6 ms·

You'd pay $1500 or whatever for a perpetual Photoshop license? I wouldn't

tombert 2y ago
I mean, sure, there's probably an upper bound of a number I'd pay, and I don't do enough photo editing to justify paying really any amount of money for Photoshop. For software I'd actually use though? Upper bound is probably $600 judging by what I paid for Toonboom Harmony. Honestly if I had known about Moho at the time I probably would have gotten that since it's considerably cheaper and on Humble Bundle fairly often. I'm not in a creative industry so it's tough for me to know "fair" numbers, just "what can I justify as a toy" numbers. I like to occasionally whip out an animation tool and draw stuff with stick figures, and I like having that readily available, and I don't want my tool to change from under me so I don't want transparent updates. I just want to buy my software once.
bobim 2y ago
That's dirt cheap for a software you can make a living off. For FEA or CFD one would need to shell off in the order of 50-100k plus 20k per year. 1500? I would.
- SomeCallMeTim 2y ago
  But not all of us make a living off of Photoshop. I'm a programmer. I periodically need to make a tiny tweak in a file that's been created by a real artist, or I want to edit a photo I took, or whatever. It's insane to spend $1500, or even $500 (the CorelDraw buy-it-outright price) for hobby and occasional-use software like that. And yeah, I use other things like Affinity Photo, which is Good Enough for many of my purposes, but it's just annoying to not be able to use the same software as my artists--unless they flatten the image before giving it to me, it's a crap-shoot whether I can import it in anything but the exact version of PhotoShop they were using. It feels like extortion: I have to pay the artist to make the tiniest changes because I can't edit the original file, or I have to pay Adobe an outrageous sum to do it myself. Lose-lose.
  - bobim 2y ago
    Fully understood, this carefully engineered vendor lock-in is the cherry on the cake. It's in all CAD software for no reason and forces you to follow the herd. Open standards should be imposed by state actors...
  - goosedragons 2y ago
    If you're paying artists to make art in PS, are you not doing it for something you make money off of? Or are you just really deep in the hobby that you're nearing professional level? Photoshop was never $1500 either. CS6 was $700. The design standard CS6 suite was $1300. Maybe hunt for artists that use the reasonably priced Clip Studio Paint instead? It's pretty popular among manga and the like artists anyways.
    - SomeCallMeTim 2y ago
      Realistically, I'm looking for artists that are good first. And 98% of them use Photoshop. Not going to restrict myself to non-Photoshop artists.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    > I have to pay the artist to make the tiniest changes because I can't edit the original file Hire the artist and ask them for the files exported into a format you can open. If they refuse, hire somebody else. I do agree with the sibling that open standards should be set by state actors. But they should only make them available, not mandate them into private actors.
    - SomeCallMeTim 2y ago
      > ask them for the files exported into a format you can open They already do that. That's not the problem. If the original Photoshop file has 200 layers, and 60 of those layers have effects that use advanced Photoshop-only features, then no other art program can open the source material. Period. At best you can get approximations of the original Photoshop render if you open the image in another program. But generally what you get is garbage if it's not a recent version of Photoshop. The point of getting the Photoshop original with the layers is that I might be able to make a tweak to one of the layers and have it re-render a result that is better for what I need. Something that is difficult or impossible if I just have a JPEG. And asking the artist to do the work in a program that doesn't have all of those features is roughly equivalent to asking a software engineer to use Mac/Windows/Linux (pick one they don't know) and to write all of the code in Visual Basic/Perl/PHP/JavaScript/C/C++/COBOL (pick one they don't know). Yes, technically anything is possible in any environment, but it might take 10x as long and be 100x as painful--with a result that may not be as good due to the tools not being as good. Artists are professionals with an acquired skill set. You can't ask them to work using unfamiliar tools and expect them to be happy or productive.
jimmaswell 2y ago
I wouldn't pay $1 for Photoshop when GIMP is free and open source. It's been my daily driver in a personal and professional capacity for ages, and Photoshop offers nothing special for me.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  If GIMP is a replacement for you, you're not Adobe's target customer.
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    But you are their average customer
  - jimmaswell 2y ago
    I'd be interested to know exactly what task Photoshop is capable of that GIMP isn't.
    - bornfreddy 2y ago
      I agree with you in principle, but there is one big task where Gimp can't compete: importing PSD files. Kudos to Gimp developers for the level of psd support it has, but it's not perfect (naturally).
    - adzm 2y ago
      AI features. Content aware fill. Better masking / feathering tools. Layer effects and composition. Text handling by far. Vector layers. Smart objects. Dynamic link to other creative applications. Brushes x1000. Pen input. Smart selections.
      - tombert 2y ago
        DiffusionBee on Mac has AI infill on images, and the models run locally and it’s free and open source. I have to think that someone is looking at implementing that in GIMP, at least as a plugin.

I mean, sure, there's probably an upper bound of a number I'd pay, and I don't do enough photo editing to justify paying really any amount of money for Photoshop. For software I'd actually use though? Upper bound is probably $600 judging by what I paid for Toonboom Harmony. Honestly if I had known about Moho at the time I probably would have gotten that since it's considerably cheaper and on Humble Bundle fairly often. I'm not in a creative industry so it's tough for me to know "fair" numbers, just "what can I justify as a toy" numbers. I like to occasionally whip out an animation tool and draw stuff with stick figures, and I like having that readily available, and I don't want my tool to change from under me so I don't want transparent updates. I just want to buy my software once.

bobim 2y ago

That's dirt cheap for a software you can make a living off. For FEA or CFD one would need to shell off in the order of 50-100k plus 20k per year. 1500? I would.

SomeCallMeTim 2y ago
But not all of us make a living off of Photoshop. I'm a programmer. I periodically need to make a tiny tweak in a file that's been created by a real artist, or I want to edit a photo I took, or whatever. It's insane to spend $1500, or even $500 (the CorelDraw buy-it-outright price) for hobby and occasional-use software like that. And yeah, I use other things like Affinity Photo, which is Good Enough for many of my purposes, but it's just annoying to not be able to use the same software as my artists--unless they flatten the image before giving it to me, it's a crap-shoot whether I can import it in anything but the exact version of PhotoShop they were using. It feels like extortion: I have to pay the artist to make the tiniest changes because I can't edit the original file, or I have to pay Adobe an outrageous sum to do it myself. Lose-lose.
- bobim 2y ago
  Fully understood, this carefully engineered vendor lock-in is the cherry on the cake. It's in all CAD software for no reason and forces you to follow the herd. Open standards should be imposed by state actors...
- goosedragons 2y ago
  If you're paying artists to make art in PS, are you not doing it for something you make money off of? Or are you just really deep in the hobby that you're nearing professional level? Photoshop was never $1500 either. CS6 was $700. The design standard CS6 suite was $1300. Maybe hunt for artists that use the reasonably priced Clip Studio Paint instead? It's pretty popular among manga and the like artists anyways.
  - SomeCallMeTim 2y ago
    Realistically, I'm looking for artists that are good first. And 98% of them use Photoshop. Not going to restrict myself to non-Photoshop artists.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  > I have to pay the artist to make the tiniest changes because I can't edit the original file Hire the artist and ask them for the files exported into a format you can open. If they refuse, hire somebody else. I do agree with the sibling that open standards should be set by state actors. But they should only make them available, not mandate them into private actors.
  - SomeCallMeTim 2y ago
    > ask them for the files exported into a format you can open They already do that. That's not the problem. If the original Photoshop file has 200 layers, and 60 of those layers have effects that use advanced Photoshop-only features, then no other art program can open the source material. Period. At best you can get approximations of the original Photoshop render if you open the image in another program. But generally what you get is garbage if it's not a recent version of Photoshop. The point of getting the Photoshop original with the layers is that I might be able to make a tweak to one of the layers and have it re-render a result that is better for what I need. Something that is difficult or impossible if I just have a JPEG. And asking the artist to do the work in a program that doesn't have all of those features is roughly equivalent to asking a software engineer to use Mac/Windows/Linux (pick one they don't know) and to write all of the code in Visual Basic/Perl/PHP/JavaScript/C/C++/COBOL (pick one they don't know). Yes, technically anything is possible in any environment, but it might take 10x as long and be 100x as painful--with a result that may not be as good due to the tools not being as good. Artists are professionals with an acquired skill set. You can't ask them to work using unfamiliar tools and expect them to be happy or productive.

jimmaswell 2y ago

I wouldn't pay $1 for Photoshop when GIMP is free and open source. It's been my daily driver in a personal and professional capacity for ages, and Photoshop offers nothing special for me.

bongodongobob 2y ago
If GIMP is a replacement for you, you're not Adobe's target customer.
- ipaddr 2y ago
  But you are their average customer
- jimmaswell 2y ago
  I'd be interested to know exactly what task Photoshop is capable of that GIMP isn't.
  - bornfreddy 2y ago
    I agree with you in principle, but there is one big task where Gimp can't compete: importing PSD files. Kudos to Gimp developers for the level of psd support it has, but it's not perfect (naturally).
  - adzm 2y ago
    AI features. Content aware fill. Better masking / feathering tools. Layer effects and composition. Text handling by far. Vector layers. Smart objects. Dynamic link to other creative applications. Brushes x1000. Pen input. Smart selections.
    - tombert 2y ago
      DiffusionBee on Mac has AI infill on images, and the models run locally and it’s free and open source. I have to think that someone is looking at implementing that in GIMP, at least as a plugin.