Consider the expressive power of GIMP over ImageMagick, then imagine that Photoshop is an increment of expressive power over GIMP. As you become familiar with

Consider the expressive power of GIMP over ImageMagick, then imagine that Photoshop is an increment of expressive power over GIMP. As you become familiar with Photoshop you will experience a usage gestalt that is unattainable with GIMP. But why? Compared to Photoshop, GIMP's UI is a continually unfolding disaster by comparison. Plus Photoshop includes Adobe Camera Raw which in and of itself is a UI majesty compared to anything available in Linux and its just an adjunct capability. The programming language analogy is a good one. There's no point in arguing which language is the best, but everyone knows that language features have an obvious bearing on productivity in particular domains: this is demonstrated beyond all doubt via the enormous efficacy of levels of interface abstraction over the innate capabilities of a physical computer. If you regard PS and GIMP as GUI languages for image manipulation, the expressive power and smoothness of operating PS compared to GIMP is obvious to any diligent user. The joy of GIMP is that the advantage of GIMP over no image manipulator is infinite, while the advantage of PS over GIMP is merely incremental. This is the profound philosophical basis of Linux: it's something that can't be easily taken away from you. Photoshop is much more tenuous. As to being able to appreciate the distinction, there's an old joke about advertising the advantage of color TVs on TV: if you can see the advantage, you already have a color TV. And if you don't have a color TV you can't see the advantage.