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The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

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Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#91

Post by breakfastduck »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #22

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

The issue is 95% of users dont use the features that adobe is so much better at. I've moved from PS to Pixelmator and there are even more moving from PS to Canva. Doesnt matter to most users that PS generative fill is better.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#92

Post by CWuestefeld »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #81
socalgal2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no one is insisting there are can only be one or two products per category. Rahter, at some point in your life, $120 a year is not that much. It's $10 a month, that's two coffees, A MONTH! I bought Affinity Photo at one point, when it was $50. Then I tried to use it for a work project where I needed to do a minor edit to 150 photos. I figured out how to do it but it's workflow was tedious. At 3 mins per photo it woul…

I disagree. For a long time, Adobe insisted it was the only product in the category: that's how we got here.

I'm not sure how what Adobe insists on is at all relevant.

Reality informs us that there have always been competitors in the field: GIMP, DarkTable, ACDSee, Luminar, and many others.

It's surely true that their existence has been pushing Adobe to improve. And the good news for everyone is that they have: Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are improved products now, and so are those other competitors.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#93

Post by W3zzy »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #22

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

$120 a year for professional use is dirt cheap. My daughter is a graphic design student and gets a free CC ride during her studies. If she would have to pay for the apps should would have a hard time.

What bothers me is that the school doesn't allow students using open source software. They're all locked in the closed ecosystem and keep their students in software jail too.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#94

Post by rolph »

ctoth wrote: post #58
nradov wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but students often have to spend more than $300 per semester (not year) just on textbooks.

Textbooks cost more, therefore what?

course materials packages, lab books, lecture slides, published in house by the prof/instructor/lecturer.

or, someone in the cohort copies and disseminates from textbook[s].

copyrightist would have to put an investigator, in the institution to break it up, but ive never heard of that beyond monitoring library usage of photocopiers.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#95

Post by CWuestefeld »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #79
CWuestefeld wrote: post #22

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

Have you vetted them? They are all the same. Lightroom imo has the worst raw converter algorithms used. At least for fuji still not using the right algorithms. Capture one uses the right algorithms. So does dcraw. In terms of the editing tooling they all can do the same things. They all have the same library management affordances. Ps has been feature complete in my eyes for over a decade might as well pirate it and…

Have you vetted them? They are all the same.

Obviously I haven't tried all competitors, but I have tried many over the years. Some of them have innovations, some of them are crap.

Lightroom imo has the worst raw converter algorithms used. At least for fuji still not using the right algorithms. Capture one uses the right algorithms.

I've seen this argued before. It's clear that they're different, but it's far from clear that LR's are wrong. Perhaps it's just a matter of taste and style, or perhaps I've learned to take photos with an informed understanding of what will result, but I still get photos that win awards, and that people pay money for, through LR.

They all have the same library management affordances.

They don't and if you wanted to argue on this set of features, it would probably be your strongest argument. Lightroom's library management is barely sufficient; some competitors have clearly surpassed them here.

But in photo editing, the field is NOT all the same. Some competitors offer a different approach allow the artist to think about their images in a different way, and that may lend itself to better results, or easier results, for certain styles (Luminar comes to mind here). But in other ways - notably Adobe's advances in "AI" masking (I think it's really "ML" masking) - LR is head-and-shoulders above the competition. These differences make it worth the money, at least for my skills and style.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#96

Post by ThunderSizzle »

socalgal2 wrote: post #75
II2II wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can afford it, that is wonderful. For those who either cannot afford it or who don't need its features, then be happy that the competition is stepping up. They get the software they need. You get the software you need. I've never really understood why people insist that there can be only one or two products per software category, particularly when the category has a large enough customer base to support multip…

no one is insisting there are can only be one or two products per category. Rahter, at some point in your life, $120 a year is not that much. It's $10 a month, that's two coffees, A MONTH! I bought Affinity Photo at one point, when it was $50. Then I tried to use it for a work project where I needed to do a minor edit to 150 photos. I figured out how to do it but it's workflow was tedious. At 3 mins per photo it woul…

I don't pay for $5 coffee. I make my coffee at home, from my own grind, with just some half and half. Sure, I splurged and paid for maybe a $100 grinder or something, but that is being used for years, meaning the cost per cup is abysmal.

It seems very odd we normalize coffee being $5.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#97

Post by GeekyBear »

newsclues wrote: post #84
matwood wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way back when the only real LR competitor was Aperture. I moved to LR when Apple discontinued Aperture, though I really wish they hadn't. I've tried all the competitors multiple times but keep coming back to LR for my DSLR usage.

Apple being an off and on competitor in the space was always strange. They failed to commit, and often let their tools languish, despite the following. Odd.

Apple moved into the space when Adobe's willingness to support the Mac faltered during the transition from classic MacOS to OSX.

Once Adobe finally committed to supporting the new platform, it wasn't as necessary anymore.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#98

Post by CWuestefeld »

ktallett wrote: post #50
CWuestefeld wrote: post #22

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

Whether you need masking or such level of tools is dependent on how you approach photography. You can change your method of taking photos to remove such a need for editing.

There's a kernel of truth here. But it's not true in the general case.

Others have responded about dynamic range and HDR, and that's one area where a particular feature set is necessary for certain kinds of photography.

Astrophotography and macrophotography both very nearly require focus-stacking abilities.

There's certainly a lot of photography you can do with just a camera, or with just a camera and very basic editing tools.

But having advanced tools opens up a whole world of possibilities. Those aren't all going to be things that everyone wants or needs to do. But there's a huge number of artists who will want or need some of them.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#99

Post by datadrivenangel »

nradov wrote: post #87
kjkjadksj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of pulitzer prize winners are straight out of a canon 5d jpegs. It’s about composition and using light well. Same as it has always been.

OK so just always do it right the first time and never make mistakes. Also, get lucky. Got it.

Being at the right place at the right time is more important than your equipment 80% of the time. Predict the composition and lighting and you don't need to do anywhere near as much editing.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#100

Post by petepete »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #63
CWuestefeld wrote: post #22

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

Agreed. Lightroom is still a great package. The alternatives are either way less powerful, hard to use (looking at darktable), or cost even more (like Capture One). The AI masking in Lightroom is fantastic. There is almost no need for Photoshop anymore.

Capture One might cost more, but it's a one off payment. I'm still happily using CO11 (8 or 9 years old?) and if it was good enough for professional use when it came out, it's more than enough for me now.
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