Dream bigger. Creative Cloud. (Exorbitant Prices.)

Lounge
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Hello Boris :stuck_out_tongue: I used to think like you, and then I learned a few things about computer users. To paraphrase the much regretted Steve Jobs, people do not want to learn how to use a computer, in fact they would rather not use a computer at all, people want to write a letter, listen to a song, watch a video, and in order to make more sales we need to provide a means to do that that is as friendly as possible and requires as small of a learning curb as possible.

This is he is ultimately right in his assessment of people at large. I am a computer guy, I love computers, I love being able to do interesting things with them (and graphics is one of them), and I also love the process of using my computer for that; but I must understand that there is a huge amount of people, and they are the majority, whether we like it or not, who are only artists, not computer people + artists, and they just want to make their art, in an intuitive environment.

Adobe understands that, so they aim to make Lightroom simple; hence the part about them applying slight dynamic range tweaking behind the scenes and other things we sometimes end up discussing in this forum - things that make images arguably prettier but inaccurate.

Adobe understands another thing as well; that beyond simplicity in use, most people get addicted to the convenience of what they are used to, and that can actually extend to stupidly great lengths. I mean I have a friend who chose Lightroom over RawTherapee because she prefers a dark theme …and by the time RawTherapee had one, she was already used to the layout in Lightroom and wouldn’t leave it. Point is, people get used to things and are not willing to let go and learn something new, and Adobe is willing to profit off of it. Adobe also reinforces that by having made a name for themselves, as what they like to call “industry standard” and people will go for the software for which most youtube tutorials are made for, and the software Universities teach. They want to make money off of their product, and they want as much of that as possible, and they apply as much manipulation as they can to make it so. We may not like it, but it is how competitive commerce goes; after all that is what it is, commerce …unlike projects like RawTherapee that are in it to produce good software rather than profit; while Adobe wants to produce a good profit, and if must be, they will also improve on their product, when means of enslaving people through legislation-backed subscription licenses aren’t enough :stuck_out_tongue:

Both of the two things you mention here are not by coincidence; they were both intended and what Adobe did, they did in order to make them happen; namely to create dependency to their own products and to create the illusion of inexistency of alternatives. It’s dirty, but very lucrative business.

Microsoft tried it before …back around 2004 when they hailed Linux as being the cancer of the software industry; while now many hail Microsoft and a good agent that supports Linux our of the goodness of their hearts. One of the biggest BSes I have heard that so many people seem to gladly swallow and it is unexplainable to me.

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@stefan.chirila
I don’t know if it is all about the ease of use. I know there are two things that attracted me to Adobe over alternative software.

  1. Performance
  2. Integration

Lightroom and Photoshop work really well together. Almost seamless in my experience.

As for performance I don’t know what their magic sauce is TBH but out of all the raw processors I have tried on my 4k iMac outside of On1 photo raw Lightroom is crazy smooth.

Rawtherapee on my machine is in usable unless I switch to the eye painful low resolution mode of my iMac. Darktable holds its own for a little bit but as you add modules it too becomes unusable for me.

On1 is a paid alternative performance is great but the Raw Processor engine is quite bad.

So on my end I continue to feel stuck on Adobe until open source plays nice with my particular Mac model.

I would love to help a project get there but I am no where near knowledgeable enough in development to do so. Raw editors are way over my programming head and have no clue how to learn all that.

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This is because LR is using a smaller, proxy image instead of the full sized image in the pipe.

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@paperdigits
Interesting I had no idea. Does this have any negative side effects on the processing of the raw data?
If so I may have to find a alternative way to work like a secondary screen or something to get around the fact that my built in display is 4k because it is painful waiting for preview updates.

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There hasn’t been a mac build in a while but have you tried Filmulator? It runs the same regardless of the screen resolution, processing a small image first and then the full size image to let you pan around and zoom smoothly.

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Based on anecdotes and observation, Adobe performance depends on having the right setup and luck, not just pricey hardware. There is a long history of performance being so bad that you can feel the pain by just reading the accounts. And it isn’t due to the lack of expertise on the part of the complainants. Over the years, many have sent in full solutions in hopes that the problems would be fixed, being so entrenched in the ecosystem that they could not help but hand them over to their overlords. [1]

The company simply doesn’t have the personnel to solve problems. PR and community managers aren’t helpful either, often stonewalling or being condescending to its customers. The thing is the customers won’t stop paying for the software, services and everything else in the ecosystem so why bother? Adobe grows and profits from the acquisition of IP and patents. That is what it has always done. Sure, they fund researchers, spec writers and other talent, but that is only a minor part of their strategy.

In general, performance and speed don’t come from optimizations but from blunt resource management. I am sure most people here know more about this subject than I do, so I will keep it simple. Adobe software claims all of your hard disk space and all of your RAM. At least in Photoshop, a copy is made every time you make changes or add content.

Since I have always used low end hardware, my disk space and RAM would run out of room very quickly, introducing one or all of these symptoms: slowdowns, app or OS instabilities. In recent versions, you could adjust the settings to improve stability but at the cost of performance and being able to undo. Last time I used Photoshop, I could only afford 3-4 undos! Again, it doesn’t matter what happens to the user because they are raking in the big bucks despite the grumbling and dissatisfaction.

PS [1] Imagine those efforts going toward FLOSS initiatives!

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Indeed, LR “feels” smooth until it doesn’t. And once it doesn’t, there isn’t much that can be done.

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@CarVac No I have never tried Filmulator. But I will take a look at it I love trying new software.

@afre That is all companies really not even just Adobe. The companies trying to make paid alternatives are really struggling as well. Luminar plagued by crippling performance and crashes while the developers just focus on “AI” processing features. On1 is pretty solid but their raw processor has some glaring issues when it comes to preserving integrity of the image they are trying to fix it but struggling. No clue about Capture One that is just too expensive imho.

When it comes down to it companies do minimal effort required to gain profits and Adobe just has to do even less due to the subs.

I would love to see more resources flow through FLOSS one day maybe I will have the knowledge to contribute something to the FLOSS community.

@paperdigits You don’t have to tell me I found the culprit of my save issues causing me to lose edits… Lightroom… Apparently it is causing my saves in Photoshop to hang up. Remove Lightroom from the equation and everything works fine :joy:

Once I find a way to get a Raw Processor to hold up on my Mac and Learn to do Luminosity masking in Gimp I will be set for the future.

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The operative words are struggling and trying. I like companies (and people) that struggle and try to do better.

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This is the moment where we, the users of free software, can have great influence. Unlike developers who spend their time improving the software, we have the time and knowledge to provide high quality content to demonstrate the ability and functionality of free software.

This is what I still miss a lot in our community!

For example, if I look at the GIMP tutorials on youtube, next to Davies Media Design and rarely an entry or two, there’s hardly anything that professional - and all other - photographers will like to try GIMP.

If you’re searching for GIMP, you’ll always get millions of the same tutorials about how to crop a picture or insert text into a picture. You immediately get the impression that this is a free toy for beginners who can’t afford anything better.

Rarely or never you see someone demonstrating how he uses different techniques with GIMP to refine his good shots into a high quality print version. I can’t remember that I’ve seen anything like this. And the sad thing is, it’s not that with GIMP you wouldn’t be able to.

On the contrary, if you abandon the doctrine of quick and easy solutions, and deal with the depth and complexity of digital photo processing, you will hardly miss what the “industry standard” tools like Photoshop and the like have to offer to achieve excellent results.

The best example of how well this can work is currently Blender. It’s not only the developers who did a good job or the Ton Rosenthal who is constantly on the move to promote Blender, but also a very strong and committed community around them. People like Blender Guru, Gleb Alexandrov, CG Geek, CG Cookie and others have been providing quality content for years showing that Blender is to be taken seriously.

We users of free image editing software can also do that without much effort.

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Hello everyone,

If you’re searching for GIMP, you’ll always get millions of the same tutorials about how to crop a picture or insert text into a picture.

I agree but it is probably because most casual users only need to crop a picture and insert a text or doing some very basic retouching… :slight_smile:
Joking aside, I do like this YouTube channel where the producer does utilize more techniques while working with Gimp [1]. To get back to this thread (Dream bigger…) in his last tutorial (“What’s New in GIMP 2.10.14”) he is happy about one of the last new features (1.25 minutes) which he clearly missed from Photoshop (option to “show the pixels outside the canvas area”).

I have never used Photoshop these past years, last version was 8, many years ago. GIMP is already good enough for my limited needs (together with G’MIC it becomes simply wonderful).

I am aware it may indeed sound obvious to you, as already pointed out before in the post, but one reason for still choosing Adobe softwares is Photoshop “pro features” not available in GIMP yet. Altough many features are in the works (e.g. CMYK) for the upcoming 3.0 release and there are extra plugins available.
Since many casual users wish to pass themselveas as “Pros” they choose Photoshop because it is the tool adopted by most photographers. They suppose that, since most photographers chose Photoshop, they can not be wrong by doing the same choice: besides they can show off this software skill with their friends as well… :slight_smile:

These past years all open source graphical applications has progressed quite a lot. Just think at Darktable with its upcoming wonderful 3.0 version. Having said that, in the past years, the difference between Adobe softwares and their open source software counterparts was big enough IMHO.
Since many users have learned Adobe softwares it is extremely difficult to suggest them to change their workflow only because the open source alternatives are free…

In these 2 posts [2] [3] by the project leader of Krita, B. Rempt expresed an opinion which is quite interesting IMHO. That is that young artists are chosing more and more Blender because it is “cool” and very powerful and not only because it is free.
I do wish it might be the same for other open source softwares: chosing them because they are cool and powerful and NOT only because they are free and you avoid using the “evil” Adobe softwares :slight_smile:

[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/DaViesMediaDesign/videos
[2] Back from the Blender Conference 2019 – Fading Memories
[3] Looking in or looking out? – Fading Memories

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The problem with most Youtube tutorials is that they at best make you a trained monkey (and this also applies to PS tutorials). They don’t explain, they just show, in the very limited context of one image (which is often carefully picked to work well with the demo).

What makes someone a good at image editing is:

  1. Figuring out the image problems
  2. Envisioning what could be a good image
  3. Knowing a corpus of individual techniques (with their applications domain and pitfalls…)
  4. Figuring out ways to string them together, to go from #1 to #2.
  • I have never seen any tutorial about #1
  • I have never seen any tutorial about #2 (from a technical point of view, let’s leave artistic sense out of the picture, so to speak)
  • Video tutorials may demo some of #3 in passing
  • Video tutorials never address #4 (at best they shows the result of the author’s #2 process for the image used).

Which is why a text+images tutorial is usually better, because you can spend time explaining the difficult points, you are not somehow constrained to equal explanation time with execution time.

And there are good text tutorials around, and not only by PatDavid :slight_smile:

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Hello @Ofnuts,

I did enjoy reading your last post since I agree quite a lot with all your points :slight_smile:

And there are good text tutorials around, and not only by PatDavid

Yeah. Pat David’s text tutorials were magnificent!

On the one hand, I suppose there are very few tutorials like them because it takes a LOT of expertise to produce them. On the other hand, since they are quite “technicals”, they may also be less alluring for casual users.
This may be a problem for YouTube video producers, for instance, because they are often aiming to get more likes and new subscribers :slight_smile:

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I think the biggest issue with YouTube tutorials is that people don’t like to watch videos that exceed around 10-15 mins. In such a short period of time it is hard to crunch in all the details.

On top of this everyone learns differently. For instance I find learning from videos like @s7habo videos darktable edit showcases much easier then say a feature break down type tutorial. I however am willing to read the software manual and experiment to fill in the gaps.

Maybe this is a way I can give back to the community once I sort out the software I can use on my machine. I am not one for videos but maybe I can do written tutorials.

Right now Gimp is a given just need a raw processor now.

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Hello @blj

Right now Gimp is a given just need a raw processor now.

Just out of personal curiosity…

Why do you think Gimp needs a Raw processor now?

What’s wrong with Darktable or Rawtherapee coupled together with GIMP, for instance?

With a software Raw processor (you name it) you can first appy some basic touch-up, export to TIFF (32 bit or whatever) and finish your previous work with GIMP.
At present, this would be the “similar workflow” of Adobe products: you start with Lightroom and you finish with Photoshop :slight_smile:

BWT, I do agree with your point about releasing video tutorials 10-15 minutes long, at most.
In my view, this is the “right” amount of time for not distracting and boring your audience.

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@Silvio_Grosso
I think you miss read no biggie. I don’t think Gimp needs a raw processor. I need a raw processor to use alongside Gimp.

Right now I do almost all edits in Photoshop but use Lightroom to handle basic raw corrections. Highlight/shadow recovery, lens corrections, white balance, exposure, occasionally a little denoise. Most of my work happens in Photoshop as a tif.

I love both RT and DT. I just need to find which plays nicest on my Mac. I don’t have the money for a new machine and both seem to have some issues with my 4k screen so I need to figure out how to resolve the hiccups my screen causes.

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See tht’s what I mean by people who want the work done and aren’t so much about the means of it. I had fallen in love with Open Source in 1999 and been refusing to let go of Linux since. Ditched Windows in 2005 …but i’m an extremist :stuck_out_tongue: haha

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No, you’re not. :wink:

I also left Windows in 2005 and swapped it for Ubuntu 5.10. After a short period of getting used to it, it was even much easier to maintain than Windows without having to have any special knowledge.

And I am neither a software developer nor a Linux freak. I use my computer for photography, graphic design, texts and a little bit of music production. And everything with Free Software!

Most people from my circle of friends have also switched and local non-commercial comunity radio where I work and where people make their own broadcasts runs completely on Ubuntu. Even children and teenagers have no problems using it:

DSC_5734_skaliert
DSC_5734_skaliert2000×1000 364 KB

The prevalent opinion that Linux is only for freaks and normal computer users can’t do their work with it has long been a thing of the past.

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@stefan.chirila
I love linux. My old machine was running Linux, however, after it imploded (liquid cooler sprung a leak and shorted out the whole machine) I did not have the money for a new build. My easiest option to get a Unixish machine was the iMac because I have a no interest for 1 year credit card for a electronics store but they only sell prebuilt and all the other options at the time were very underwhelming for the price and very un linux compatible with some troublesome chipsets.

I have thought about trying to put linux on my iMac not sure how that would go.

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Thanks for the encouragement! :slight_smile:

I do have a question about the radio broadcast station. I am myself into photography, graphic design and audio on Linux :stuck_out_tongue: though my audio is usually recorded, then mastered and listened to rather than broadcast. I was always curious about what software is employed to do the actual broadcasting for a radio.

I envision a scenario where you’d use some multi-track or multi-bus interface such as Ardour (which I use a lot) and have inputs coming in, mixed, monitored, and eventually outputted to some stereo bus that is then sent to either A: a program that handles webcasting (such as an Internet Radio; I’m thinking the old IceCast/ShoutCast) or B: an actual hardware radio transmitter that simply takes an audio stream and broadcasts it. Thing is I don’t know for sure and I find the idea fascinating.

As for the in-computer mixing, if you don’t use Ardour, I wonder what alternatives there are; though I would also not be surprised if you handled the sound mixing on an actual physical board, with the outputs going into the computer :stuck_out_tongue:

P.S.
I notice Audacity on the screen in your image; so perhaps it’s a physical board setup that just gets recorded onto computer and then broadcast? So not LIVE radio.