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>Photoshop is not better, because paying in perpetuity is unacceptable. If your time is worth zero, then yes, you can use slower tools. Professionals learn th

>Photoshop is not better, because paying in perpetuity is unacceptable. If your time is worth zero, then yes, you can use slower tools. Professionals learn that getting things done quickly and well has lots of value. Paying for a tool that costs you an hour of labor in income but saves you weeks or gains you vastly more in earnings makes such tools a terrific value for such people. If you don't value your time, or cannot use the tool to pay for itself, then don't buy the tool. Many people are not you. >and focused on taking photos well enough I don't need to fuck with HDR or whatever to make them pretty Those using Photoshop are not merely color touching single, simple photos. They use it for a lot more than that. All digital cameras do a lot of in-camera digital processing. Those algorithms are inferior, run on slower hardware, and have many other limitations that a PC does not. And there's a significant amount of work beyond "taking photos well enough." Not many clients want that - they can do what you do too. Compositing, touchups, creative work based on photos is just the tip of the iceberg for professionals. Don't like photoshop? Don't buy it. But don't assume you're doing what those who do see value in it are doing.

blagie 4y ago
I seriously think you mischaracterised your audience. Most people here (probably including dontbenebby) are hobbyists, not professional photographers. There are also plenty of people who use tools a little bit. For example, many software engineers will do some web design, or need a product photo, or whatever. Photoshop doesn't pay for itself for that kind of occasional use either, especially when you consider that one wants to be able to reuse and edit files sometimes years later. I'll gladly pay $$$ for a work-related tool I use 8 hours per day. I won't drop half a grand a year or whatever on Photoshop. (And no, the poster wasn't dissing people who buy Photoshop; a good key to someone talking about themselves is the word "I")
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  I'm a hacker and an artist, among other things. Who is to say what a "professional" is? (Not me)
- ChrisLomont 4y ago
  >I seriously think you mischaracterised your audience. I never thought most people here would use Photoshop enough to pay for it. The point was that tools exist that are worth paying form despite the poster some level up implying open source is always the answer. Being able to realize others have their tools, and you have yours, helps understand why people do pay for things you may not. >I'll gladly pay $$$ for a work-related tool I use 8 hours per day. And that is exactly the point that led into this thread. You choose your tool. Some choose Photoshop. Some choose SolidWorks. Open source is rarely the best choice for most professionals using software to do their work. It's ok for certain software developers, which is a tiny part of all professional workers using software. >And no, the poster wasn't dissing people who buy Photoshop; a good key to someone talking about themselves is the word "I" The poster wrote "Photoshop is not better, because paying in perpetuity is unacceptable" before the paragraph starting with "I". That sure looks like he's implying this choice should fit all. And before that the thread had many people claiming GIMP and Photoshop were on parity at this or that time, or under this or that condition. Those also were not "I" statements.
  - blagie 4y ago
    > And that is exactly the point that led into this thread. You choose your tool. Some choose Photoshop. Some choose SolidWorks. Open source is rarely the best choice for most professionals using software to do their work. It's ok for certain software developers, which is a tiny part of all professional workers using software. No, open-source is often the best choice for professional workers using software. Open source has several advantages: 1) My experience is that open-source is as often better as worse than proprietary. It's random. SolidWorks is a fine example where proprietary is ahead. On the other hand, e.g. my astronomer friends use open-source tools because they're better. 2) It's eternal and archival. Things I worked on 15 years ago still work. My proprietary cloud-based project management stuff went poof as soon as the company went out-of-business. Businesses can accumulate value much more easily. 3) I work in a regulated industry. Open-source doesn't contain hostile code which calls home with telemetry, activation, etc. and might leak whatever information to some random vendor. It's automatically auditable. It doesn't require contract negotiations. Etc. 4) I have access to all of it. There are professionals who spend 40 hours per week doing the same thing, where an investment in Photoshop pays off. There are professionals who spend 40 hours per week doing a variety of things. I've always been in jobs which were more like the latter. A while ago, I was in a business which designed a piece of electronics hardware. They needed to use a tool to 3d print something (a front panel) exactly once in the lifetime of the business. One downside is lack of marketing dollars. My experience is that open source is underutilized outside of software engineering, mostly due to ignorance.

blagie 4y ago

I seriously think you mischaracterised your audience. Most people here (probably including dontbenebby) are hobbyists, not professional photographers. There are also plenty of people who use tools a little bit. For example, many software engineers will do some web design, or need a product photo, or whatever. Photoshop doesn't pay for itself for that kind of occasional use either, especially when you consider that one wants to be able to reuse and edit files sometimes years later. I'll gladly pay $$$ for a work-related tool I use 8 hours per day. I won't drop half a grand a year or whatever on Photoshop. (And no, the poster wasn't dissing people who buy Photoshop; a good key to someone talking about themselves is the word "I")

dontbenebby 4y ago
I'm a hacker and an artist, among other things. Who is to say what a "professional" is? (Not me)
ChrisLomont 4y ago
>I seriously think you mischaracterised your audience. I never thought most people here would use Photoshop enough to pay for it. The point was that tools exist that are worth paying form despite the poster some level up implying open source is always the answer. Being able to realize others have their tools, and you have yours, helps understand why people do pay for things you may not. >I'll gladly pay $$$ for a work-related tool I use 8 hours per day. And that is exactly the point that led into this thread. You choose your tool. Some choose Photoshop. Some choose SolidWorks. Open source is rarely the best choice for most professionals using software to do their work. It's ok for certain software developers, which is a tiny part of all professional workers using software. >And no, the poster wasn't dissing people who buy Photoshop; a good key to someone talking about themselves is the word "I" The poster wrote "Photoshop is not better, because paying in perpetuity is unacceptable" before the paragraph starting with "I". That sure looks like he's implying this choice should fit all. And before that the thread had many people claiming GIMP and Photoshop were on parity at this or that time, or under this or that condition. Those also were not "I" statements.
- blagie 4y ago
  > And that is exactly the point that led into this thread. You choose your tool. Some choose Photoshop. Some choose SolidWorks. Open source is rarely the best choice for most professionals using software to do their work. It's ok for certain software developers, which is a tiny part of all professional workers using software. No, open-source is often the best choice for professional workers using software. Open source has several advantages: 1) My experience is that open-source is as often better as worse than proprietary. It's random. SolidWorks is a fine example where proprietary is ahead. On the other hand, e.g. my astronomer friends use open-source tools because they're better. 2) It's eternal and archival. Things I worked on 15 years ago still work. My proprietary cloud-based project management stuff went poof as soon as the company went out-of-business. Businesses can accumulate value much more easily. 3) I work in a regulated industry. Open-source doesn't contain hostile code which calls home with telemetry, activation, etc. and might leak whatever information to some random vendor. It's automatically auditable. It doesn't require contract negotiations. Etc. 4) I have access to all of it. There are professionals who spend 40 hours per week doing the same thing, where an investment in Photoshop pays off. There are professionals who spend 40 hours per week doing a variety of things. I've always been in jobs which were more like the latter. A while ago, I was in a business which designed a piece of electronics hardware. They needed to use a tool to 3d print something (a front panel) exactly once in the lifetime of the business. One downside is lack of marketing dollars. My experience is that open source is underutilized outside of software engineering, mostly due to ignorance.