Courtesy to Twitter user XdanielArt (date of publication: 8 June 2024)

  • barsoap@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Countering Animator with Blender, that’s brutal. For at least some stuff Blender is also the better Illustrator.

  • MudMan@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

    See, my problem with these types of resources is if you have to list more than one thing per thing the landscape may not be there for a full replacement.

    That’s not a hard rule, I do think some of these are a better first choice, or a better-for-some applications first choice. I’m just often frustrated by the way these things are communicated.

    • lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      if you have to list more than one thing per thing the landscape may not be there for a full replacement

      And it would be even less if there had to be only one thing per thing.

      One of the strengths of the FOSS metacommunity is the variety in designs and results. Big Corpo abuses economies of scale and locks you in with a “one shoe fits all solution” because they under the table also chisel and file your feet; FOSS has (largely) no such restrictions so they can afford to try things and see what results and, more importantly, what evolves. Not everything has to be a copy of corporate, and we shouldn’t act as if it had to be.

      • MudMan@fedia.io
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        1 month ago

        Woof, I don’t know if I can pick up what you’re putting down.

        Particularly for professional use nobody is trying to have fun and exciting new solutions for UI or functionality every week. Industry standards get to be industry standards for a reason. It’s useful to be able to just go hire someone that knows how to work on the software platform you’re working and your clients are working and your providers are working.

        For casual home use, go nuts, I don’t mind. And there is certainly room for multiple things to remain relevant at once, especially if the concepts are close enough that crossing over is trivial or easy.

        But I don’t need to edit video in seven different pieces of software, I need to get the video edited. And if I need three people editing video I need them all to be editing video in the same thing, or at least in things that are perfectly interoperable. Standards aren’t a corporate imposition, even if corporations benefit greatly from lobbying themselves into becoming the standard.

        • The_v@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Ehh… As somebody who is old enough to remember before the standardization and consolidation of software, I disagree with you.

          A workforce that are trained in more software options makes them more valuable to the company. It pushes for constant innovation. It’s not efficient, but innovative processes almost never are. It also increases the difficulty to replacing experienced employees.

          The widespread adoption of Photoshop as the standard has depressed wages and increased job insecurity. I also suspect that the trend of simplification in designs is the direct result of this. Mediocre talented designers are selling boring easy to create designs to artistically blind CEO’s.

          • MudMan@fedia.io
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            1 month ago

            I mean… cool, but by that logic you want to design all your graphic designers from painters and artists to do posters with brushes again.

            That’s just not practical, and “it’s not efficient, but” is a massive dealbreaker for a whole lot of applications. Artisanal product has a premium and is very cool and if you can get away with making a living out of it I find that amazing.

            But sometimes somebody just needs a poster made or a shop logo or a trash bag removed from their wedding picture background. Industrial work at pace is important and the baseline for a work area.

            I’m also not sure what time was before the standardization and consolidation of software. Word replaced Wordperfect. Photoshop replaced the Corel Suite. Premiere replaced (or at least displaced) Avid. It’s not like there weren’t industry standards before.

            Some companies still use proprietary stuff and train people on their in-house software, it’s doable. It’s just easier for most of the pack working with multiple clients and vendors to be using the most popular thing at any given time.

        • orclev@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          File format standards certainly, and OSS generally embraces those (at least if they’re non-proprietary), but UI doesn’t have to be standardized. On the other hand though not everything needs to be a unique snowflake. UIs should take the things that work well and experiment with what doesn’t.

          Lets also not pretend that proprietary apps don’t screw around with UI design just as much. I can’t count how many times now Microsoft has redesigned the UI of something that was perfectly fine and didn’t need redesigning only to end up making it worse.

          • MudMan@fedia.io
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            1 month ago

            Sure, I can agree with that.

            The problem with OSS tends to be that engineers are more willing to work on it than UX designers and it’s quite rare for them to have the lead on that area. Forget convention, just on quality. There are exceptions (hey Blender!), but not many.

            More often than not what you get is some other paid upstart hit some big innovation and then that propagates and sometimes it gets to open source alternatives before it does to fossilized, standardized professional software.

            I do think there’s some value in having UX that makes it easier to jump back and forth, though. Especially if your positioning is “I’m like this paid thing, but free”. The easier you make it for the pros to pick up and play the easier you can carve some of the market and the more opportunities you give to newcomers learning on the free tool to migrate to the paid tool if the market demands it.

            • orclev@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              I think part of the problem is that “good” UX isn’t a single thing but a continuum. It’s very dependent on the skill level of the user. Often what makes a good UX for a newbie is a bad UX for a power user and vice versa. OSS tends to attract power users and particularly the ones working on some software in a particular area tend to be domain experts. That in turn can lead to designs optimized for very advanced use cases that end up being frustratingly opaque to an “average” user or even worse a newbie.

              Blender is an excellent example of this. It’s regarded as one of the best 3D programs out there but it’s far from a simple piece of software to pick up. What saves it is that all the commercial alternatives are just as obtuse as it is and so the ground level expectation is that it’s going to be complicated.

              Likewise many OSS and Linux tools expect or even require CLI usage which while great for power users putting together scripts and pipelines are often opaque and unintuitive to someone who is still learning the domain.

              This focus on power users leads to turning newbies away and funneling them towards the commercial offerings where they then get used to their quirks and limitations of those apps so that when they do eventually become power users the quirks and limitations of the OSS alternatives feel strange and off-putting to them.

    • Novocirab@feddit.orgOP
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      1 month ago

      Well, on the other hand, it’s by far not always the case that the program one person is currently using is already the best choice for their use case. For example, in the process of degoogling, I’ve begun using a lot of programs that are actually better for me than the ones I previously used (e.g. Notesnook > Google notes). Of course there’s friction/effort involved in finding the best replacement, but there’s just no way around that if the goal is to get away from the defacto standards.

      • MudMan@fedia.io
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        1 month ago

        Sure. And I love finding better solutions, particularly when they’re for a thing I do for my own sake.

        But if you’re a newspaper that is ingesting hundreds or thousands of pictures a day from dozens of photographers and having half a dozen people editing all that input into a database that a dozen composers and web editors are using at the same time sometimes janky but universally familiar is a lot more valuable than “better at this thing on interesting ways”.

        It doesn’t mean you can’t displace a clunky, comfortable king of the hill. Adobe itself used to be pretty good at doing just that. Premiere used to be the shitty alternative kids used because it was easy to pirate before it became THE editing software for online video. The new batch of kids are probably defaulting to Resolve these days, so that one feels wobbly. Other times you just create a new function that didn’t exist and grow into space previously occupied by adjacent software, Canva-style.

        But if you see a piece of industry-standard software with a list of twenty alternatives broken down by application, skill level or subsets of downsides the industry standard is probably not about to lose their spot in favor of any of those anytime soon.

  • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    As much as I am loath to admit it, nothing comes close to feature parity with Photoshop. All the others are pretty replaceable, but if you are a professional who depends on a lot of the really advanced features you’re going to have a hard time replacing it. GiMP isn’t even close tbh. I admire the work they’re doing but they are a decade behind PS.

    Good news is that is not most people.

    • Ziglin (it/they)@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I keep hearing this but having never really used Photoshop myself. What are all the missing features?

      I’m not a professional but there hasn’t been anything that I wanted to do in GIMP that I couldn’t do because of its limitations and with GIMP 3.0 having non destructive editing I have no complaints other than the sometimes janky UI.

      • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        If you’re not a professional than no it is highly unlikely you will run up against these issues. I was pretty clear about this in the many other comment chains I was involved in.

        Still, millions of professionals use Photoshop, so that means there are millions of people that cannot use these alternatives.

    • Nyticus@kbin.melroy.org
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      1 month ago

      But that’s what makes GIMP special. There’s some users who feel that Photoshop has stopped being relevant for some uses among those users. GIMP may be a decade behind but it could be swimming in what people remembered best about Photoshop before its enshittification and retains that kind of nature.

      • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        If you’re getting down and dirty with color correction, object removal/replacement, and just depend on a lot of plug-in’s for your sauce, Affinity is lacking. Most people who use photoshop, however, do not need all that. Affinity is a solid program that definitely works for prosumers and below, as well as some professionals (depending on use case).

        And I get it’s not popular to talk about but Adobe has fully embraced AI and some of their tools are legit. I don’t use it, but some folks really like firefly.

  • VodkaSolution @feddit.it
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    1 month ago

    Sorry, there just are no alternatives to Photoshop, with Affinity Photo being the closest replacement nowadays, to the classical PS functions. Affinity Designer feels the same for Illustrator.

    • orclev@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      What about Krita? Not sure exactly what Adobe product it would be an alternative for though. I know a lot of what people use it for used to be done with Photoshop, but I think Photoshops core demographic is a slightly different use case. Also Inkscape as an Illustrator alternative?

      • snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        For drawing/painting yeah, krita is comparable, especially if you set the presets to be similar to ps. I haven’t tried krita with photo editing much though

    • GroteStreet 🦘@aussie.zone
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      1 month ago

      A few years back Audacity got acquired by a commercial entity. They then proceeded to cause some controversy regarding user privacy.

      I think they walked back some of them, and changed the installer to allow disabling the data collection; but by that time, a few forks have started popping up. Tenacity seems to be what many people eventually settle on.

      • Ickabod Kobain@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        God out of all the software I’ve used over the years, to see Audacity go to hell like that is sad. I was not expecting that. And to think once upon a time, i replaced a little program called Cooledit Pro (which was bought by Adobe if I recall), with Audacity.

      • lime!@feddit.nu
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        1 month ago

        the trademark got bought. it’s still FLOSS, and they pledged to keep it that way, for whatever that’s worth. code can’t be retroactively un-gpled, so if they did decide to close it down they couldn’t just take it offline, only do new development in private. the big fishy thing was that they added a CLA to their repo, which only affects developers. as an end-user you’re fine.

        also, the “crap” was a draft proposal of opt-in telemetry, which was subsequently scrapped. the company in question is based in the EU, anyway, so they would have to abide by the gdpr for any collected information.

        the hackaday series on this is probably the best summary.

    • IcyToes@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Enshitification by owners of Audacity including telemetry. They eventually backed down, but that was after Tenacity forked off it and people started using and improving it.

        • Alk@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          I can’t press the record button without it crashing and it fails to see half of my audio inputs, so I’d say not great.

          • Aphelion@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            The sad reality of audio software has been that usually the paid commercial software is better and more reliable. I’ve used Audacity alot for work, and it gets it the job done, but tools like iZotope RX are light years beyond in features and UI/UX.

          • Ulrich@feddit.org
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            1 month ago

            Same. Although I only use it for very basic things. Honestly I mostly have switched to Davinci’s Fairlight, which is built into Resolve.

  • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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    1 month ago

    For PDF “your browser” should be the default recommendation. Firefox allows to add text and images now. Gimp can also be used to edit PDF.

    • stebo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      The main reason “your browser” isn’t enough for me is that it doesn’t allow you to add and edit bookmarks, which I use a lot to navigate large pdfs quickly.

      Second is that it’s nice to keep your pdf tabs separated from your browser tabs, and a pdf reader can remember your tabs and exactly which page you were on etc.

      So that’s why I’m using PDF-Xchange, I downloaded it for free idk why it says purchase.

    • Novocirab@feddit.orgOP
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      1 month ago

      Browser is nice. On Linux though, Okular is superb (except for its occasional problems with forms).

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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        1 month ago

        What does Okular do that Firefox doesn’t? I’ve used it on some distros because it was the default but I don’t know the advantage compared to using my existing browser.

    • ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Xodo and Xchange are both feature rich, lightweight, and easy to use programs. Browser view is fine for a peek but quickly feels clunky.

    • kautau@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Yeah the PDF category is weird / lacking. LibreOffice Draw and Inkscape can both edit PDFs and are missing as well. Xodo looks like some mobile app only or SaaS product.

      Edit: Xodo does have a free desktop PDF reader but seems like they’re certainly focused on selling their subscription based PDF editor

    • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Isn’t it dangerous now that PDFs can run javascript? (Who had that idiotic idea, anyway?)

  • peregrin5@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    The Affinity Suite is so worth it. Pay a single time and get all the apps on all major OSes.

  • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 month ago

    I’m no layout expert, but I did do some desktop publishing about 15 years ago 10 min in Scribus had me tearing my hair out. Installed InDesign and, while it’s still not easy to catch up on the modern capabilities, it was worlds ahead.

    GIMP is just fine for casuals. It’s not close for professionals.

    Truthfully I think that one major issue with open source programs that don’t have corporate involvement is that people who are great at code don’t always have the same skill in UI/UX. However, with support and a larger community, great things can happen. The barrier is getting that adoption level. If more people casually use the product and contribute financially or in code, it will help tremendously.

    • nocturne@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      I used to do layouts for children’s books back around 2010. The company used pagemaker still. I tried scribus, and the books I did manage to finish produced pdfs not usable by the print shop. I ended up buying a copy of CS5.

      Now I use affinity suite, I am still learning it all.

  • rhabarba@feddit.org
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    1 month ago

    Honestly, GIMP is not a good alternative to Photoshop. I know, “it’s free” is enough for many people, but it … just isn’t.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      My go-to PS app:

      https://www.photopea.com/

      All online, same controls, hell, same icons. I’m a little stunned that Adobe hasn’t sued them into oblivion.

      You can pay to drop the ads, but I’m not really seeing much end user benefit otherwise. Not seeing ads ATM, maybe I blocked 'em.

    • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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      1 month ago

      Yeah I really like what they’re doing and I applaud their efforts, but they are a solid decade behind PS when it comes to feature parity.

    • symbolic@infosec.pub
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      1 month ago

      The same with Lightroom sadly. The open source alternatives are either too buggy or have UX designed by very “opinionated” people, making them painful and frustrating to use. I currently want to get rid of Lightroom but can’t.

    • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      With GIMP 3.0 it’s a bit better at least, they’ve finally added non-destructive editing:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfaq-Cm1ZkA

      Full changelog here:
      https://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-3.0.html

      I’d dare say that unless you’ve already learnt Photoshop (and have to unlearn it) then Darktable+GIMP works fine for home photo editing.
      If you’re used to Photoshop and your skills with it is what puts bread on the table… then I completely understand not switching tools.

      • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        Yeah but it should tell you something that they just figured out non-destructive editing by 2025. Love the team, want to see it succeed, but it’s not PS at all.

        • Rose@slrpnk.net
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          GIMP didn’t “just figure out non-destructive editing by 2025”. You’re talking as if it was something that the GIMP development team just decided to randomly add recently, after previously ignoring user demands.

          The foundation for that functionality (GEGL) has been in development for ages and was also used for some functionality in 2.6 for a long time. The reason why it took this long is that it’s a pretty fundamental change to how the app works. Also, that meshed with other upcoming changes at the time. Also, small development team.

          • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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            1 month ago

            I have said several times I have gimp and support them. I didn’t think they just discovered it - I’m saying the fact that in 2025 they just implemented it is indicative of why I say they’re behind.

            They do good work. Yes they’re a small team. It doesn’t change the fact that the software has limitations.

            The question isn’t “are they working hard?” or “are they doing a lot for what they are/their size?” It’s “how does it stack against PS?” And of course they can’t hang with the billion dollar international company with an army of programmers.

        • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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          1 month ago

          My understanding is that a lot of tech debt has been removed with the release of 3.0 and I’m hopeful it will make future updates simpler and faster. :)

          • trunklz29@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            I want to make GIMP work for me but it’s the small things like trying to select a layer and move it with the arrow keys but the arrow keys instead are incessantly switching between layers for some reason? I find the fussiness of layer selection among other stacked layers in your canvas frustrating also.

            I wish there was a plugin that made everything work exactly like Photoshop, made all keyboard shortcuts Photoshop user friendly, added content aware fill, etc…if these issues would be fixed then I’d use it more often. (I found and tried to install PhotoGimp for my Gimp install on my Mac but alas it didn’t work…recommendations?)

      • doxxx@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        As somebody who has been trying to decided which of the RAW photo editors to use, I can tell you that Darktable has a steep learning curve over Lightroom. The UI is incredibly dense and the names of sliders don’t make sense unless you’re an image science expert.

        • jwiggler@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          Darktable is a godsend to me for converting film negatives.But I pretty much only use image conversion, RGB curve, then fidget with the exposure and RGB sliders in negadoctor a little more then I’m done. No idea how to do anything else.

        • TheFonz@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Been usin DT for close to a year now. I agree the learning curve is a little steeper than light room but once you get it, everything clicks into place. I can’t believe how powerful this program is and it’s free. It’s unbelievable

        • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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          1 month ago

          I’ll take your word for it, I’ve never used Lightroom.

          Whenever I played around with Darktable it seems finding a tutorial to get the effect I wanted was just a minute of searching away, and there’s a ton of beginner tutorials available too.
          https://www.darktable.org/2024/12/howto-in-5.0/

          But then I was the kid that rtfm the game manual on my way home from the store and love dense UIs as an adult. :)

    • Tonuka@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      I love love love GIMP!!!

      But yeah it’s not a PS alternative, and tbh that’s not really what it’s supposed to be or what its developers want out of it. it’s different

        • huppakee@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          You could give Photopea a try, if you’re looking for a free (as supported) alternatives, it has all core functions and a interface that looks very familiar. No installation required so you can easily test it, and use it in any browser (not sure how well it works without mouse and keyboard or low end devices though).

          If you want more than core functionality I don’t think there is a (legally) free option out there.