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A little off topic, but, if you'll indulge me: Why do you think nobody has been able to make a successful alternative to Photoshop? Everybody I know complains a

A little off topic, but, if you'll indulge me: Why do you think nobody has been able to make a successful alternative to Photoshop? Everybody I know complains about it constantly, and yet it's still the industry standard.

trimethylpurine 2y ago
Gimp works great. The worst thing about it is the lack of high end YouTube video tutorials. That's what you're really paying for with Adobe, I think.
- araes 2y ago
  Having used Gimp and Photoshop fairly extensively, I'd agree that Gimp works, and it has the features that Photoshop has (for the most part). However, there's quite a bit of user interface issues with Gimp that make somewhat simplistic activities rather irritating. Gimp kind of has the Open Source issue where it has tons of features, yet there's a large wall of complexity, zillions of little fiddly knobs to tweak on almost every process, and the interface makes you feel like you need to, because they're all exposed immediately. Photoshop (personal opinion) is better about having an initially functional feature, with relatively "what you expect" defaults, and then layers of fiddly knobs you can tweak if you "really" want to or need to for a project.
  - herbst 2y ago
    Every time I've used Photoshop the whole UI/UX changed. Buttons are moving around, getting renamed. Some functions are hidden in submenus of submenus, etc. IMO Photoshop is just simpler because people are usually used to it. In reality Gimp always had a much more reliable UI
thayne 2y ago
Because Adobe photoshop is what people are tought how to use. It is the same thing with excel. It isn't enough to have a superior product, you also have to overcome the momentum of the prevailing software. That's not to say it is impossible, but Photoshop has a significant advantage.
- SideQuark 2y ago
  Photoshop isn’t on top simply because people know how to use it. There’s simply no better tool for most users who need that level of photo editing tool. I’ve never seen a superior product to either Photoshop or Excel. Have you? Maybe they’re on top because they really are good products.
  - sys_64738 2y ago
    I find Excel a clunky piece of junk so use Apple Numbers for my spreadsheet needs. The majority of people probably don't need to pay the M$ or Adobe monthly tax.
    - neverartful 2y ago
      To be fair, you have to pay the Apple tax to use Apple Numbers. It's not monthly (or even a subscription), but it's not a one-time payment if you want the ability to use it over a long period of time.
      - maeil 2y ago
        Once in >5 years is nothing like a SaaS, especially since it's such a tiny part of a product. Even with the traditional software there'd be no guarantee it would keep working for longer than that, e.g. on new OS versions, especially with more specialized software which is a lot of the market for such things.
  - GoblinSlayer 2y ago
    I know mspaint better, it starts faster too.
  - herbst 2y ago
    Googles spreadsheet is much more performant, useable and shareable for me. I also never got warm with excel weird and heavily limited language, no matter how much I tried to. For Photoshop I agree that no software has the same amount of tools built in. However I have been Happy with gimp ever since, and know plenty of people who prefer Krita or something because their interesting is in drawing and not design.
sneak 2y ago
Pixelmator was a wildly successful Photoshop competitor. Their company was successful too; Apple recently purchased them. The speculation is that Apple will now compete with Adobe’s subscriptionware.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
vunderba 2y ago
There are plenty of successful alternatives to Photoshop (Affinity, Pixelmator, Krita, etc). The issue as always is vendor lock-in - when everyone you're doing business with is expecting to be able to collaborate using Adobe then it becomes a huge pain point.
irrational 2y ago
I have all the keyboard shortcuts for photoshop in my muscle memory. Those same keyboard shortcuts don't work in, say, Gimp.

trimethylpurine 2y ago

Gimp works great. The worst thing about it is the lack of high end YouTube video tutorials. That's what you're really paying for with Adobe, I think.

araes 2y ago
Having used Gimp and Photoshop fairly extensively, I'd agree that Gimp works, and it has the features that Photoshop has (for the most part). However, there's quite a bit of user interface issues with Gimp that make somewhat simplistic activities rather irritating. Gimp kind of has the Open Source issue where it has tons of features, yet there's a large wall of complexity, zillions of little fiddly knobs to tweak on almost every process, and the interface makes you feel like you need to, because they're all exposed immediately. Photoshop (personal opinion) is better about having an initially functional feature, with relatively "what you expect" defaults, and then layers of fiddly knobs you can tweak if you "really" want to or need to for a project.
- herbst 2y ago
  Every time I've used Photoshop the whole UI/UX changed. Buttons are moving around, getting renamed. Some functions are hidden in submenus of submenus, etc. IMO Photoshop is just simpler because people are usually used to it. In reality Gimp always had a much more reliable UI

thayne 2y ago

Because Adobe photoshop is what people are tought how to use. It is the same thing with excel. It isn't enough to have a superior product, you also have to overcome the momentum of the prevailing software. That's not to say it is impossible, but Photoshop has a significant advantage.

SideQuark 2y ago
Photoshop isn’t on top simply because people know how to use it. There’s simply no better tool for most users who need that level of photo editing tool. I’ve never seen a superior product to either Photoshop or Excel. Have you? Maybe they’re on top because they really are good products.
- sys_64738 2y ago
  I find Excel a clunky piece of junk so use Apple Numbers for my spreadsheet needs. The majority of people probably don't need to pay the M$ or Adobe monthly tax.
  - neverartful 2y ago
    To be fair, you have to pay the Apple tax to use Apple Numbers. It's not monthly (or even a subscription), but it's not a one-time payment if you want the ability to use it over a long period of time.
    - maeil 2y ago
      Once in >5 years is nothing like a SaaS, especially since it's such a tiny part of a product. Even with the traditional software there'd be no guarantee it would keep working for longer than that, e.g. on new OS versions, especially with more specialized software which is a lot of the market for such things.
- GoblinSlayer 2y ago
  I know mspaint better, it starts faster too.
- herbst 2y ago
  Googles spreadsheet is much more performant, useable and shareable for me. I also never got warm with excel weird and heavily limited language, no matter how much I tried to. For Photoshop I agree that no software has the same amount of tools built in. However I have been Happy with gimp ever since, and know plenty of people who prefer Krita or something because their interesting is in drawing and not design.

sneak 2y ago

Pixelmator was a wildly successful Photoshop competitor. Their company was successful too; Apple recently purchased them. The speculation is that Apple will now compete with Adobe’s subscriptionware.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

vunderba 2y ago

There are plenty of successful alternatives to Photoshop (Affinity, Pixelmator, Krita, etc). The issue as always is vendor lock-in - when everyone you're doing business with is expecting to be able to collaborate using Adobe then it becomes a huge pain point.

irrational 2y ago

I have all the keyboard shortcuts for photoshop in my muscle memory. Those same keyboard shortcuts don't work in, say, Gimp.