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Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

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Re: Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

#341

Post by bensyverson »

sph wrote: post #325
bensyverson wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask why? Specifically, why Photoshop and not Canva, or Figma, or Lightroom? I ask because Photoshop probably wouldn’t have a market if it was introduced in 2026. What would you be hoping to accomplish by recreating Photoshop?

There is nothing close to Photoshop (or the Affinity suite) that runs natively on Linux. Despite how niche that market is, one could make big bank if they could magically create a valid alternative out of thin air. I’d pay hundreds of dollars for it myself. I don’t even care about PSD compatibility. (Nope, Krita and GIMP are not good enough)

Okay, well there's a huge difference between Photoshop and Affinity, because Affinity includes an Illustrator and InDesign alternative as well.

What specifically do you need to do in Photoshop? Photo editing? Design? Illustration? It sounds like you have a concrete need if you're willing to part with hundreds of dollars. I've developed a number of graphics apps over the years, so my interest is not academic.

Re: Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

#342

Post by seemaze »

postexitus wrote: post #328
seemaze wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are the vibe coded Photoshops? Here is a good place to start: https://github.com/light-and-ray/awesome-alternative-uis-for... AI has obliviated both the need and the desire for discrete pixel manipulation outside of the existing professional disciplines. It has been replaced by the explosion of diffusion models with a direct human language --> pixel image loop.

Nobody who wanted to erase a tree or fix their smile paid for Photoshop anyway. and Photoshop does a a lor more than pixel manipulation. So, a moot point.

>So, a moot point.

That's exactly my point. Photoshop is the wrong bellwether with which to test the vibe coding value premise refuted by the author.

It's like asking where all the skyscrapers are when The Home Depot opens up in your neighborhood.

And as someone that's used photoshop professionally for decades, pixel manipulation is precisely what it does.

Re: Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

#343

Post by bensyverson »

techpression wrote: post #252
bensyverson wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask why? Specifically, why Photoshop and not Canva, or Figma, or Lightroom? I ask because Photoshop probably wouldn’t have a market if it was introduced in 2026. What would you be hoping to accomplish by recreating Photoshop?

Do you use Photoshop? The underlying engine which gives support for layers and smart objects is in itself such an amazing piece of tech that nobody seems to get even close to (and I’ve tried them all). The brush engine is fantastic, liquify and the general support for plugins, and heck, just the basic math behind the filters. Canva and Figma are layout tools, not for pixel editing. Recreating it would make it faster…

I'm not being argumentative; I was genuinely trying to understand why you would aim to recreate Photoshop in particular, because Photoshop includes such a huge range of functionality. If it's about recreating the brush engine, that's pretty achievable. I would be curious to learn why Krita is not enough though.

Context: I've developed multiple Photoshop file format parsers/writers and know Photoshop at a very deep level. And would never want to replicate the specific set of tradeoffs Adobe made in the 1980s.

Re: Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

#344

Post by bensyverson »

vatsachak wrote: post #307
bensyverson wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask why? Specifically, why Photoshop and not Canva, or Figma, or Lightroom? I ask because Photoshop probably wouldn’t have a market if it was introduced in 2026. What would you be hoping to accomplish by recreating Photoshop?

Sure. Where is the vibecoded Figma or Lightroom?

The vibecoded Figma is Google Stitch [0] and Pencil.dev [1] and many others. But that's not what I was asking; I was asking why PS in particular.

  [0]: https://stitch.withgoogle.com
  [1]: https://www.pencil.dev

Re: Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

#346

Post by bensyverson »

carlosjobim wrote: post #270
marking-time wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use case for less capable software is that it is cheaper. Why buy a mansion when all you need is a bedroom?

Because fully fledged software is dirt cheap already. Even Photoshop is only $20 per month. That is nothing to a professional who needs the tool. People who care about that kind of money will never pay any money at all for software, they will look for something for free.

The very real alternative now is: $0 to custom-code the one workflow you need, then $0 to fix it in four years when the dependencies break.

Don't get me wrong. If you need PS, you need PS. I have a neighbor who is a photo retoucher. She is not vibe coding the tool she spends 8+ hr/day in.

Re: Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

#347

Post by mitkebes »

jeroenhd wrote: post #233
joenot443 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> neither will the one off random app that only your household uses This reminds me a bit of the 2010s idea that every house would have a 3D printer to make one off repairs. Years later, this still seems far out of reach. If anything, it seems to have been settled that most non-technicals don't want a 3D printer. Vibe coded apps are great, but unless they're hitting an already open API, they're effectively hermetic.…

> would have a 3D printer to make one off repairs The problem with that is, like many people found out the hard way, that printing is the easy part and 3D CAD design is much harder. Many people now have 3D printers to print all kinds of useful tools, though, and there are businesses dedicated to one-off prints for the very occasional repair.

>printing is the easy part and 3D CAD design is much harder.

I'm curious if AI will make that part more accessible. You can ask Gemini to make you a parametric openSCAD model and it can do a pretty good job for most designs I've tried. Then just plug in your measurements, export the stl to your slicer, and print.

Re: Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

#348

Post by hgoel »

joenot443 wrote: post #211
netdevphoenix wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Anti-AI Devs/Techies have their heads in the sand or/and resorting to binary thinking when it comes to AI. No one is going to vibe code a Photoshop replacement just like no average smartphone user is going to take prize winning photographs with their phone or directly compete with professional photographs. What is going to happen is what happened to videographers and photographers and what is happening…

> neither will the one off random app that only your household uses This reminds me a bit of the 2010s idea that every house would have a 3D printer to make one off repairs. Years later, this still seems far out of reach. If anything, it seems to have been settled that most non-technicals don't want a 3D printer. Vibe coded apps are great, but unless they're hitting an already open API, they're effectively hermetic.…

It's really funny to be declaring the idea of 3d printers being ubiquitous as dead because they weren't a smartphone scale change in how the world works, while pretending that 3d printers aren't more common and accessible than ever.

Re: Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

#349

Post by macwhisperer »

at this point I trust software companies less and less..

being able to build the stack and create bespoke solutions with llms's is incredible..

idk why people get mad about vibe-coding. if ur little brother can make a Spotify clone with Claude in a day, shouldn't that mean that you as a dev should be able to create something 100x better that makes Spotify obsolete?

good ideas / feasible novel architecture design will be the only thing valuable..

Re: Where Are the Vibecoded Photoshops?

#350

Post by altmanaltman »

carlosjobim wrote: post #182
altmanaltman wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand Photoshop and its business if you think people are replacing it with ChatGPT or Gemini... the point of the article is that the whole "SaaS is dead and AI killed it" media narrative is bs propelled by the ai hype cycle.

1. Adobe sells Photoshop to design professionals. 2. Design professionals sell their work to businesses. But if businesses start using AI image editing instead of contracting professionals, then Adobe won't have a market of Photoshop buyers. Before you say that AI isn't good enough for the kind of business which pays for professional design, in one year it probably will be.

Its not about AI being good enough. Businesses outsource these things because they don't want to deal with it. That's the same now. The question is if designers are using AI or not. And guess who has the best AI stack for designers? Photoshop with Firefly.

This is why I insuniated that people here don't really understand photoshop as a business and customer, only see it as an app.

And yeah, it will be better in one year but so will Adobe's inbuilt AI tools.

We have not seen designers abandon Adobe for AI and i am willing to bet that wont be true, not even in this decade.

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