Time to switch to Linux 😁👍 (there are plenty of Adobe alternatives for it, although they don’t necessarily offer 100% replacements). I’m convinced that Adobe is one of the major reasons that people stick with windows. If worse comes to worse you can run windows on Linux using a virtual machine (and believe you me, if I can do it then you can too).
@hedge
I love Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher… They are a powerful Adobe replacement.Time to switch to Linux 😁👍 (there are plenty of Adobe alternatives for it,
Unfortunately this is not really true. I think people who say “just use GIMP” have only ever used PS to open and crop images. Inkscape is also nowhere near Illustrator, and Scribus feels more like QuarkXpress circa 1998 than a viable InDesign replacement.
I’m curious about what you think is missing from Inkscape. I use it and illustrator for design work all the time, and I’ve never run into issues with something missing from Inkscape.
For example you can’t adjust spacing between paragraphs at all. I think that’s because it’s unsupported in the SVG spec rather than an Inkscape issue, but still. Adding printer’s marks is also a total shitshow.
I will say however that Inkscape vs. Illustrator is the closest matchup of the three Adobe design apps. I like Inkscape and use it whenever I can to avoid firing up my Windows VM.
I have to agree. I’ve used a great many software packages over the years, but having been given an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription by my university, as several of Adobe’s programs are required for the degree I’m doing, I’ve been very annoyed to discover that the alternatives really aren’t on the same level. They work, sure. You can get the job done with them. But I am genuinely finding Photoshop to be significantly more powerful than everything else I’ve used. And it’s really annoying because I’ve never liked Adobe as a company.
This is just even more justification to use alternatives. If a mass migration to alternatives occurs, those apps will flourish and more dev time can be arranged via new devs interested in volunteering or outright being employed to meet demand.
Adobe is only so big because of their userbase. Migrate that userbase to a less cancerous set of applications and the userbase stands to benefit greatly.
That would probably work for hobbyists, but I have my doubts that professionals, who rely on Adobe products for their livelihood, could use unsuitable software for years in the hopes that volunteer devs will eventually add the features they need. In the other post about this topic, someone commented that GIMP’s devs are refusing to fix problems that are repelling new users, which is not going to encourage Adobe users to make the switch. GIMP still doesn’t have fully functioning, reliable non-destructive editing, which is 100% essential for anyone beholden to a boss or client who is going to change their minds a couple of times between now and next month.
Adobe is big because of their userbase, but their userbase is big because they make genuinely powerful software that fits the needs of professionals. The free options (and the cheap proprietary options) are not there yet, and probably never will be. Professionals aren’t going to switch until the features they need are there (because seriously, why would anyone use a tool for their job that doesn’t actually allow them to do their job properly?), but the features aren’t going to be added until the professionals switch over. Catch22.
use unsuitable software for years in the hopes that volunteer devs will eventually add the features they need.
There’s an opportunity here to unbundle Photoshop from itself.
Since my background is print, I can say for at least a few more weeks, there’s an audience interested in reading RAW, cropping, toning for both CMYK and RGB, scratch removal on negatives and cutouts. And literally nothing else.
And so now imagine anyone else. They don’t need CMYK. What the fuck is that, anyway?
That Photoshop has gained bloat is not something to emulate. FOSS shouldn’t try to replicate it so long as there’s a universal file format one can jump between apps to manipulate.
I don’t particularly want to jump between a dozen different apps to have access to every single tool and filter I use, especially when even when using a single file format (PSD), not every app treats layers in the same way. In a detailed digital paint, you can very easily have hundreds of layers, so it’s absolutely a deal-breaker if your layer groupings or group masks are destroyed when switching between apps.
I feel like Linux alternatives often falter by trying to offer as extensive of a feature set as the proprietary options. GIMP would be better if it simplified it’s menu’s and focused on offering a strong central feature set, then expand on that core over time to offer a powerful workflow of it’s own.
I noticed this especially with FreeCAD, which is trying to do like 12 things for some reason? Just offer intuitive parametric cad and focus on it. We don’t need OpenSCAD inside FreeCAD because OpenSCAD is already it’s own thing for example.
This happens when a small project has 12 developers each scratching their own itch in their own time, not a team of 120 developers getting paid to work on the same itch 8 hours a day.
In the case of FreeCAD they’re actually starting to reign in and focus more now, and there are more contributors.
