that make it unusable in my field. First, it lacks adjustment layers. Second, it lacks Smart Objects.

These are both features intended to do non-destructive editing of imagery. Let's say you have a tree with green leaves. You can create a Hue/Saturation 'adjustment layer' that will turn all the green pixels beneath it blue. If you put a picture of a different tree below that layer, its leaves would turn blue, too. If you took that tree and made it a 'smart object', you'd effectively be snapshotting that image and every operation you do causes it to regenerate itself. In other words, if you shrank a Smart Object down, then scaled it back up again, you'd get all its original detail back.

If you're creating imagery it doesn't take long for these two features to change your workflow in such a way that you gain a HUGE time savings. In fact I have created several templates to speed up the generation of images I do that I just plain cannot do in GIMP. Realistically speaking that is enough man-hours lost that I'd actually make a greater profit paying for Photoshop than I would saving the cost of the license in favor of GIMP.

With that said, I'd be *very* happy if you told me that version 3 would add these features. I'd also be very happy if somebody could tell me what GIMP does that Photoshop doesn't. It's free. if it shaves man-hours off my work, then load me up with the tips. I ain't gonna switch, but I ain't above using both.