Google Funds Work for Photoshop on Linux 678
S point 2 writes "Google has announced that they have hired Codeweavers, maker of the popular Wine software to make Photoshop run better on Linux. 'Photoshop is one of those applications that desktop Linux users are constantly clamoring for, and we're happy to say they work pretty well now...We look forward to further improvements in this area.' It is unknown whether or not the entire Creative Suite will be funded for support, but for the time being it seems Photoshop-on-Linux development is getting a new priority under Google."
We already have Photoshop! (Score:1, Insightful)
Let's get it out of the way... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
I love linux, and advocate for it ad nauseum, but the devs need to do something about the clever-only-to-the-AV-Club names with which they continue to burden their otherwise fine creations.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wine (Score:4, Insightful)
There are plenty of open libraries and APIs that can be used to build native ports of software if the company wanted to do so, I'm pretty much sure most of them are either LGPL or BSD-like in terms of licensing. Not saying each platform doesn't have it's own quirks that needed to be ironed out, but a native port > wine emulation any day. Not saying WINE aspirations are without merit, but I see WINE as nothing but a crutch for developers who can say "This product runs on Linux" but skate around making a native port because WINE is there.
Re:Let's get it out of the way... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you missed the point. It is to make proprietary software obsolete.
This is not a troll: GIMP is hard for newbies (Score:5, Insightful)
The GIMP might be very powerful and feature packed, but the learning curve to get into it is cliff shaped. That makes for a vey significant barrier for newbies.
Most people don't want to do hugely complex photoshopping, just remove red eye from phots and a few other simple effects.
I've tried to use GIMP a few times, without using the manuals, but after a few minutes of getting nowhere I've fired up a Windows box and used photoshop (also without a manual).
Perhaps this exercise will give the GIMP people a bit of motivation to make the software more newbie-friendly.
We're getting to the stage where Linux is almost simple to use. "It was hard to write, so it should be hard to use" no longer cuts it.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not port it to Linux they have a win and mac v (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is not a troll: GIMP is hard for newbies (Score:3, Insightful)
Colour Management (Score:4, Insightful)
This is trying not to be flamebait. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've tried to use GIMP a few times, without using the manuals, but after a few minutes of getting nowhere I've fired up a Windows box and used photoshop (also without a manual).
not as good as it looks (Score:4, Insightful)
1. One of the arguments that wine devs had is that not every compagny have the ressources to port their applications under *nix, but Adobe certainly doesn't fall in that category.
2. The picassa road is not definitively the best one : just bundling wine to a windows application and label it linux (or other unix) compiliant is near anything but nonsense. We choose unix because of freedom, but also because we believed in its superiorical technical merit (*be it true or not*), not to rely on some win32/directX implementation. We don't eat that food (oh, and if we could forget about this mono thing, many people would sleep better).
Even if i'm amazed by the work done by the wine team, and I'm thankful to them for allowing me to play some games under linux, I don't see them taking more importance as a good thing. This is not this kind of solution which will improve our systems.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:1, Insightful)
I thought the point was to make closed source operating systems obsolete.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
I can tell someone I use Firefox, Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Pidgin -- that, not so bad. I can say I use Gnome or KDE (depends on my mood), or I can tell them I use Pan. But I cannot look at another human being and tell them to use "The GIMP."
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
I run Linux on a PowerPC, you insensitive clod! How much good is proprietary software running on WINE going to do ME?!!
-:sigma.SB
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:4, Insightful)
Who exactly is it that is supposed to be driven to try and bring them into the herd? Why should I care if John Q Public prefers to write applications for Windows? How does that have any bearing on my preference to write applications targetting Linux?
Sooner or later he's going to realize he's just Bill's bitch on his own.
Acknowledge or bow to... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For what reason? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:4, Insightful)
And yeah, you have to choose. You can't hope to compete against windows if the very best kinds of software really need windows (though Pshop obviously is also on macs). You either go nuts with every bit of information being free, of we give everyone an open set of basically strong tools, and let them buy professional level stuff, games, media, etc if they want it.
Gimp, openoffice, mozilla, ubuntu (or whatever) makes a nice level of stuff, but I need photoshop, I need VIZ, I need Autocad. And for CAD, there are free solutions, but they just aren't going to do. So I use Windows 2000, still the best version for me. I can boot into ubuntu, and would like to be able to use Wine, but we're about to buy Vista instead. How annoying.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop this, stop this now Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
What the hell is the difference? An operating system is a collection of software.
Re:Cue piracy on linux (Score:3, Insightful)
I kind of wish Adobe and/or other app vendors would sell the same app for cheaper but lock out the number of hours per month or something you could use it; unlocked for business would cost the usual outrageous prices, but time-locked to 10 hours a month or something would cost much less.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody is in charge. I have no problem with people making money selling Linux and services for Linux (or any other piece of software) either.
My question was: Who is it that is supposed to care what the proprietary world does? The GIMP developers aren't interested in making a Photoshop clone. They enjoy coding their application the way they think it should be coded.
Exactly how is "Linux" supposed to learn to acknowledge proprietary software without emulating it?
Re:Let's get it out of the way... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps what you mean is:
Don't bring up the Gimp every time someone mentions the lack of a native Photoshop on Linux, and then claim the Gimp is not a Photoshop competitor when someone then cites a difference between the two.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:2, Insightful)
Can you see the difference between making SUVs obsolete and making automobiles obsolete?
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly.
We aren't really talking about Gimp so much as we are talking about Wine, but if you really believe that Gimp isn't following the proprietary world and trying to be a nice photoshop alternative by going for things the photoshop customers get from photoshop, well, then we disagree. Of course Gimp developers should look to Photoshop and mimic much. I know it's not the cool answer, but it's true. Of course, I think there is plenty of room for innovation and to do a better job, as Ubuntu does in many areas vs. XP. But that has nothing to do with the price of tea in china. We're talking about Wine, which quite obviously has to follow the Windows API, etc.
Linux is kinda dealt a bad hand. I don't really see why we don't see Adobe and others specifically tailoring software for Ubuntu. Support costs, I bet. Photoshop (or whatever) on Wine with 100% support is precisely what a bunch of folks would need to get rid of their bloated OS.
Can you see a world where Wine is not needed by the serious Linux user? Of course you can, if you rule out a ton of useful software. In other words, if you rule out Linux as a serious OS choice for tons of folks.
Re:This is not a troll: GIMP is hard for newbies (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, I do think that photoshop piracy is a HUGE. As mentioned, hardly anyone would shell over $600 bucks for casual use. I bet it's pretty high on the piracy list, especially for those people who normally don't pirate but are willing to take that PS cd home from work and install it on their home computer.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They are fixing Wine, not Photoshop (Score:3, Insightful)
With their acquisitions (Macromedia, et.al.), and having to convert their applications to Cocoa (from Carbon) to expect to run on Mac OS X 10.6, they have their hands full without trying to broaden their platform appeal. Adobe was instrumental in causing Apple to do as much "Classic" compatibility in OS X, and provide Carbon to OS 9 to bridge the gap between OS 9 and X. If Apple didn't hold such a significant portion of their customers at the hardware/operating system level, I would have imagined that they'd stopped Mac development to since they have such a broad portfolio of products that don't (aside from some print-features in the Mac OS) have a lot to do with operating system stuff (security/authentication such as AD/LDAP integration), Adobe would really benefit from platform monoculture.(Disclainer, I'm a lifelong Mac user and
I'd love to see Photoshop on Linux, and even more, a native recode of the Creative Suite, however, for the reason mentioned above, the GPU manufacturers lackluster support for Linux at the driver level, and the common perception (amongst PHBs and users whoever "heard about" Linux)that "free as in speech means free as in beer" makes Adobe's shot at a commercial Photoshop port very difficult, as much as I would love to see it.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
GIMP is good enough for the rest of us. I design a website, touch up some photos and GIMP i good enough for my needs. It's not like GIMP is an MS Paint competitor. For many purposes it's just as good as Photoshop. I don't think that many Linux users would buy or even pirate Photoshop even if it was native Linux. Most of us "regular" users just don't need it.
For me, even installing a program from CD seems like a hassle I'm not used to (except for base system). Add to that that I need wine. Keeping it up-to-date seems even worse. Do windows even have an update-manager for third party programs? Is that "emulated" in wine?
While I can understand some people absolutely need Photoshop I can't see it being a showstoper for most. I can also understand how GIMP gives a bad impression if you tried it on Windows, it absolutely needs virtual screens to be used. Windows traditionally uses MDI interfaces instead and some Unix programs just don't port that good to the platform.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:4, Insightful)
My operating system doesn't include Photoshop or Office. An operating system should not contain applications, generally speaking. It should contain utilities that perform administrative tasks... maybe a few tiny applications for things like migration, disk partitioning, and other very basic tasks... but it should not contain what would be considered non-administrative applications. That's outside the scope of an operating system.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, trying to coerce Photoshop into running well on LInux is not exactly the right path to go down. While it may be good for a few people who absolutely positively need to use Photoshop in short term, Linux needs more NATIVE software if it is to be stronger in the long run.
That said, I think it is important for Linux users to always try to look towards free software first. Even if that means being "religious" about it. I think this is more important, at least in principle, than having applicaitons like Photoshop. I think we'd see the spirit of LInux slowly leeched away by commercial interests if LInux users weren't passionate about Open Source Software. I'd like to see Linux stay "fun." Proprietary software is not fun, IME. It may get the job done, but it sucks to be dragged along by some corporate support line when things don't work the way they should.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
It should. The religion behind OSS seeks to destroy their business model by making them obsolete.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll stick to Gimp, with its limitations. For the price difference I can buy another computer!
Yay! Photoshop troll thread. (Score:5, Insightful)
Listening to the comments, one could get the impression that the number was close to 100%, as opposed to something around 0%.
So, I have a few comments. Firstly, I've introduced quite a number of people to the Gimp, for photo editing.
1- Noone complained about the name or even mentioned it.
2- They're not photographic prefessionals, and GIMP has frankly more than enough functionality for them.
3- They're staying all digital (ie photos stay on the computer), so they do not need CMYK seperation. Actually, the first bit isn't strictly true, but since they're not photographic professionals, they don't even know what CMYK seperation is. If they did, they don't have the calibrated monitors and printers required to make it really useful. Same goes for spot colours or whatever non RGB space you're talking about. See point 2.
4- Their cameras save pictures as 8 bit JPEGs, so the poor high bit depth support of GIMP doesn't matter. See point 2.
5- They're all people with too much time on their hands to bother pirating software. Or they need it at work for the odd basic task, where piracy is not an option.
6- None of them got free photoshop with a camera/scanner.
7- None of them had in fact ever uesd photoshop, so having a non-photoshop interface didn't matter. See point 2.
Finally, I fit happily in to the categories above. I've never used photoshop, GIMP does pretty much what I need in an easy, simple manner. I have never needed CMYK seperation. And FINALLY, I have a proper window manager which supports sloppy focus and focus-does-not-raise, and you know what? GIMP's interface actually works really, really, really well. Oh, and by the way, see point 2.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
Same old story... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a professional photographer, meaning, I make a living of it.
I use Gimp on Linux for this, and I'm just fine with it. Especially since version 2.4 I haven't thought once of going back to PS. On the rare occasions I need to convert an image to CMYK for offset printing, I use Krita to do that. For other things I need workarounds, but I'll live.So, that's my choice.
But:
I happen to be lucky enough that, apart from being an artist, I also understand computers, meaning I could figure out on my own how the Gimp works.
Most professional photographers I know aren't. They get taught to use Photoshop when they are just starting out, and I'm sure everyone agrees that that the Gimp interface is quite different from the Photoshop interface, and also that re-learning always is harder than learning something new.
So, if the less tech savy people choose to use Photoshop because they know how to do that, what's wrong with that?
And if improvement for Photoshop on Linux is being worked on, Linux can only benefit.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that'll happen, I think there will be areas of software development where there's more people with money willing to pay for specific features than there are developers who want to do it for free. The open source development model has some serious shortcomings in getting cash from people willing to pay to people willing to develop, so why not let the free market have a go at it? Whichever combination of closed source, dual licensing, donations and volunteers or whatever that creates the best product wins. I think there are plenty reasons to want a free OS/kernel though, even if you don't want every application on your PC to be open source. For example, with an open shim between the hardware and the applications, you'll find it very hard to do any funny things in applications like DRM and such.
In short, I think Linux vs Windows will be more important for the long-term freedom of software than trying to take on every application battle. Obviously you need to get good applications running on Linux, but if you can get closed source ported instead of having to develop a Photoshop-killer and an Exchange-killer and every other big Windows lock-in, I'd say that's a win for open source. Once they're there you can keep eating away at them from the underside offering more and more with your distro, instead of offering some completely alien system which requires people to make this big switchover.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
The GIMP may be great, but that's not really the issue. Getting Wine, etc., to the point where the most important popular Windows apps run on Linux reduces the perceived transition costs (including retraining costs or lost productivity during the learning curve) and risks to companies and individuals that are already strongly attached to particular software to breaking free of the MS operating system stranglehold.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think before we let this line of discussion get too out of control, it needs to be brought up that there is such a wide variety of uses for photo editing that no two people are likely to come together to argue about using it for the same reason. I'll give you an example:
I work in Hollywood. I do a lot of texturing and matte work. I don't think there's a corner of Photoshop I don't touch in any given week. I've tried to use GIMP... Now, if you were to ask me what I thought of the GIMP, the first thing I'd do is call up in my mind the experience of using it. (In other words, context matters.) Then, without considering (or even knowing about) the point of view you're coming from, I'd respond with "The GIMP is totally useless." You'd think I was odd for having such a harsh opinion. Since I don't talk about my living much, you'd have little reason to know where I'm coming from. Given the harsh tone of my opinion, you wouldn't be too likely to ask me to clarify. Instead, you'd probably think I was a brand-biased jerk. (I don't say that to imply that you jump to conclusions, rather, I think you'd probably do that because I know *I* would probably do that and have done so in the past. I'm not proud.) And, from there, we'd argue. I wouldn't know how you're measuring the GIMP, and you wouldn't know how I'm measuring Photoshop.
There really is no baseline for comparing the two. Without out, this debate will endlessly circle the drain. I can honestly tell you that GIMP is not even in the ballpark of being a useful replacement to Photoshop with me. The $600 price difference doesn't even slightly narrow the gap. (I make money from Photoshop work, so if I can't work with the GIMP, it's not free, it's actually expensive.) I can also tell you that I don't think a lot of people commenting on Slashdot are in a similar field of work, so most would not see where I'm coming from. And frankly, they'd be right. Who am I to judge an app as versatile as the GIMP or Photoshop for their use? It's like arguing about whether a hammer or a screwdriver is a better tool. An IT guy would think a carpenter's a fucking idgit.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
As for GIMP, if you're happy with a version of Photoshop that is about 11 years old... more power to you. GIMP really is about on par with where Photosop was at version 4. That's not to say it's bad. Photoshop 4 was an amazing release, but a lot of the simplest tasks were cumbersome to accomplish. Sure, I can mask just about anything out with alpha channels, some patience and time, but now I have tools to HELP automate (not completely replace) some of these more mundane and time consuming tasks, so I can get my work done far more efficiently and recoup my investment in PS.
It seems to me the people who are most vocal about what needs to be changed in PS, the people who scream the most for it on Linux, are the ones who probably need the raw power of the application the least. Stick with GIMP. It's a good image editor. No competitor to Photoshop, but far more flexible than Paint.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
I smell the burning tinder of an approaching flame war, so let's get this straight.
GIMP does most things that Photoshop does, and does it fairly well. It does do a few things differently, and the cost of relearning is significant, so there is a high barrier to switching.
Having said that: There is one thing that GIMP really doesn't do that Photoshop does, and that is print. I don't mean "dump it to your colour postscript". I mean all of the stuff that you need to get your images faithfully reproduced on your offset printer as well as they are reproduced on your calibrated monitor. (Replace "offset printer" with whatever output device your printer/publisher is using.)
So in conclusion: The GIMP is not a toy. However, if you are working in print, then the GIMP isn't even close to being the right tool for your job.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:4, Insightful)
It should. The religion behind OSS seeks to destroy their business model by making them obsolete.
Re:This is not a troll: GIMP is hard for newbies (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is of course, 'professional' artists don't know how to code (on the whole), so they can hardly be the main developers.
Oddly enough, all professional programmers do know how to code (well, should), so can make useful code contributions to tools they use in their spare time, if they so wish.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:3, Insightful)
And how the hell does that work anyway? the file bzImage and the contents of
Re:Linux doesn't include Photoshop of Office. (Score:5, Insightful)
You obviously don't know who I am [mklinux.org] if you think I'm not "in the know". *rolls eyes*
Linux is an operating system, whether you like it or not. There's a generally accepted set of core pieces that are shared by pretty much all the usable distros that most people think of as being "Linux". Nobody uses the term "Linux" to refer to the Linux kernel. They call that the Linux kernel. I have never in a single conversation with anyone heard someone use the term "Linux" to refer to the kernel without adding the word "kernel" after it.
From a purely pedantic technological perspective, you are correct. However, language is defined based on how it is used, not based on how an academic says it should be used. As such, Linux is generally used to refer to the Linux kernel plus collectively your choice of Linux distro. See there? I called it a Linux distro. If it were not an operating system, I couldn't call it a LInux distro. I'd have to call it an Open Source OS Distro Based on Linux, or at best, a Linux-based distro. For that matter, you used the term, too.
That said, my primary OS hasn't been Linux-based for a while now, and to be fair, even it has a handful of pieces that my purist approach says should probably be add-on pieces (though it does provide the option to not install them, IIRC). It does not, however, provide a paint program....
Re:Yay! Photoshop troll thread. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that's the wrong question.
I think the right question is this: what percentage of businesses have Photoshop key to the work of either the business or at least one unit of the business, such that the lack of Photoshop on Linux would substantially increase the resistance of the business to considering Linux as a desktop platform (as they'd either have to [1] transition the Photoshop-dependent unit to alternative software or [2] maintain heterogenous desktop platforms.)
(Of course, making Wine support Photoshop better also means "making Wine do a better job of acting like Windows in general", which makes it incidentally more likely that arbitrary Windows software that the average user will be concerned about will run on Linux.)
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:5, Insightful)
>It should. The religion behind OSS seeks to destroy their business model by making them obsolete.
Which is why that approach to open source can never succeed. The open source movement needs developers and software companies to succeed, and as long as the religious fanatics in the movement keep up their talk of destroying commercial software development, the majority of developers are going to put their effort into proprietary software.
Open source can be good for business, but businesses and developers want to see a model that lets them use both closed and open source systems together so that they can continue to make a profit on their specialized proprietary systems while cutting cost by using open source systems for things like kernels and compilers that they don't want to write from scratch. When fanatics talk about open source like it is all or nothing, that scares off developers and makes them think more about burrying open source than supporting it.
Be sure that the open source movement is all about developers, and scaring them off by threatening to put them out of work is the last thing you want to do.
Re:We already have Photoshop! (Score:2, Insightful)
You cannot have more native applications if you don't have more users. But you cannot have more users if you don't have the applications they want. It's a vicious cycle. Wine has the potential to break that cycle by making 99% of the world's existing applications Linux-compatible. Improve one piece of software, get a hundred thousand applications Linux-compatible.
Then Windows and Native applications, commercial and open-source, can duke it out on a level playing field. Well... almost level, the native open-source Linux applications will be free (as in beer) and are likely to come pre-installed (e.g. Firefox, Open Office, etc). Does that remind you of something?
Re:This is not a troll: GIMP is hard for newbies (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, Photoshop is a very commonly pirated product nonetheless; I could bet none of my friends own a legit copy.
Maybe we should start using the system to our advantage, just like the GPL does... refuse to install pirated products, report every single instance of piracy we notice... and then offer people some of the free programs.
I wonder how many would choose to shell out the cash.
Companies that sell their software (or licences to use it, whatever) rely on piracy to get mindshare. That's why they turn a blind eye to casual piracy.
At the same time, they do want everyone to buy their software. Multiple copies, if in any way possible.
It's a paradox, really: those who sell software profit immensely from not profiting. Those who give it out free can only compete by making sure that the guys from the previous sentence actually turn a greater profit.
Therefore, the GPL helps proprietary software industry. Q.E.D. </tongueincheek>
Re:We already have Freedom! (Score:5, Insightful)
People who a few years ago were "achh! there is no decent graphical interface, it's pointless!" are now drooling using compiz-fusion... people saying "crap! there is no multimedia! it will never work!" now use vlc, mplayer, amarok, songbird, etc... (and gnash soon
You can spend energy today telling everyone how it will fail, how it will never interest anyone, but someday it might be ready and comfortable enough for you.. and then you might realize the true value of Freedom. (hint: it has no price.
Re:Forgive my ignorance... (Score:2, Insightful)
I would like to get that too for those few special cases when it's needed.
- Native CMYK
I'm good with current CMYK support, enough for offset printing.
- Better floating palette support for users who don't want to enable focus-follows-mouse.
Who need that? I have everything just like on photoshop, even better, i have more control of GUI than photoshop allows me to have.
What is last version of GIMP what you have tryed?
- Adjustment layers
Would do things little easier, it's currently possible to go "around" that. So not "must have" option for me.
- Free transform tool
I like how Gimp currently separates tools, but i think it wouldn't harm if there would be for photoshoppers same kind tool.
- Recordability of action scripts
This should be much easier to do, but possible.
- Better scripting language
2.4 brought python to gimp.
- Full support for all PSD files (e.g. supporting adjustment layers, for example)
I think this is #1 important thing if GIMP user want to work together with photoshop user.
- Human interface cleanup---organize menus more logically, make tools more visually distinguishable at a glance, etc.
Have you tryed 2.4 version? It has much better menu than Photoshop. But if you have already familiar with photoshop menus, any other applications menu structure is always "bad". I like GIMP menu structure way more than photoshops what does not always have a logic, but it's because Photoshop is not just for photographers, it's made for art and printing users too, and there are these typical terms what are different and workflow is different so photoshop is just somewhere "middle" of everything.
Oh well, Adobe admits it's GUI is not so usefull as it should be and next versions will bring better GUI and better menu structure.
Swooosh! (Score:1, Insightful)
How about the same group who got FilmGimp produced and for the same users? Big-name hollywood studios who are removing Windows because of licensing costs and need at the moment windows purely for photoshop?
That's a small market but a large fraction of the market for the full price version of PS CS3.
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