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

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

The year of linux on the Chromebox is at hand!

Re:Finally

[NotDrWho]

All you anti-corporate, pro-open-source Linux users can rejoice! Google has finally brought you the corporate-owned, closed-source Linux desktop of your dreams!

Re:Finally

[cayenne8]

I"d jump for joy at this...except I still refuse to RENT my software.

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.

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'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?

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

CS6 is the last version I'll be using. I'm going to move to Corel Photo Paint and CorelDraw.

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:Finally

[jd659]

In my last several engagements, I purchased (on behalf of the clients) version of standalone Photoshop and CS specifically not to be tied to the CC model. Sure, the CC can tout constant updates, but what if I don’t need the updates? Who said that in 10 years the documents I create now can be opened with whatever CC updates get accumulated over the years? Those advocating newer is better, consider your Win7 machine gets automatically updated to Win8 when the company ships it and you’re in the middle of the project and a few things stop working. For critical tasks I want to preserve files, programs, not to be tied to some third party to hand me the critical tools.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

subscriptions make accountants happy for some weird reason

Tell me about it. Our company's purchasing department requires that we purchase service contracts with all printers even though I showed them an accounting of every repair every printer ever needed over the last ten years and it didn't even come close to costing as much as the contract, AND service was better when paying a fee for service. The contractor always tries to get out of providing contract service. To the point that one time they emailed us some PCBs and told us we had to take apart the printer and replace the boards because they were "user serviceable parts." Do I need to tell you how it went when the secretary tried to change the boards?

Re:Finally

[cayenne8]

Remember, CS is professional software. They don't make much off us one of hobbyist / low grade professional shops.

It seems they could offer both standalone along with subscription based and catch more of the crowd...

I mean for now, they still offer Lightroom as standalone or part of CC, why not PS, Premier, AI, etc?

Re:Finally

[chaosdivine69]

I had mod points but I had already commented on this article so I couldn't mod you up but this is gospel. Halle-fuckin-lujah brotha!

Re:Finally

[chaosdivine69]

Just so you know, Corel's doing this sneaky renting bullshit too but they're just doing in peace meal with individual features. Coreldraw X6 was the QR code generator. X7 introduced a Hide Object feature. Both are "greyed out" unless you're a standard or premium member. Standard members don't pay but preemies do - aka, RENT. They'll continue to tie in more features this way also over time. Corel's not getting off easy on this one by any stretch.

How important is that at this point?

[damn_registrars]

I know that Photoshop is still the gold standard, but I'm not sure how many Linux users are concerned about it. I use GIMP for all my photo work in Linux and it meets all my needs. It seems that the overlap between people who need Photoshop (and are wiling to pay for it) and the people who are using Linux would be pretty small.

I know that Photoshop gets a lot of attention from the WINE community but that doesn't necessarily translate to people who want to buy licenses for running it in Linux.

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:How important is that at this point?

[binarylarry]

The issue is that people learn Photoshop, they don't learn the fundamentals for the tool.

So they switch to GIMP and then find it's horrible because their skills don't transfer and they cry on the internet that "GIMP SUX" because they don't want to relearn anything. This is even worse in a business situation because relearning things pushes back deadlines and impacts quality.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Richard_at_work]

You ignore the fact that there have been many many in-depth criticisms of GIMP over the years, from people who have taken the time to ensure they understand that its the tool that is lacking rather than their understanding.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Penguinisto]

This, right here... and it ain't just Photoshop, either.

In the CG realm, you have people who learned "3DS Max", or "Poser", or "Modo", but few of them could tell you what a vertex really is, let alone half-edges, collision-detection, subdivision, and etc. A few folks do go out of their way to learn the fundamentals (which makes switching between tools less painful), but they're a distinct minority.

Part of the reason why you see so much of this is because every software house has their own oddball idea of what a user interface should do, and even how to approach a given task (NURBS modeling versus mesh extrusion for instance). It would positively scare you to learn one suite (say, 3DS Max) then get sat in front of another (e.g. Modo). The learning curve on each of them is astoundingly steep... Poser's ancient Kai Krause inspired interface, Blender's 48-mouse-button-inspired UI, Wings' (probably) EMACS-inspired sparse-as-hell interface... DAZ Studio's Qt-anchored one... they all approach most of the same things rather differently. It takes a lot of time to get comfortable with a given user interface, before you even take into consideration the behaviors and quirks.

Photoshop is no different in this regard, and that's why most folks who use it know Photoshop, but few of those users know the principles and concepts behind it.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mwvdlee]

Same would be true for any other application, including GIMP.

FWIW, I prefer Photoshop. I can just about manage to get things done in GIMP, but it's not a pleasure; the UI is an utter mess. Not talking about it being different from PS, but about it being an utter mess all on it's own merits.

And I would love for old Paint Shop Pro to return instead of the crappy instagram-like PSP it's degraded into.
Seriously; why did they Corel mangle PSP so badly?
Old PSP was truely "Cheap Photoshop without the color management stuff few people need and even less people know how to use".

Re:How important is that at this point?

[jedidiah]

No. He just doesn't take Lemming trolls at face value.

Most people whining about GIMP and putting Photoshop on a pedestal are amateurs and consumers that would never actually pay for a copy of Photoshop ever.

Photoshop is a lot of cost for questionable marginal benefit.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[swillden]

I can just about manage to get things done in GIMP, but it's not a pleasure; the UI is an utter mess.

On what platform?

I find that GIMP's UI is just fine with a proper window manager. On OS X it's very painful, though, and I would expect the same on Windows (dunno, I haven't used Windows in about 15 years).

Re:How important is that at this point?

[damn_registrars]

The issue is that people learn Photoshop, they don't learn the fundamentals for the tool.

I'm not sure how that would effect sales. Are people who learned Photoshop without understanding how it works really be likely Linux users? I think the overlap on those sets is vanishingly small.

So they switch to GIMP and then find it's horrible because their skills don't transfer and they cry on the internet that "GIMP SUX" because they don't want to relearn anything.

First of all, I can tell you that I have used a significant number of Photoshop tutorials in GIMP to do various functions and found that they work just fine.

Second, the most critical (by frequency of use) tools in Photoshop are the technical adjustments - color, levels, curves, etc. They work the same in GIMP and are even in the same menus. There is no significant relearning to do. My wife uses Photoshop and Illustrator (as well as InDesign) professionally on a daily basis. A while back we were traveling with only my laptop, which has GIMP and Inkscape but nothing from Adobe. She was able to get by just fine for a quick job while we were out; going well beyond the use level that I get from GIMP even though I use it almost daily.

This is even worse in a business situation because relearning things pushes back deadlines and impacts quality

I'm not sure how this applies. How many businesses are running Linux workstations and need Adobe on them? Again this seems to me like a likely very small set. I don't see the absence of Adobe software in Linux as being a critical impediment to Linux migration for businesses who want to do that, either.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Jethro]

I used GIMP for many years. Since it came out, pretty much - I remember using version 0.54 in the '90s. When I started getting more into photography I used Gimp with the UFRaw plugin. Again, I was using the thing for well over a decade at this point.

Then I had a fairly big photography project and tried a trial version of Photoshop+Bridge+Adobe Camera Raw. It was /instantly/ easier to use AND more powerful than GIMP and any raw processor on Linux. My workflow with it is incredibly smoother and faster.

Nowadays I do occasionally have to use GIMP and let me tell you, it is PAINFUL.

So yeah, now that I can get a legal copy of Photoshop for $10 a month, why on Earth wouldn't I?

Re:How important is that at this point?

[jd2112]

You ignore the fact that there have been many many in-depth criticisms of GIMP over the years, from people who have taken the time to ensure they understand that its the tool that is lacking rather than their understanding.

Photoshop, although not as bad as GIMP, isn't exactly a pinnacle of user friendliness either.

Re: How important is that at this point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your anti GIMP sentiment has been noted and you have now officially been flagged as an Adobe shill.

Thank you for your participation.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Salgat]

This mode makes a huge difference for how easy it is to use GIMP. I have a theory that a lot of criticism stems from not knowing about this mode.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Noah Haders]

oddly enough MS really upped there game with the Paint program in Win 7. next thing you know they'll revitalize minesweeper!

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Noah Haders]

you should try pixelmator.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[i kan reed]

Really, you think professional 3d modelers don't know what a vertex is? Really?

I mean, I can get that they might not understand how vertices are processed by a rasterizer, but that's not what they are.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Molt]

Hmm.. Minesweeper meets Minecraft. It suddenly all makes sense.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[nine-times]

While I agree that it's not fair to say "GIMP SUX" because it's a great program, I also don't feel that it's fair to say, "the only reason professional graphic designers aren't using it is because they don't learn the fundamentals of design and don't want to relearn."

I'm not sure what the current state of the GIMP is, but for a long time, it didn't even have proper CMYK support, which is tremendously important for doing professional print media. Also, I can tell you from a lot of testing a few years ago, Adobe's algorithms for optimizing graphics are (or at least were at the time) unmatched by any open source tools. For example, if you wanted to have a relatively large JPEG with a hard file-size restriction, Photoshop did a better job of compressing the image so that the JPEG compression looked ok. Or in the case of GIFs, it would do a better job of making the image look good with a limited number of colors. I've also seen some issues (admittedly a couple of years ago) where Photoshop provided better text rendering, specifically with regards to kerning.

And you can say that those are fringe cases that don't matter for most people most of the time, and those people can use GIMP. Fair enough. But those are just two examples where Photoshop actually might perform better in cases where professionals need that performance.

The UI is also pretty well designed, and the UI is an important aspect that shouldn't be dismissed. People who prefer a good UI aren't necessarily just failing to "learn the fundamentals" and are unwilling to learn. A better UI might enable you to work faster, with less frustration and confusion.

Now I really want to get into the middle of this argument, and I think we should just drop the whole thing. But if you're angry that people aren't using the GIMP, it may be better to ask why they aren't using it, rather than just assuming that they're stupid and lazy.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a graphics editing pro, and I can assure you that there is no comparison. I've used GIMP in the past for free classes I've taught for beginners (mostly just because it was free). But I stopped after I started getting complaints from users about the name (VERY unprofessional and immature, BTW) and about the shitty interface (and it is *epically* shitty, make no mistake about it) and the buggy implementation.

So GIMP is a joke for pros (don't even make me laugh by even beginning to compare it to Photoshop for professional use). And it's a joke for beginners (shameful name, shit UI, and buggy).

Just go Adobe. Don't let your political/social ideology, cheapness, and pride get in the way of your goddamn common sense.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Lumpy]

none really. The only photoshop holdouts need CMYK or are unable to learn a new interface.

I only use photoshop because of all the free plugins that do what I want without having any skill at all. Butt hen I also think that my horribly out of date CS3 is just fine.

IF there were a lot more free plugins for GIMP that made it easier for us poseurs without any skill look good, it would surpass photoshop quickly.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Noah Haders]

On a related note, they just released minecraft for ps4. Should I get it?

Re:How important is that at this point?

[binarylarry]

See you've just proved me correct.

  complaints from users about the name (VERY unprofessional and immature, BTW)
the shitty interface (and it is *epically* shitty, make no mistake about it)
  the buggy implementation.

These all scream "ME DONT WANT TO RELEARN ANYTHING"

Which is okay but it's not GIMP's fault that it isn't a Photoshop clone.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[LWATCDR]

Sorry but no you are wrong.
My wife has spent a lot of time learning GIMP, Photoshop, and Photoshop elements.
GIMP is much better than elements but is not as good as Photoshop.
She still uses GIMP for some projects and recommends it to people that are just starting out or do not have the money to spend on Photoshop but GIMP is not a good replacement for photoshop.
GIMP is actually a good tool and a great value for the price but it is not a replacement for photoshop. Your comments about lemmings is a good example of what is wrong with the FOSS community.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh..so why not just use Paint Shop pro (the old version) and be done with it? I have a graphic artist customer that swears by the old Macromedia XRes so ya know what? HE USES XRES, I know, actually using what you like! Crazy huh?

But ya see that is why its so awesome today, because thanks to the truly insane amount of CPU power we can get VERY cheaply its trivial to just run a VM and stick with what you like! Hell don't want to bother with a VM you can pick up a C2D box (or if you want something small the new AM1 quads) for a little of nothing, slap it on a KVM switch and put it on a VLAN...tada! Now you can run Win2K or whatever OS floats your boat that your old version requires and still use a modern OS with just a push of a button, easy peasy!

So there really is no point using software you hate anymore, not with all the cheap computing power we have at our fingertips. Oh as for the XRes customer he is using an old Athlon X64 system I got a hold of and paired with Win2K and 2GB of RAM this makes a perfect platform for the circa 1998 XRes. With a $10 2 port KVM and a VLAN set up for the old 2K box on the router he already had this is a really dirt cheap way of keeping your favorite old software while being able to switch instantly between old and new.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[iluvcapra]

3D modelers know what a vertex is, what I think he means is that, in some cases, perhaps they don't completely understand the mathematical formalism of the thing, and just have an intuitive feeling for what it is -- "the thing that's the corner of my thing."

Of course, there is the perspective that you shouldn't need to understand the "fundamentals" or nuts and bolts reifications of things, because that's what the software's for, to take all of these mathematical games and put them in a box, out of the way in a separated concern, so I can get the job done in whatever way I want. What's the point of having software if it doesn't enable people, even mathematically disinclined people, to create?

A sculptor has as much to say about 3D modeling as some voxel-counting dork from NVidia's demo team, more even, really. Saying that "vertices" or "bezier paths" form some sort of "fundamental" base for all visual art is constructivist, scientistic and naive.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Kjella]

I'm not sure how this applies. How many businesses are running Linux workstations and need Adobe on them? Again this seems to me like a likely very small set. I don't see the absence of Adobe software in Linux as being a critical impediment to Linux migration for businesses who want to do that, either.

<consultant mode>
Well, I'd put it in a 2x2 matrix with low/high impact, low/high corporate usage. High/highs is stuff like your office suite, a lot of people use it and quite a lot. Low/high are things like time sheet recording, people need to do it but it's a very minor part of their work day. Both of these you generally need to have good solutions for since you'd be wasting so many people's time otherwise, the heavily used of course more so. Low/lows you don't really need to care much about, unless they add up to some extraordinary amounts. The killer is often the high/lows, basically the specialized tools a few in your organization use.

The (strike:problem) challenge is that these tools are different. For example, your graphics department might rely heavily on Photoshop. Nobody else in the business might care about that, but they again have their own tools they care about. Retraining, lost productivity and lower output quality can be significant costs. Existing workflows and procedures must be migrated. Forced migration may lead to employee dissatisfaction and higher turnover as they want to continue their career towards becoming a Photoshop expert. Those costs have to be considered relative to the gains of making a migration. I can do an in-depth study, if you got funding...
</consultant mode>

Seriously though, I think more plans about migrating to Linux dies from a thousand cuts rather than one fatal blow. I haven't done an OS migration but I've seen some others, the major issues are under control. It's all those minor "uh oh, we didn't think of that" issues with emergency band-aids and workarounds that tends to turn it into a fire fighting exercise.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Hamsterdan]

Not only that, but those people don't even know Photography basics. (I know a couple)

Re:How important is that at this point?

[ColdWetDog]

....

Photoshop, although not as bad as GIMP, isn't exactly a pinnacle of user friendliness either.

Photoshop's UI is abysmal. It is, however, consistent. A PS user from 1990 can pick up CS 2014 and get around pretty easily. It's also an efficient work flow. Especially if you like keyboards.

But easy it is not.

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?

[mark-t]

Damnit... hit submit instead of preview. The next major release of GIMP is version 2.10, not 3.0. My bad.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[cayenne8]

With the Adobe move to CC, I was really hoping someone out there with funds would take this opportunity to take GIMP, and either work with the current team or fork it, and really turn it into a full blown PS competitor.

A very solid product would see a huge uptake. If they could get the keyboard shortcuts pretty close to 1:1 with PS, that alone would have a lot of pros looking seriously at GIMP, since that is a huge part of the workflow if you're trying to move fast.

So many keyboard shortcuts are memorized and moved into muscle memory with heavy users of PS, that that aspect alone would be a major boon to GIMP adoption by those that are not that happy with the CC *rental* model.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[cayenne8]

you should try pixelmator.

I just found Pixelmator, looks interesting. Know any good sites with comparisons between PS and PM? I might do the trial and see how it works...the thing that made me a bit apprehensive, is that on the PM site, they are showing off in tutorials all the "click and it is done for you" stuff predominately.

I had to actually DIG through the site to find out about curves, and layer masks, often the meat of a serious workflow...not one touch instagram filters.

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.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[TheNastyInThePasty]

Allow me to add one gripe. Creating an outline for text in GIMP requires creating a selection from the text, creating a new layer, growing the selection to the outline size, and filling the selection with the new color. WTF? What if I want to change the text now? I have to redo those steps all over again because the outline is in no way associated with the text. It's just a separate object. That's absurd.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

If you are genuinely interested knowing what is in the pipe for the future of GIMP, you may be interested in taking a look at this for a summary of features that are slated for the next or upcoming versions of GIMP. You may notice that many tasks are dependant on completion of GEGL implementation (something that is definitely slated for being in the next release). Once GEGL support is fully in, significant features such as user-defined color spaces, non-destructive editing, and smart objects will become feasible, and are already planned for a future version of GIMP

As for things that GIMP will do which Photoshop doesn't, I can refer you to obvious fanboyish pages such as 10 reasons that GIMP is better than photoshop, but of course, if GIMP doesn't do what you actually need, then I can appreciate how any or even all of those points can be far from convincing. Ultimately, the only reason to use GIMP over Photoshop depends entirely on whether GIMP can do what you actually need. If it can, then the difference in price alone can easily be a determining factor. If it can't, well... then it can't. But that doesn't mean it never will. And you should use what you need, for now. I'd encourage anyone to keep an open mind for the future, however.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[BronsCon]

Most people whining about GIMP and putting Photoshop on a pedestal are amateurs and consumer

Methinks the text you quoted was meant in the context of the text I quoted. So, you pretty much just made the point jedidiah was trying to make. Derp.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mwvdlee]

Both Windows (7) and Linux (Ubuntu 14 and Crunchbang).
The problem with the UI isn't with window managers or other technical parts; it's the design of the UI.
The way an excessive amount of buttons are seemingly randomly slapped together in a toolbar.
The way dialogs and popups don't follow platform styling.
The way it defaults to a multi-window environment.
I prefer to use an open source alternatives (like Audacity and Inkscape) whenever I can and most are easy enough to use.
GIMP is so close yet so far away, all because of a very bad UI.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[LWATCDR]

I think you are going too far the other way. GIMP on windows and Linux are not bad at all. GIMP on OS/X is really hard to use probably because GTK for OSX really lags GTK for windows.

GIMP is good enough for a lot of people and it is much more powerful than photoshop elements.
If you need Photoshop then you need Photoshop. Gimp is a really powerful program and not terrible to use but it is not Photoshop.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[swillden]

Both Windows (7) and Linux (Ubuntu 14 and Crunchbang). The problem with the UI isn't with window managers or other technical parts; it's the design of the UI. The way an excessive amount of buttons are seemingly randomly slapped together in a toolbar.

Meh. I don't think it's that random and in any case I have no trouble whatsoever with finding the buttons I need on any platform.

The way dialogs and popups don't follow platform styling.

Who cares? Okay, so it's prettier if it follows the platform styling, but the style has no impact on usability.

The way it defaults to a multi-window environment.

This is only a problem if you lack a good window manager with proper focus-follows-mouse behavior. On Linux, I prefer the multi-window environment. It's much more flexible, especially if your workflow includes needing to interact frequently with other apps.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

You, and others who have responded, have illustrated my point... nobody's named more than two features that Photoshop has which GIMP does not currently, and nearly all of the desired features could be summarized simply as wanting non-destructive editing capabilities, which is something that is already on GIMP's development roadmap, primarily waiting on what amounts to a major feature/design change that will definitely be fully implemented in the next major release of GIMP (actually significant progress was made in this area even before 2.8 came out, but because of the extensiveness of the necessary changes to fully implement it properly, and ensuring that the software was not made unstable by such changes, it was postponed for the next version). Once those changes are finally all in place, expect some truly wondrous and amazing things to happen for GIMP.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

I'd argue that this one (from your link) is patently wrong:

"6. Batch processing through automated actions is far superior in GIMP. Because photographers often need to do repeatable actions to large groups of images, this feature alone is worth its weight in gold."

I am a photographer and although I use LightRoom heavily, I use the batch rules in PS for my concert work, I can get very detailed with little trouble in PS. I did try to switch to gimp (or more accurately, tried it out) and found this to be sorely lacking. Not to mention the batch actions in PS merge/link nicely with the plug-ins (specifically the Nik software for B/W work) so if I wanted to, and on occasion I have, I can do some *serious* transformations on a shot in PS with one click of a button.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Culture20]

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.

Programmatically accessible from command line scripts (if you're not hep to the ImageMagick fu):
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/...
and other languages
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/...

Re:How important is that at this point?

[NanoGator]

Thank you! You've given me reason to sit up and pay attention when 3 rolls around, I appreciate that.

I would recommend against showing the more diehard Photoshop fans that link, though. It won't get you anywhere because what it really needs to be is a list like this:

- GIMP has a plugin/feature for automatically generating normal maps from elevation data.

- GIMP has a perspective correction feature that is superior to Photoshops in that it...

- GIMP's 'save all layers' button saves all of the layers in your file into seperate files.

.. or something like that. In the list you gave me, points 1 through 4, and 7, are irrelevant if somebody already has Photoshop. Given its de-facto marketshare, that is likely.

5 is horribly overrated. Lots of artists can script, but few (if any) can make actual plugins or modify the source code. (Even if they do dig in to the code how do they maintain those features when a new version of GIMP comes along?) I do want to mention, though, that there's another reply to my original post that seems to have covered the scripting point. I haven't checked it out yet but given that scripting is something I do, I'm certainly interested in trying that out.

6 needs an extra line, something like: "its better than Photoshop's Batch feature because...."

10... actually this is a really good one. In fact, just before this thread started, I went and found the portable version and downloaded in. Why? Welp, if the scripting that Culture20 posted a link to turns out to be worthwhile for me, coupling that with a portable version of GIMP is *awesome*. What that means is I will be able to automate certain tasks AND keep a fresh install on my DropBox account so I can even use it off-site. This is 1 out of 9.5 (I gave partial credit to the source-code bit) and, as you can already see from other replies you've gotten, most are refutable.

I'm a little worried you might read my post and think that I'm trying to perpetuate the GIMP vs. Photoshop debate. I'm not, instead I'm trying to explain what needs to happen explanation-wise to get more Photoshop people to try GIMP out. I think there's this mentality that people should switch to GIMP and that's simply not true. If you got the professional Photoshop users to start using GIMP for certain tasks, you may find that some studios may find it worth their time to invest some development time into improving it. Given how Adobe has been dicking around with the licensing, this would be a good time to get that ball rolling. Start touting the unique features it has that shave man-hours off a project. If those features don't exist, then the team needs to start talking to people like me and finding out what else they need.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[SpankiMonki]

...nobody's named more than two features that Photoshop has which GIMP does not currently...

Dude, you've named more than two features yourself. Jesus.

Nobody's saying that GIMP isn't a capable program, but for certain things that are quite common & useful for pros (like adjustment layers) the GIMP ain't there yet. The lack of adjustment layer functionality BY ITSELF pretty much excludes GIMP from being used in pro workflows. And as you yourself point out, GIMP will not be able to implement many features until fully ported to GEGL - which is not a small task.

Further, features such as Filter layers, Layer effects, Non-destructive editing, and "Smart objects" aren't slated until after version 3.0 - IOW, not for years. Photoshop has those things NOW.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

Layer effects is actually a specific category of non-destructive editing.

And I'm not saying that everyone should use GIMP now if it doesn't meet your needs... I'm only saying that people who've been suggesting that GIMP is, in terms of the actual number of features, sorely lacking compared to photoshop are mistaken. The problem is not quantity, it is that the few features which *ARE* missing are critical to some people,

And that's okay.... I'm just pointing out that GIMP is getting there.

But hey.... if you want to continue to shell out hundreds of dollars every few years for an upgraded version of photoshop indefinitly, who am I to argue that you should keep your money?

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

I named three.. And I readily admit GIMP is not perfect, nor comparable to certain other image editing software where you really might need such features that it offers. l My point, however, is that GIMP is lacking in this manner not so much in terms of the number of features, but in the overall critical importance of the relatively few features that it admittedly *IS* still lacking... and it's worth noting that there is really only one major thing that is holding almost all of them back, and that particular feature will definitely be fully integrated into the next major release of GIMP (significant work on it was being done even before the current 2.8 release, but owing to the extensiveness of the changes involved, they were postponed for the upcoming release).

Re:How important is that at this point?

[NanoGator]

Just wanted to thank you for the links. I was especially pleased to find that Python is supported!

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

90% of all of that yellow and red is singularly dependant on GEGL... and GEGL support will be fully implemented in the next release.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[chmod a x mojo]

I've had this discussion on slashdot before, mostly the one thing that keeps me from GIMP as a semi-pro photographer is the UI. I've used PhotoShop since the 7.0 debut up to CS3 and a brief poke at PS-CC, so I know the UI and where I expect to find stuff for my workflow... hell I could do the tasks I need to while asleep by now. GIMP on the other hand - and if you will excuse the graphic ( pun fully intended ) description - looks like the UI designers chowed down on all the UI elements and threw up on the screen. I've also used Linux, and GIMP, for many a year now and remember how much the GIMP devs hate listening to the users... we asked for how many years before they finally implemented single window mode?

SO the main problem isn't that GIMP is lacking features, it's that the UI is horrid to long time users of PS, leading to the "experts" not using it and thus leading to no one teaching the newbies to learn the program / UI. That's the main reason PS is taught in schools, it's what is known and used by the "experts".
For the inevitable slashdot car analogy: you can have two cars that can get from point A to point B along the same route in relatively the same timeframe, one that costs a fair bit to use but is an industry standard car like all others on the road ( PS ), or a free one that does nearly the same as the paid car but has bicycle handle bars for a steering wheel, a manual transmission with a reversed standard H shift pattern, the fuel pedal is on the handle bars and the brake is where the gas pedal usually is on normal cars, and you have to enter and exit through the trunk.... You can guess what vehicle 99% of people who have ever driven a normal vehicle will take.

Other than that, there is the non destructive editing and smart objects mentioned. I personally think the workflow for working with layers, clipping masks, and paths in PS is easier and more streamlined as well, but that is a personal opinion due to my workflow.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[SpankiMonki]

Layer effects is actually a specific category of non-destructive editing.

So what? They are features that are listed separately on the GIMP road map, which I cut/pasted into my post.

But hey.... if you want to continue to shell out hundreds of dollars every few years for an upgraded version of photoshop indefinitly, who am I to argue that you should keep your money?

I am more than happy to shell out hundreds of dollars every couple of years for a product that saves me scores of hours of work compared to a free alternative, and I'm just a hobbyist. If you're a pro, it's really a no-brainer.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

I haven't been saying that you should be using GIMP today if it doesn't meet your needs. I've only been suggesting that it's not nearly as "nowhere close to photoshop" as some would think.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

As I said... most people will probably be able to easily come up with a small number of critical points that are major shortcomings of GIMP, and the perception that GIMP is "nowhere near photoshop" may be heightened by the invaluableness of those features, not by their actual number. But considering that virtually all of those needed features are waiting on but an important rewrite which is largely complete, and will definitely be part of the next version of GIMP, I'd suggest that GIMP being comparable is not as far off as some would say.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Penguinisto]

Really, you think professional 3d modelers don't know what a vertex is? Really?

They have an idea as to what it might be ('a mathematical point in cartesian space' would be the description given if you're lucky), but, say, how it behaves under subdivision and which SubD algorithm produces the best results for a given use case is another story entirely. That's why I put the word "really" in the sentence you took your question off of.

Let me give a more concrete example: Raytracing. Sure, they'll know how it would (mostly) behave in their given suite (depending on which render engine(s) they send it to regularly), but knowing how light (and more importantly, shadows and occlusions thereof) behaves, so as to produce a better result, especially when shooting for realism? A pro photographer likely has a better idea of how light works than most of the schlubs who push mesh around. ;) Put it this way - I can count a very small percentage of folks who have done a good enough job of it to fool all but the most experienced eye.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

I guess you haven't heard my point, which is that how GIMP is "far from being comparable" is more of an issue of the critical importance of missing features more than sheer number, because many of the missing features can be categorized under a single much broader heading such as "non-destructive editing, and the relatively few distinct ones which remain will get done soon. If you happen to believe that they are not going to get done anytime soon (which is the only reason I can think of to suggest why you would disagree with what I've been saying), please consider how, exactly, it is that you think that you know that, and then reconsider what I've been saying. I suggest that all you'll be able to do at that point is fall back to saying that GIMP isn't necessarily comparable to Photoshop featurewise right now, because it doesn't do a relatively small number of things which are highly important to you, and which is not something I've ever disputed

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

First of all, GEGL will definitely be in the next version of GIMP... second of all, once GEGL is complete (which is again slated for the next version of GIMP), virtually all of those additional features will suddenly become feasible to implement where the previous architecture of GIMP made them untenable (and why no progress has been made so far, or often very little), and they will probably come into play quite quickly afterwards, You may be right that not very many may get in for the next version, but because of what GEGL opens up the possibility to do within GIMP, the release cycle between 2,10 and future stable versions that implement such functionality will be much lower than the time frame between 2.8 and 2.10.

In other words, not very far at all.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Blaskowicz]

Focus follows mouse is very rare, I'd say 1% of linux desktop users which themselves are 1% of desktop users. For the last 10 to 15 years focus-on-click has been the norm or at least the default (it even was on Motif Window Manager, which works like Windows 3.1 but with xterms in place of the Program Manager)

That said, on linux environments you have "focus of the scrollwheel follows mouse" and that's very handy, not only to scroll windows or tabs but to change global sound volume without clicking too. So for us stupid ignorant users we have a form of "improper" focus-follows-mouse.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Blaskowicz]

How is a VLAN "cheap"?, I guess you could do that because by chance he had the right specific model router and used the switch integrated to it. Also to me it's not clear. A Windows 2K box shouldn't have access to the internet (maybe that's what you done, I hope)

Re:How important is that at this point?

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...nearly every router out there will let you set rules and set up devices which are not allowed to reach the outside, all you have to do is use 'em. For the record it was a $30 Trendnet so if I could set one up using that no name POS surely you can do so too?

And sorry if I didn't make it clear but that is the point of the VLAN, the 2K box can talk to the Win 7 box but CAN NOT reach the WWW, whereas the Win 7 box not only can reach the 2K but also the net.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[Blaskowicz]

Thanks.
My solution would be to add a 2nd network card on the Win 7 or linux box.
In my country, seems to me that 99% people (well, those with wired broadband at home) use a router that is provided by the ISP. You always have stuff like DHCP ranges and port forwarding (to enable MORE connectivity not less) ; probably other consumer/"multimedia" oriented stuff like NAS function, print server, DLNA etc.

For additional networking options, yes the crappy consumer networking gear probably has more features.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[mark-t]

The GEGL core update by itself brings no new features (user functionality).

I don't dispute that point, but I do not think you realize just how much GEGL support being in will enormously accelerate the features that are currently on hold and waiting on it.

The reason things haven't really progressed very far, if at all, on many of the features that are waiting on the GEGL port to be finished is not because they are taking their time with them, it is because any work that might be started before the GEGL port was complete would likely to be entirely a waste of time, and because trying to implement it without GEGL being in would take a lot longer anyways, GEGL support would probably be in before it was complete, so there's no point starting on something that would have to be entirely thrown away before it's done, and can be relatively easily done once the underlying architcture has been modified to be amenable to it.

Consider when building a home, the most amount of time is spent making sure the foundation is properly in place. Once it is, a house can be built on a good foundation comparatively very quickly. Likewise, once the GEGL port is finally in and 2.;10 is out, you will doubtless be witness to vastly accelerated GIMP development of some of the most urgently desired features. Internally, for all intents and purposes, 2.10 will be almost an entirely new program.

Re:How important is that at this point?

[hairyfeet]

That is why it is always better to use your own gear and while i don't know where you're at here you can get a wireless router for like $20, a wired only for around $10 so its not like its any great expense to do.

The nice thing about doing it through the router is you have better fine grained control, for example on his setup he can transfer pictures to the Win2K box for working on from any laptop or phone with WiFi but the access is strictly local, the Win2K unit has zero access to outside the LAN. You can also set it up so that ONLY a single port is allowed, or only traffic going a single direction, so if it were required he could set up a remote link to the Win2K box using a VPN and access it from the field without opening it up to the WWW.

Nice, but...

[Penguinisto]

...I went with GIMP years ago. I was able to use many of P-Shop's brushes and actions as-is, and I learned GIMP's actions and interface.

Mind you, I'm not a graphics pro by any means (though I am a heavy hobbyist in CG graphics, and GIMP is invaluable to me for postwork and touch-ups.) Even when I moved to using a Mac for most of my farting-around, the first thing I went for was GIMP for OSX. Just as most actual professionals stick with Photoshop (in spite of the brain-dead subscription model they have these days) because they learned on it, I do the same thing with GIMP... and it works just fine for me.

Now in the professional realm, PShop makes sense to have a Linux port. Strange thing though - a huge percentage of professional CG work is done in Linux nowadays, and has been for awhile, so I'm surprised that it's taken them this long to get around to it.

(now if only the hobbyist CG software shops (I'm looking at *you* Poser and DAZ|Studio!) would get off their asses and make a Linux port...

Re:Nice, but...

[UnknownSoldier]

> open source is use to copying the work of other people then trying to claim it as their own.

Troll much?

Re-implementing an idea so it is free for everyone is far cry of trying to "claim it as their own."

Open Source has it problems -- hijacking software is not of them.

Re:Nice, but...

[jedidiah]

A lot of work is so old by now that it should be in the public domain. Copyright was never meant to be a new form of property or a means to extract tolls from end users until the end of time.

The point of both copyright and patents is to encourage the creation of ideas/inventions that EVERYONE can use.

"copying the work" is the intended ultimate result.

Re:Nice, but...

[MightyYar]

Actually, the point of copyright and patents are to offer a limited monopoly on an innovation so artists and inventors can make a buck off their work.

No, that is the mechanism. The goal (point) is to have people making stuff. There are lots of ways to do it, but the Founding Fathers felt that IP was the way to go.

Re:Nice, but...

[Kjella]

Now in the professional realm, PShop makes sense to have a Linux port. Strange thing though - a huge percentage of professional CG work is done in Linux nowadays, and has been for awhile, so I'm surprised that it's taken them this long to get around to it.

For computer generated graphics custom workflows and creating tools to animate things others can't have has been the driving force. There's plenty of complex interactions between models, textures, animations, physics simulations and various like creating a whole army from a few parameterized models and AI. No tool does everything well and often there's some secret sauce you want integrated into the workflow. Photoshop on the other hand mostly seems like a one-stop shop, you hand a skilled person the image and what you want done and he'll produce an end result. Efficiency seems to be the primary driver, not integration or customization.

Re:Nice, but...

[Penguinisto]

Why don't you do it?

Because it would involve asking DAZ or Smith Micro for the respective proprietary source codes first, then getting permission to release the results. Both applications are currently ongoing products (DS is at 4.6 now, and Poser at "Poser Pro 2013" last I checked.)

DAZ Studio is doable - I used to work for them as a dev back when 1.0 was released, and they IIRC still use C++ and Qt. Could likely pull it off the OSX branch with only a little effort.

Poser is not so doable; they use a wide variety of weird crap on top of C, including Adobe AIR and the nightmare libs spawned by Kai Krause if I remember right. Not even sure if Linux would accept half of it without a complete rewrite.

All that said, I don't really need to bother - both run just fine on OSX 10.9. I want to see them on Linux mostly for ideological reasons these days.

Re:Nice, but...

[MightyYar]

Ah, we are talking past one another. I'm on your side. Copyright indeed has been corrupted.

Re:Nice, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the word "asshole" have the same meaning in British and American English?

Isn't this streaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

I only looked at it quickly yesterday, but it seems like they're just streaming it, a bit like how they stream games on platforms that don't support them. Not so hot to work offline, but if its just an added service to existing subscriptions, it can have some use.

Re:Isn't this streaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, that's the catch. It's just a streaming version.

Re:Isn't this streaming?

[OopsClunkThud]

The bigger news is that by streaming photoshop to your desktop (linux or otherwise) you don't have to infect your local machine with adobe upgrade manager or any of the other crap they insist on loading. Or at least I would hope so.

Re:Isn't this streaming?

[dotancohen]

What does it mean to stream an application? Data can be streamed, but an application is interactive.

Re:Isn't this streaming?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like a remote desktop session. You don't need anything more than a data to run it.

Proprietary shit comes to proprietary platform...

[jkrise]

how is this news for nerds?

Chromebooks do not run Linux, they run the Chrome OS, for God's sake!

When Adobe Photoshop truly comes to the plain vanilla distri, then we can start putting up articles on here.

Pulp Non Fiction

[Bob_Who]

Bring Out The Gimp!

Re:Pulp Non Fiction

[Meneth]

I think the Gimp is sleeping...

Re:Proprietary shit comes to proprietary platform.

[Ksevio]

What's really missing is that ChromeOS is made to be a lightweight almost terminal system with nothing but the basics installed.

The article even mentions that it will be "Streaming" Photoshop from the cloud - which makes more sense for a ChromeOS program:

Today, in partnership with Adobe, we’re welcoming Creative Cloud onto Chromebooks, initially with a streaming version of Photoshop. This will be available first to U.S.-based Adobe education customers with a paid Creative Cloud membership—so the Photoshop you know and love is now on Chrome OS. No muss, no fuss.

Even though Chrome OS is linux based, this version of Photoshop looks to be web based so it could run on anything that has a modern web browser.

There is no more Photoshop.

[Kenja]

At least not in the traditional sense of what we all think of when we speak of Photoshop. The new model is a web based subscription app. Which means I will no longer be buying Photoshop.

Re:There is no more Photoshop.

[Jethro]

I've been paying for Photoshop CC since it's been available, because I can finally get a legal copy of Photoshop (and for $10 a month). Yes, it's subscription-based, but it installs the actual software on your computer, so I don't know where you're getting the web-based thing from.

Re:There is no more Photoshop.

[tverbeek]

Half correct. Adobe's Creative Cloud software is subscription software, but it is not web-based. The "cloud" bit in the name is just buzzword bingo; the apps are installed and run locally as Windows/OS X executable binaries, just as they always have, with check-ins to confirm that you've paid your protection money this month.

Of course the subscription aspect is reason enough for many people to walk way from Adobe (as I have). I know many illustrators have turned to the Manga Studio for comics production, or the GIMP if they can accept its limitations (e.g. lacking CMYK support). Some people can likewise get by with Free software such as Inkscape or Scribus to replace Illustrator and InDesign, respectively. Serif (which currently has graphics apps for Windows) is undertaking development of a full-featured commercial Creative Suite replacement for OS X, and their Illustrator-substitute Affinity Designer (first piece of the puzzle) is nearly ready for release.

Re:There is no more Photoshop.

[chris_clay]

When it comes to making money off of its customers, Adobe is very creative (no pun intended). A subscription based model is the most ideal way for them to get regular income every month and I'm sure they are making even more money with this model than ever before because customers can't withhold from upgrading like they used to when they purchased specific versions of the software and had to re-buy upgrades at the time they actually performed the upgrades.

Re:Proprietary shit comes to proprietary platform.

[mwvdlee]

"Plain vanilla distri" for debian or redhat?

Whatever happened to ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... "The first one's free, kid"? Any self-respecting pusher knows that drill; what's with these Adobe cretins?

hold on there neckbeards.

[nimbius]

As a free-as-in-speech dyed in the wool ocarina playing software song singing arduino hacking saint ignucius conjuring acolyte im here to temper your joy with nuggets of duh.

1. Adobe photoshop blobs and binaries are coming to chromium OS, which happens to use the Linux kernel.
2. Adobes longstanding track record of outright contempt for users and their work will be a part of this release.
3. Adobe products will be slow, and limited to what can be accomplished in an architecture of 2 gigabytes of ram, an integrated Intel video card, and 16 gb of storage (most of which will be used by the OS.)
4. your EULA will have been drafted and proofread by former east-bloc Stazi.

Re:Proprietary shit comes to proprietary platform.

[Blaskowicz]

By streamed, does that mean it's a javascript version? (would be much slow, unstable, less feature complete), NaCL? (sort of native code, Google proprietary stuff, I don't know what APIs it uses)

Other? my first understanding was it's some thin client stuff instead!
So it would indeed run on the servers (as regular Photoshop x86-64 version) and you'd better have a fiber optics connection or be on a university LAN. Both for the latency and for the slow uploads and downloads of big image files.

GIMP runs better then ever on Linux

[SpzToid]

Have you seen the new interface since, I dunno, the last few weeks (using Ubuntu 12.04)? It is radically different than before, and much more along the lines of something that a typical Photoshop/Elements user could adapt to as being similar without much hassle. All those past critisizms of GIMP that I've read here on /. no longer seem to apply. Sure, pros will want Photoshop for the hours they spend time with it, but if you've just got a handful of graphics to manage for the website or whatever, GIMP all the way baby. (And Inkscape too!)

No one is buying me a Mac with the Adobe suite, and then upgrading it next year, and then the year after that, and then...

And times change.

Re:GIMP runs better then ever on Linux

[SpzToid]

I'm a website developer. I crop images. Work on logos a bit. Try to improve the colors. I have also sold my work as a graphics professional for many years already; and I have an extensive portfolio. And I take pride in the fact that when I service a contract for a client, there's no need to add the cost of the Adobe CC suite to the budget, although on a short term contract basis this argument has been greatly diminished due to monthly cloud pricing. Mostly I get paid to code.

Glad things are working out for you. Have a nice day. I dunno, enjoy a beer and chill or whatever it is you enjoy. I'd buy one for you, but you know.

Re:GIMP runs better then ever on Linux

[UnknownSoldier]

Mod parent up.

While GIMP is fine for quick edits -- it lacks essentials features that Photoshop has.

Having to use a _plugin_ for Layer Effects is _lame_. It should work out-of-the-box!
http://registry.gimp.org/node/...

Re:GIMP runs better then ever on Linux

[Eravnrekaree]

I think that people who use GIMP SHOULD make a donation to GIMP development. So, I am not advocating people just expect this stuff to happen by itself.

Re:GIMP runs better then ever on Linux

[SpzToid]

Here's a quote from my post you replied to:

Sure, pros will want Photoshop for the hours they spend time with it

Not everyone has requirements like yours while many others are still working professionally with graphics and require good tools. Meanwhile GIMP keeps improving and fixing its faults.

Re:GIMP runs better then ever on Linux

[SpzToid]

And since you AC care to challenge my career in publishing production let me give you some advice, that I realized and adopted for myself years ago.

There's the difference between print publishing and electronic publishing. You know it for what it is, but I'll elaborate, and to make my point, I'd have to say your photoshop work falls into the Print Category (for this example anyway), and there's nothing wrong with that. I've spent my time with the CLUTs and calibrations, before the technology of Lithography matured to what we know today. To clarify the difference between Print and Digital Publishing, (and you can figure out for yourself where you fit in), I'll define Print being dead tree, deadline then go to press stuff, *and* a Typo Stays(!).

Of course everyone did the best they could, including the proofreader, but it is impossible to remove the typo, or whatever error is that hypothetically just slipped past, and the cost of the print run to the client is huge. Jobs could be lost as a result of a typo. But typos can and do happen, every day. Some are just more important than others. The fact remains, typos and any other kind of error cause a lot of stress and risk. And life is short.

Now in Digital Media, we have all kinds of cool technology to solve our evolving problems, such as Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery. We have things like typos too! Except the Digital Publishing business model is so much better, because typos are totally excepted and are in-fact known as 'bugs', and we get paid to come back every day to fix them. And on Fridays everyone goofs off and drinks beer and goes home early.

Get off my lawn.

Photoshop alternative

[ArcadeMan]

If you have a Mac, Pixelmator is a very decent alternative to Photoshop.

Re:Proprietary shit comes to proprietary platform.

[Jethro]

...nerds are required to run Linux now and not care about any other OS or platform?

Look, I run Linux on my desktop, and have since well before distributions or version 1.0 of the kernel came out. I run quite a few servers and all of them are running Linux. My media center PC is running Linux. All my computers except one run Linux.

Does that mean I can't think ChromeOS is a cool idea, or at least interesting? Does that mean I'm not allowed to use Photoshop when I'm indulging some of my other hobbies, because it's the best tool for the job? Am I less of a nerd because I don't /only/ use FOSS?

Re:Proprietary shit comes to proprietary platform.

[armanox]

ChromeOS is Linux. It's just not a GNU based Linux.

Yawn... Not sure why we need it

[chris_clay]

I've abandoned Adobe software years ago except for Reader which I still need once a year to fill out a PDF form. I'll have to check but Evince may do this now. Otherwise, who needs Adobe? Adobe has abandoned GNU/Linux, so in a way it's helped to push me away from its proprietary and bloated products. I use GNU/Linux for my workstations and servers, and all of the software I need is there and works great, and doesn't come with all of the licensing hassle of proprietary software. I can't say how good it is not having to deal with re-buying software whenever I want to upgrade my computer's GNU/Linux OS. I click a button and I get the latest version of GIMP every time, which for me is the Photoshop replacement. PDF tools, video editing tools, you name it, it's there in most mainstream GNU/Linux distributions.

Re:Proprietary shit comes to proprietary platform.

[Jethro]

Fine, lets pretend I wrote F/OSS.

Now get Illy and inDesign and I'll convert

[chaosdivine69]

I'll hop on board the Linux train if Illustrator and inDesign make the switch too. I mean, Microsoft's doing its best to push me away from Windows so ya, if Adobe is going to put their flagship application on Linux, I'll seriously consider switching out. I'll even wear a Penguin t-shirt to prove my loyalty.

I do wish CorelDRAW would come over too though since I come from a sign design background and much prefer it over Illustrator but I would hunker down and take a few courses to really get good at Illustrator if I had to. It would be really sweet if Sketchup would do the same but there is Blender though so that is pretty freaking awesome.

Maybe this really is the year of Linux on the desktop after all? My curiosity is peeked.
 

Re:Now get Illy and inDesign and I'll convert

[chaosdivine69]

Oh and inb4 Inkscape...

Um, not natively...

[ndykman]

This isn't a port. It's streaming the application. It is actually running on their cloud, so you could do the same on Linux, Windows, whatever.

This is just another part of them moving to a cloud-based model. No big deal.

Proprietary garbage

[Eravnrekaree]

This is NOT good news AT ALL. This is a closed source application which means it is designed to take away your freedom, basically, you have no capability to read or to modify source code that runs on your computer if you want to do so. Worse, its a cloud application, which means that your data is stored, transmitted over the net even when you don't want it to be, which means you really dont have control or ownership of your own data. Its also not a port to real Linux, but instead, to Chrome.

Real Linux distros need real desktop applications. Yes, we need more feature rich programs than what is available right now , such as something more powerful than Gimp,, as does Inkscape and other programs, which need to take meeting and exceeding the capabilities of their closed source counterparts more seriously instead of being just second best.

Just pirate it

[loufoque]

As usual, the only option to be able to run software decently is to pirate it.
They won't even sell the damn thing, there is no other choice.

Change the name already!

[Tenebrousedge]

I don't always do graphics work, but when I do, I use the GIMP on Linux.

In my opinion, the open source community is practically perfect. Even with your once-in-25-years bug like Shellshock, I prefer having control over my systems, and access to the internals if I ever really need to. If I had unlimited power to direct the course of the open source community, and funds to match, I wouldn't change anything: just give me more of the same.

With one exception.

Can we start a petition for this? A Kickstarter? A lynch mob? The biggest embarrassment for open source isn't Shellshock, it's the name of the graphics editor. I suppose if nothing else it could lead to a profitable side business selling (Libre-) torches and pitchforks, but come on, people.

Re:Proprietary shit comes to proprietary platform.

[Blaskowicz]

Maybe a rich man's VNC? well optimised, adequately compressed, using RDP or similar in the first place. Perhaps it's some "hybrid" setup, when cattering to one app you have full control of and you control the client too, you might be doing a few optimizations and adding a bit of logic. When clicking a menu, the pixel contents of the rectangular drop-down menu area might be cached or even pre-loaded, instead of doing simple VNC-style streaming every time.

For file transfer, I would think that HTTP (HTTPS) transfers are more appropriate these days than old FTP.