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Author Topic: What options exist currently to Photoshop?  (Read 11996 times)

LesPalenik

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #20 on: May 07, 2013, 08:44:36 pm »

^ Well possibly it is time to look at Gimp again.  As of two years ago it was pretty wanting compared to PS, and showed a lot of the ragged edges that plague open source programming.  I mentioned Picassa among the "toy programs" simply because it has utility to photographers who need to plow through 100's of differing shots in a hurry, something that PS and LR don't do very well.

I don't really see PS as "bloated."  I like having lots of stuff available as long as it doesn't impose itself needlessly.  But the legacy user interface now seems increasingly awkward when compared to more recent UI paradigms like we see in LR.   For instance, who has not been annoyed that he can't immediately rezero a PS slider by double clicking?  No big thing by itself, but little things like that add up.  And the disparity between the noise reduction in LR and PS is truly puzzling.  There are other things too.

For many specific or discreet tasks, such as noise removal, sharpening, extraction one can use nowadays quite satisfactorily third-party programs, such as NIK Dfine and Sharpener, Topaz Detail and Remask. With the just announced Adobe pricing scheme, the third-party developers have now again a good reason to innovate and supply new plugins. Many of these plugins should work also with Photoshop competitors.
     
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Joe S

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #21 on: May 07, 2013, 09:26:39 pm »

This seems like it might work into something useful.

ElementsXXL plug-in promises Photoshop features without the pricetag

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/04/02/elementsxxl-plug-in-promises-photoshop-features-without-the-pricetag

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Joe S

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #22 on: May 07, 2013, 09:32:13 pm »

I am thinking of how to prepare for life after adobe if necessary.   

For now, I think good advice is don't convert to dng and don't save as a psd if you ever did.   I have fortunately always saved as tiffs.
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bill t.

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #23 on: May 07, 2013, 10:35:29 pm »

For many specific or discreet tasks, such as noise removal, sharpening, extraction one can use nowadays quite satisfactorily third-party programs, such as NIK Dfine and Sharpener, Topaz Detail and Remask. With the just announced Adobe pricing scheme, the third-party developers have now again a good reason to innovate and supply new plugins. Many of these plugins should work also with Photoshop competitors.
 

True, but relying on a pile of discreet plugins and external programs is never as fluid or fast as a single program with everything integrated within.  And there are sometimes conflicts between disparate programs.  For instance, installing NIK makes Topaz Resize unstable.  I wasted too much time on that one and for several days I felt I had been kidnapped against my will to be an alpha tester.  And buying all those discreet programs is not a cheap option.  Clunky or not, PS has everything right there and guaranteed to play nice together, and when time is money that's worth something.
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tived

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #24 on: May 07, 2013, 10:47:49 pm »

I am not sure why this Cloud business is such a big issue?

If you are making money out of your photography, you pass on the cost! Photographers already have an incredible high margin on their images - obviously not if you are just giving it away, to compete, that has never really been a viable business model.

If you do this for a hobby, well, then its still cheaper doing this then running a power-boat :-) or an expensive car!

The price of coffee goes up, do you switch to tea?

Most people here, considering the gear they say they have, should find it hard to find this sort of money. It would be nice if we didn't have to pay so much, but like everything else, prices goes up, and so do we have to increase our prices, if we want to keep a particular margin on our products or services.

Anyway, this is just one persons opinion - Happy photoshopping or Gimping ;-)

Henrik
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Alan Klein

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #25 on: May 07, 2013, 10:52:52 pm »

I have Adobe Elements 8 and Elements PRemiere 8.  How can I upgrade to Elements 11 and Premiere 11?  Can I get a disk; I don't want to just download.  Is there a reduced price for upgrade?  WIll these still work once Adobe goes cloud?

bill t.

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #26 on: May 08, 2013, 12:07:28 am »

Adobe is still being very kind of Elements users!  I doubt if a dark cloud will shade bought-outright Elements anytime soon.  Looks like they'll hit you up $119.95 for both.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements/buying-guide.displayTab3.html
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kencameron

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #27 on: May 08, 2013, 01:02:07 am »

...relying on a pile of discreet plugins...
I do love a discreet plugin. Even better if it is also discrete.
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Ken Cameron

bill t.

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #28 on: May 08, 2013, 01:15:48 am »

^ One mistake, and they're on you like flies!  Speed spelling was never my forty. :)

While man's desires and aspirations stir,
He can not choose but err.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Prolog im Himmel, Der Herr, line 77.
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kencameron

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #29 on: May 08, 2013, 01:17:35 am »

^ One mistake, and they're on you like flies!  Speed spelling was never my forty. :)

While man's desires and aspirations stir,
He can not choose but err.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Prolog im Himmel, Der Herr, line 77.
Sorry. Couldn't resist. Great  Grate reply   :D
« Last Edit: May 08, 2013, 02:23:04 am by kencameron »
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Ken Cameron

Robert Roaldi

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #30 on: May 08, 2013, 09:26:19 am »

I just purchased Pixelmator on OSX. $29 . The icons are different. The layout almost similar to PS. Have not tried plug-ins yet. Need to figure out if I can do skin smoothing and healing as well as Photoshop. If it works, I am done. Aperture ($80) + Pixelmator ($29), and I think the license allow the usage on more than one machine.

+1

I use the same, about 95% Aperture, but I don't make a living shooting pictures. I am guessing that a lot of amateurs originally gravitated to Photoshop because it was the de facto industry standard and so are used to it, but that doesn't mean that other applications out there won't satisfy their needs. Photoshop was very feature-rich, of course, but it's entirely possible that many amateurs weren't making use of all those features anyway. And the other applications won't stand still either, they will improve over time. Eventually, for example, Pixelmator will go 16 bits, all they need is some financial success. Adobe did what they did for their own reasons, competitors will fill any gaps they leave behind.

If I were still on Windows, I'd go back to Picture Windows Pro. It didn't have layers, but you could accomplish the same tasks in a different way. Too bad PWP never migrated to MAC, I'd still be using it.
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Robert

jwstl

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #31 on: May 08, 2013, 10:41:39 am »

For Mac users, Acorn is worth looking at. I used version 1.x as my simple-when I didn't want to open Photoshop-image viewer but now that it supports layers it's much more powerful. Version 4 was released at the beginning of this month as it available to everyone at the upgrade price of 29.99 until the end of the month (normally $50).

http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/

It's available directly from the developer or from the Apple App Store. If it buy it directly try coupon BUCKOFF to save $1. I'm not associated with the company in any way; I'm just a satisfied user.
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BJL

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Apple's Aperture? Mac OS X only, $80 for a perpetual license
« Reply #32 on: May 08, 2013, 12:09:49 pm »

Maybe Apple's Aperture should be part of the discussion. It is OS X only, but at only $80 for a perpetual license, avoiding the new $20/month "Adobe CC tax" might outweigh the "Apple tax" (higher initial hardware cost) in a TCO comparison. Note that keeping OS X up to date now costs only about $20/year, and I believe that each OS X upgrade purchase covers up to five computers.

I expect though that Adobe will maintain Lightroom ("Adobe Photoshop Lightroom", to give its full name) as a relatively affordable, "no subscription required" option, exactly to avoid losing too many of us price-sensitive photographers to the competition.
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bill t.

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Gimp does not have non-destructive adjustment layers.
« Reply #33 on: May 08, 2013, 11:35:38 pm »

Been playing with Gimp 2.8.4.  It does not have non-destructive adjustment layers.  When did PS get adjustment layers?  A long time ago, like maybe version 4?  This does not bode well for alternative seekers.  Yes there are the old workarounds we used with PS3, what fun those were!  The good news is, there are posts from 2009 saying adjustment layers will be here in about a year.  Open source, yeah baby!

Somebody please tell me I'm wrong.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2013, 11:43:59 pm by bill t. »
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daws

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Re: Gimp does not have non-destructive adjustment layers.
« Reply #34 on: May 08, 2013, 11:50:49 pm »

The only thing wanting for an alternative to Photoshop is sustained consumer demand to fund it and experienced engineering talent to design it.

Both of which may soon be provided courtesy of Adobe.
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Gulag

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Re: Gimp does not have non-destructive adjustment layers.
« Reply #35 on: May 09, 2013, 01:48:36 am »

Been playing with Gimp 2.8.4.  It does not have non-destructive adjustment layers.  When did PS get adjustment layers?  A long time ago, like maybe version 4?  This does not bode well for alternative seekers.  Yes there are the old workarounds we used with PS3, what fun those were!  The good news is, there are posts from 2009 saying adjustment layers will be here in about a year.  Open source, yeah baby!

Somebody please tell me I'm wrong.


Adjustment layer feature is coming, according to GIMP, and unstable version (version 2.9x) of GIMP is now capable of working in 16 and 32 bit per channel modes, both integer and float. Color management has been improved as well, and thanks to support by AMD and Google the GEGL library can do GPU-side rendering and processing with OpenCL.
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— Jean Baudrillard

digitaldog

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Re: Gimp does not have non-destructive adjustment layers.
« Reply #36 on: May 09, 2013, 09:45:46 am »

Adjustment layer feature is coming, according to GIMP...

And they will support and honor all Photoshop created layers? Or it will create it's own layers. HUGE difference.
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digitaldog

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Re: Gimp does not have non-destructive adjustment layers.
« Reply #37 on: May 09, 2013, 09:47:14 am »

When did PS get adjustment layers?

Last century. I've been on Photoshop since 1.0.7. If memory serves me, we got Layers in 2.5 or 3.0 (NOT CS, but the third actual release).
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Joe S

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Re: What options exist currently to Photoshop?
« Reply #38 on: May 09, 2013, 01:39:56 pm »

I believe adobe could satisfy most photographers, if they chose, with a somewhat upgraded version of elements that was not in the clouds.
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jwstl

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Re: Gimp does not have non-destructive adjustment layers.
« Reply #39 on: May 09, 2013, 02:08:12 pm »

Last century. I've been on Photoshop since 1.0.7. If memory serves me, we got Layers in 2.5 or 3.0 (NOT CS, but the third actual release).

I think layers was version 3. I started with 2, the first with CMYK, and I think layers was one full version later.
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