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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Apple

Photoshop for OS X 398

Posted by michael from the brighter-colors-and-whiter-whites dept.
MolGOLD writes: "Well, finally OS X users are getting their wish: Adobe has finally made good on their promise to bring native OS X support to their graphical applications. C|Net is running a story on the upcoming version of Photoshop, which will feature native OS X support. Now that Photoshop 7 will run natively under OS X, will we see companies like Macromedia (who also promised native OS X support) hurry along to follow suit?"
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Photoshop for OS X

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  • Killer App! (Score:2, Funny)

    by SJ ( 13711 )
    Wooo Hooo!!! Now I can write PHP scripts and colour-correct my CMYK pRon on the same machine! YAY for multitasking!

  • Big day for Apple (Score:2, Informative)

    by ciryon ( 218518 )
    I pretty sure they'll sell quite some more OS X packages now. I know many people have been waiting to upgrade from 9.x and Photoshop has been the main reason.

    Ciryon
    • " pretty sure they'll sell quite some more OS X packages now. I know many people have been waiting to upgrade from 9.x and Photoshop has been the main reason."

      Probably because their primary user base continues to be artists and publishers, which is a bit disturbing. PC users don't upgrade their OS's every time one particular app gets upgraded (although it helps). I've seen users run Office XP on first editions of Windows 98.

      • Re:Big day for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Shadowlion ( 18254 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @10:27AM (#3060455) Homepage
        PC users don't upgrade their OS's every time one particular app gets upgraded (although it helps).

        To be fair, you're comparing apples and oranges. The last time the PC world saw such a tremendous shift in the capabilities of the base operating system was August 1995, when Windows 95 was released. After that, it's been incremenetal upgrades to the OS.

        In late 1995, quite a lot of people were upgrading their applications (at least, the ones from MS) in order to take advantage of what Windows 95 offered. In this case, the particulars may be different, but the essence is the same: a lot of people want to upgrade their software to take advantage of what Mac OS X brings them.

      • Re:Big day for Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

        by dbrutus ( 71639 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @12:53PM (#3060760) Homepage
        Actually, artists who are heavily using Photoshop buy machines frequently to take advantage of better hardware speeds. It's just that they've been taking their machines and telling them to boot into OS 9 instead of OS X.

        This holds back adoption of OS X because there's no compelling reason to invest in cocoa for such a small base and even carbon can be put off until you start getting requests for it. Well, now all those artists are going to start swapping over and that's going to make it easier to shift the programmers as well.

        Upping the OS X adoption rate and moving forward with their competitive strategy is important for Apple because it provides unique abilities that you don't get on Windows boxen (like system wide spell checking for all Cocoa apps). It's going to be nice to be able to have functionality bought once and spread throughout your application irregardless of vendor. Apple wants us to get to that nice world fast because *that's* going to get a lot more boxes sold.

        Remember, Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. They like OS X primarily because it's a driver of their hardware sales, and only secondarily because of the money they get directly from it.

        They need to sell more boxes because if they get to a magic point, one very clear advantage will appear, PPC chips are smaller and cheaper to produce at like volumes. At that point, Macs will not only become the easier to use alternative, they will become the cheaper alternative as well.

        • Re:Big day for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

          by piecewise ( 169377 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @01:12PM (#3060821) Journal
          Apple is absolutely a software company. iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, iPhoto, AppleWorks.

          All *very* important to Apple's strategy. Without Apple's groundbreaking software, the hardware sales would be hurt quite a bit.

          My neighbors bought iMacs for the house. They don't care about Photoshop. What sold them was the idea of iMovie and iTunes. That's what sells a ton of people.

          Apple's a 60/40 hardware-software company, I'd say.
          • Yes, the main point of the excellent Apple software is to generate more hardware sales. This is of course Apple's biggest source of revenue. They are a hardware company because they get most of their revenue from new machine sales, but they are also a software company because those nice new machines would be nothing without the excellent Apple software.
            Apple makes great hardware, then develops software which encourages people to go out and get that hardware. I think this is a win-win situation. Apple is motivated to make top of the line software, much of which they release for free... and we are motivated to buy new machines. For some people it is still a better idea to stick with their old trusty machines they have had a few years, but for those of us that are interested in burning our own movies and such, Apple makes it worth it to be a customer
          • "My neighbors bought iMacs for the house. They don't care about Photoshop. What sold them was the idea of iMovie and iTunes. That's what sells a ton of people."

            Actually, I know certain average users who won't buy Apple machines today because they think they're primarily for video editing, something they're simply not interested in. Most users still (and a few years ago, when the iMac became a hit) want decent Internet. I know, this flies in the face of most internet appliance sales, but the predominant thing I hear is "I want to do word processing, a few games, and get on the net".

          • What Apple has that the PC world does not is holistic system design.

            Since they produce the hardware, OS and key applications they have the ability to provide a well thought out user experience.

            Slowly people are beginning to understand that this approach makes a lot of sense.

            Apple is like SUN or SGI only they don't target big systems. They do small ones. Machines sold by all three of these companies have value long after they should when performing tasks the machines were designed for. Why?

            Because the machine was designed to get the job done right!

            PC machines are general purpose. This was an advantage earlier because it was cheaper. Now that more of the high end functionality is cheaper, Apple can come in and make a very nice machine at a price most people can afford.

            So really they are a systems company. Their value is in the whole solution, not the cheap combining of parts.

          • Re:Big day for Apple (Score:5, Informative)

            by overunderunderdone ( 521462 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @07:33PM (#3062551)
            Apple is absolutely a software company. iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, iPhoto, AppleWorks...

            Apple's a 60/40 hardware-software company, I'd say.

            In terms of money its more like 91/9 hardware-software (At least for this last quarter - $114 Million software revenue; $1.261 Billion hardware revenue) In terms of effort you may be right but that 40% effot in software is done to drive that 90% in hardware revenue.

            Most of the software is given away for free with a hardware purchase. Even the software they sell is part of a strategy to sell hardware. Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, etc are intended to be "Killer Apps" that drive hardware sales in a particular niche market. The 9% of revenues is just a nice bonus. The only software that doesn't fit this bill (though it used to) is Filemaker, which for that reason is not part of Apple but was spun off as a subsidiary.
      • Yeah, PC users only upgrade their OS when somebody discovers a new security "feature" and a new SP comes out to fix it, or when Linus made a boo-boo and a new Kernel gets released to fix it. They don't wait for an app to actually use the new features of that new OS.
    • I pretty sure they'll sell quite some more OS X packages now. I know many people have been waiting to upgrade from 9.x and Photoshop has been the main reason.
      Why would that be? OS X can run MacOS 9.x programs as well as MacOS 9.x - it just loads the classic inviroment like OS/2 loaded the windows 3.x program manager to run windows software. It's a bit slow to start but otherwise it works like a charm...

      • Re:Big day for Apple (Score:2, Insightful)

        by rizzy ( 24400 )
        because most mac users *hate* that "slow start".

        the thought process is basically "why would i run photoshop in os x under emulation [ yes, that's the mindset] when i can run it natively under os 9?".
    • PS on OSX is certainly a major reason, but there a few "critical" apps left to go. The ones I actually need before I can make the leap:

      Dreamweaver UltraDev
      Flash
      Director

  • What OS? I dodn't catch it... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @09:32AM (#3060350)
    Photoshop for OS X
    [OS X (Apple)] Posted by michael on Sun February 24, 06:21 AM
    from the brighter-colors-and-whiter-whites dept.
    MolGOLD writes: "Well, finally OS X users are getting their wish: Adobe has finally made good on their promise to bring native OS X support to their graphical applications. C|Net is running a story on the upcoming version of Photoshop, which will feature native OS X support. Now that Photoshop 7 will run natively under OS X, will we see companies like Macromedia (who also promised native OS X support) hurry along to follow suit?"
  • just b/c it's ported to os x, doesn't mean you can automatically port it to linux, or any other variant. photoshop 7 will be run on top of aqua, which in turn runs on top of darwin, among other things. apple has a great explination on their http://www.apple.com/macosx/technologies/ [apple.com] os x site. in neat aquazied-graphics even.

    porting photoshop 7 to linux/KDE/ect would be about as easy as porting age of empires w/o wine. did i miss anything? i hope that clears up alot of porting questions

  • It's a great application (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've played with it at work for about 15 minutes, they beta test, and it's easily as good as inn OS 9. They get an A.

  • other neat features (Score:3, Funny)

    by mashy ( 135839 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @09:46AM (#3060379)

    besides being OS X native, photoshop 7's text engine is gonna have spell check! whoo hoo!


    <offtopic> just love the aqua-like slashdot logo on apple.slashdot.org</offtopic>

  • ...and there was much rejoicing. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by solios ( 53048 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @09:47AM (#3060382) Homepage
    I use computers for one thing only: content creation. This includes Photoshop, After Effects, Dreamweaver, Fireworks... essentially, media creation and manipulation. I've tried every toy I can get my hands on, and have come to the conclusion that what works best for me is the Adobe and Macromedia suites on a Macintosh.

    UNIX/Linux/BSD is neato, but I failed math, suck at logic, and can't grep to save my life. I'd like to play around with it and learn it, but I have no real reason to- and my experience with Free Software has been pretty nasty- I bitch about nonexistant intallers, suck-ass window managers, poor hardware support, and I'm told "FIX IT YOURSELF!"... and as a non programmer, I'd rather stick with something that already works for me to begin with.

    Apple has brought UNIX to the desktop. Now I can run all of my happy fun day to day tasks and learn the bash (well, ZSH), discover the joys of suing to root and doing a kill 0 to see what happens, and generally have the best of both worlds. I see this as being rather relevant, really- if the company known for making "idiot friendly" machines can make UNIX useable for an idiot (or those of us that know a few lines of HTML, Lingo and BASIC)...and the companies that support that company port their apps.... then what the hell is keeping the rest of the world from following suit? Hmm?

    Hell. With OS X, I can run Apache, X-11 apps, Gimp, Photoshop, Maya, Combustion, Quake.... dear gods, it can do absolutely EVERYTHING I NEED. I only need to run ONE OS for all of my art geek and computer geek needs. Hot damn. THAT is relevant.
    • I think your point is valid. And as you can see, the problem is not Unix itself but something really deeper.

      Companies, in general, want NOT to release their source code.

      Companies do like people that are willing to PAY for software (as in advanced cash).

      Desktop users want computers where programs INSTALL easily.

      Desktop users want computers where hardware configuration is TRIVIAL

      And that's why OSX is perfect for you. It addresses your needs. Of course, it doesn't address the need of people that need freedom and flexibility for EVERYTHING that runs under their computers. I don't use Linux because GIMP is better than Photoshop, i use it because GIMP has what i need and i know that GIMP will eventually beat Photoshop.

      In some way, i think i use Linux because i feel i'm on the right side. Microsoft used my money to lock me into their OS and after doing that, all my money started funding them so they could lock me into more of their stuff (like Office). I don't like that and many companies are starting to feel this way too.

      Note: this is only my opinion. Please disregard it completelly if you don't agree. It's ok and i understand it.

      • Re:...and there was much rejoicing. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Ryan Amos ( 16972 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @07:14PM (#3062466)
        Sorry, this is probably a bit offtopic.. but it really irks me how people compare GIMP and Photoshop. GIMP is a cool program, don't get me wrong, but if you're doing any sort of serious image manipulation, it's not even close to Photoshop. There's a reason that Photoshop is the only program that anyone professionally considers for graphics manipulation.

        Sure, GIMP is about as good as Photoshop 3.0. But keep in mind that Photoshop 3.0 was released about 7 or 8 years ago. GIMP is great if you're just going to stick with web graphics, but if you ever have to do any print quality stuff, you'll see why the Adobe line of software is so popular. Where Photoshop really starts to kick ass is with large files (>200 MB, yes, this size files are common, many people work with them on a daily basis.) GIMP would slow to an unusable crawl just trying to render the 15 or so layers, but Photoshop is so highly optimized that it doesn't even flinch. In fact, the main speed bottleneck in Photoshop is the hard drive, not the program. Photoshop is one of the few expensive pieces of software that I consider worth the price.

        The moral of this story is that while yes, GIMP is sufficient for people's needs (read: web site graphics, basic file resizing type things, etc,) it's not in the same ballpark as Photoshop. It's not even playing the same game, and it's ludicrous to say that "GIMP will eventually beat Photoshop." If you think that, you've never really used Photoshop.
    • Now I can run all of my happy fun day to day tasks and learn the bash (well, ZSH),
      If you prefer to use the bash shell (as I do) in OSX point your browser here [mneptok.com].

      mr.

    • Posts like this REALLY make me want OS X. And i would get it and use it!

      That is... if I didn't have to pay for their hardware.

  • More in-depth view at MacCentral (Score:5, Informative)

    by JimRay ( 6620 ) <jimray@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Sunday February 24, 2002 @10:08AM (#3060414) Homepage
    MacCentral [macworld.com] is running a much more in-depth article [macworld.com], complete with screenshots you can actually see. Also included are a hands-on review and some intelligent commentary missing from the very PC-centric C|Net.

  • Macromedia & OSX (Score:5, Informative)

    by Brento ( 26177 ) <brento.brentozar@com> on Sunday February 24, 2002 @10:16AM (#3060432) Homepage
    will we see companies like Macromedia (who also promised native OS X support) hurry along to follow suit?"

    I bet you'll see a press release from Macromedia soon, but that'll be it for a while. They're behind schedule releasing Dreamweaver 5 and Ultradev 5, which is rumored to support dot-Net, and they've gotten to the point where they're just putting out open-ended Microsoft-style vaporware press releases [macromedia.com] instead.

    Not to disrespect Mac folks, but I bet the profit involved in putting out Ultradev 5 with dot-Net authoring will result in a lot more sales than Dreamweaver in native OSX, but of course, that's just my betting. Then again, maybe this is the reason DW/UD5 is so behind schedule - maybe they're trying to release everything at once, including native OSX support and dot-Net authoring. I'm getting to the point where I wouldn't accept anything less when this thing finally comes out.

    • Not to disrespect Mac folks, but I bet the profit involved in putting out Ultradev 5 with dot-Net authoring will result in a lot more sales than Dreamweaver in native OSX

      That may be true, but they've also got to worry about the potential of lost sales. At the moment I'm using Dreamweaver 3 in Classic mode, which works fine but as more and more apps run native it becomes increasingly painful to have to do that. If GoLive is native before Dreamweaver, I may well consider switching.

      As a side note, it's not just OS X support that is lacking. Full OS X support still isn't here yet. I just upgraded to Freehand 10 and have been dismayed to learn that pressure-sensitivity for my Wacom tablet isn't supported yet with it. So it's back to Freehand 9 in Classic for that, or look to Illustrator, which I hear does support it.

    • Re:Macromedia & OSX (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ahfoo ( 223186 )
      Personally I think the main reason Microsoft doesn't compete with Macromedia is largely because they are already one and the same company from a management perspective.
      They'll devote a few people to Mac stuff now and then --you know throw a bone to the Mac people-- but for a company that started out Mac, their efforts are pretty lame especially when you get into the top of their higher level tools like Director and Authorware. It's pathetic that Authorware has become almost totally MS Windows(TM) focused to the point that you have to do your design work in Windows even if you're going to build your project with a Mac runtime if you plan on using one of the more recent versions of the product.
      From what I've gotten off their corporate news server, that's the way THEY like it. They take a rather dismissive view of Mac in their Director/Authorware discussion groups and boy don't you even mention Linux unless you want to get all these communist stereotypes laid on ya. I wouldn't hold my breath for innovation from Macromedia on the Mac despite the similarity in the names and the former association that was implied by that connection.
      The only solution is a decent icon/flow control development package for Linux, but we're still a long way from that. Until then, Macromedia is the solution to Microsoft's problems, not Mac's or Linux's.

  • It screams ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by d0n quix0te ( 304783 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @10:42AM (#3060479)
    It is bloody fast on OS X. Beats the hell out of OS 9 as far as speed is concerned. And of course it toasts the XP version by a large margin. Expect Steve to do a OS 9/ OS X/ XP bake-off at MacWorld Tokyo.

    Looks like the threading model and the new disk drivers have made a huge difference.. And of course better memory management

    Here's a snippet from another BB.


    Anyhow, I recently had made available to me a 'future copy' of PS running on X natively. The 'carbon' version that comes after 6.0. I have been using PS 6 on XP and thought things were slower so i did some testing. If you are interested in the results, here they are:

    The systems:

    The Mac-
    OSX 10.1.3
    PowerMac G4 'Sawtooth' 533 Dual Proc.
    768MB PC133, 40GB DiamondMax 7200rpm
    nVidia GF2 MX w/32mb

    The PC
    Win XP
    Athlon XP 1800+
    512MB 266DDR, 40GB DiamondMax 7200rpm
    GF3 Ti200 w/64MB DDR
    (the GF3 is overclocked and runs @ Ti500 speeds)

    Photoshop tests

    MacAddict actions and 15mb Steve Jobs.tiff from the 03/98 Mag cd

    results:

    Beige G3/266: 2min 48sec (reference from Mag)

    PS 6.0 -- Win XP: 36.5 seconds
    PS 6.0 -- Classic 9.2.2 24.5 seconds
    PS 7.0b -- OSX 10.1.3 12.5 seconds

    I am gonna be running more items in other programs, but i could not believe the result and the difference.

    ....

    This isn't scientific test, of course. FWIW

    • Here we go again. With this new release the Mac people are going to be once again touting the same old obscure algorithm in Photoshop that is custom tuned for the bizzare custom coprocessing unit in their 12MHz processors. They will try to extrapolate that to the general case to prove that Macs are always faster than PCs.

      PC users know better though. The truth is that the only valid metric of computer performance is Quake III frames per second. :-)

      • Re:It screams ... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sg3000 ( 87992 ) <<sg_public> <at> <mac.com>> on Sunday February 24, 2002 @12:16PM (#3060663)
        > touting the same old obscure algorithm in Photoshop
        > PC users know better though. The truth is that the only
        > valid metric of computer performance is Quake III frames per second. :-)

        As soon as Mac users can figure out how to make money playing Quake III as opposed to using Photoshop, I'm sure they'll be willing to switch their performance metrics.
        • As soon as Mac users can figure out how to make money playing Quake III as opposed to using Photoshop, I'm sure they'll be willing to switch their performance metrics.

          That's easy. There is no shortage of positions where you can make money playing Quake III. Just find a company with a project that has no clear direction and poor management.There are countless thousands of these situations available at any given time.

          I've seen highly paid engineers go for months at a time doing nothing but playing Quake and surfing the web. These positions don't tend to last that long, though, so you'd have to be prepared to move arouind a bit.

          It also helps to find a group with a good technician/sysadmin who orders workstations outfitted with the right "goodies".

      • "bizzare custom coprocessing unit in their 12MHz processors"

        umm, I think you're mixing up your Amiga fanatics with your Mac fanatics here?
    • Cautious readers will want to be sure to read the whole thread [macnn.com]. Take the numbers above with a grain of salt.

      These results have not been seen across the board.

      J.J.
  • Well, finally OS X users are getting their wish: Adobe has finally made good on their promise to bring native OS X support to their graphical applications. C|Net is running a story on the upcoming version of Photoshop

    It's been upcoming for months. I'll believe it when I can get my mitts on a copy from the Apple Store.

    Of course, the way things are going, I'll be able to get that new G4 Amiga first.

    --saint
  • Why is it such a big news that Adobe finally decided to write a native version of Photoshop for OSX, but noone ever mentioned that Corel's Draw and PhotoPaint have been available for OSX quite some time now. Doesn't anyone use them any more or is everyone preocupied with Gimp vs. Photoshop flamewar?
    • > but no one ever mentioned that Corel's Draw and
      > PhotoPaint have been available for OSX quite
      > some time now

      And Macromedia's vector graphics application FreeHand has been available for almost a year. It has a few quirks in it, so it's clear that they rushed it out, but it was nice to have a native professional-grade vector graphics app available so soon after the OS X launch.

    • Re:Adobe vs. Corel -- I'll take Corel, please (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Reziac ( 43301 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @02:18PM (#3061117) Homepage Journal
      I use Corel PhotoPaint almost every day; I couldn't do without it. The interface is far better than PhotoShop so every task is easier to accomplish, it runs at least 3x as fast (I am *not* exaggerating) on the same hardware, and it does most things as well and some things better (JPG compression is 2-3x better for the same quality image). Only time I ever need to drag out PhotoShop is for colour masking.

      Tried The GIMP but wasn't impressed -- struck me as too much like an update of PaintBrush. Oh well.

    • Re:Adobe vs. Corel (Score:4, Insightful)

      by overunderunderdone ( 521462 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @07:59PM (#3062650)
      Why is it such a big news that Adobe finally decided to write a native version of Photoshop for OSX, but noone ever mentioned that Corel's Draw and PhotoPaint have been available for OSX quite some time now.

      Because the professional graphics market that is key to Apple's success makes their living using Photoshop and was not even aware that Corel made a 'competing' product.

  • Why did it take so long? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was just looking at the feature set of the new Photoshop 7 for OSX on adobe's site. I didn't really see anything too groundbreaking there, maybe it will really help some people. It is as follows:

    • File Browser to visually browse and retrieve images
    • Healing Brush to effortlessly remove artifacts such as dust, scratches, blemishes, and wrinkles while preserving shading, lighting, and texture
    • Web output enhancements to easily apply transparency or partial transparency to Web page elements, including seamless edges that blend into any Web background
    • Single, enhanced Rollover palette to manage Web page rollovers, animations, and image maps more easily
    • New "selected" rollover state for creating more sophisticated Web site navigation bars without hand-coding
    • Customizable workspace for saving the arrangement of palettes and settings for tools, and instant access to a personalized Photoshop desktop
    • New Auto Color Command for reliable color correction
    • New Painting Engine to simulate traditional painting techniques
    • Pattern Maker plug-in to create realistic or abstract patterns such as grass, rocks, and sand simply by selecting a section of an image
    • Enhanced Liquify (distorting) tool to allow you to view other layers, zoom, pan, and undo multiple steps -- even save custom meshes and apply them to other files


    I don't know about the rest of the community, but while these features will be nice (I guess) the feature I REALLY wanted was running natively on OSX. And that has taken some time for Adobe to deliver.

    When OSX came out, everyone asked "Great, when do we get Photoshop to run natively" Adobe's response was "We're not going to change our software release schedule, just because Apple has released a new OS."

    Which from a business perspective seems a little weird, why not do a OSX port and charge people for it. There would be no shortage of customers willing to pay.

    They chose not to. Ok fine but it seems like quite a long time ago, especially since a year ago, (don't remember, maybe it was 2 years ago) they showed an alpha version of PS 6 running at WWDC, that had been ported to OSX by one of the project managers. One person! And a self-admitted "average" coder. Said it took him a couple of weekends.

    I can only guess that there was a heck of a lot of more work to do to create a good carbon app than Apple and Adobe originally led us to believe. Or maybe an earlire release just didn't fit Adobe's financial schedule.

    Also of note. Lately Adobe has gotten in this bad habit of "announcing" new software, but not actually having it available, and then slipping on that date as well. See Adobe GoLive as an example. All kinds of press about it's release, a lot of users thinking its available for immediate purchase and use. Not the case though, still not shipping yet. Hopefully Photoshop will not take a similar course. They are saying April as of now.

  • What about TIFFany (Score:3, Informative)

    by skribble ( 98873 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @11:36AM (#3060584) Homepage
    Caffine Software [caffeinesoft.com] sells TIFFany which very well could be every bit as good as Photoshop. This is actually a cocoa app that was originally designed for OpenStep. On the plus side it's very powerful and very different. On the minus side it's pretty expensive (They really should offer a $149 competitive upgrade from Photoshop!) and it's very different.


    Anyway... I'll probably end up with Photoshop (I've been using it since Version 2.5). But there are options for OS X. (And I'm sorry, but GIMP is not an option for professional photo editing... It's a step above most graphics software, but it's not Photoshop or TIFFany. (I actually think people who use and like GIMP on OS X should really download TIFFany3 Trial, I think they'll be pleasantly supprised).

  • OS X still in it's infancy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by discogravy ( 455376 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @12:41PM (#3060727) Homepage
    That photoshop has just been ported to OS X speaks volumes about how much more OS X still has to go (although that it's been released does give OS X credibility and brings it that much closer to where it's going.)

    I mean, is it polished? yes. Is it solid? yes. Is it ready for the people? it already has been. But OS X is basically a new OS and some kinks are still getting worked out. A lack of serious apps, like Photoshop, was one of those kinks that needed to be worked out and it's a good thing that it's being worked out now.

    I can't wait for OS Z!

  • photoshop?? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jaavaaguru ( 261551 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @01:37PM (#3060911) Homepage
    But they have GIMP, what more could they need? ;-)

    • Re:photoshop?? (Score:3, Informative)

      by pressman ( 182919 )
      Well, basic CMYK support would be useful. A history palette, non-destructive layer effects, vector text and layers, basic knockout features. Well, hell, there's a lot that Photoshop can do that the GIMP can't. Plus, PS has a very well thought out and useful interface.

      The GIMP is a pretty decent application and you can't beat the price, but it still has a long way to go before it becomes a standard part of a professional graphic artist's tool box.

  • Flash and Fireworks are in late beta (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For those that aren't aware, both Flash MX and Fireworks MX are looming large on the horizon. Some of the rumore sites have it right, as I have them myself. :)
  • This from another (better) article [macworld.com] someone posted...
    Secure images before sharing them -- Photoshop now offers complete support for Acrobat 5.0 security settings, allowing you to add passwords and other protections to Photoshop PDF files before sharing them with others online or adding them to Adobe PDF workflows.
    That last thing we need is more "security" on content. This "feature" only serves as more nonsense from Adobe to prevent users from gaining access to content they otherwise ought to have. I'm sure it's nothing at all sturdy either... just a thing that Adobe, its parterns, and special interests can use to brandish the DMCA.

    I have always loved Photoshop. It's still got a big one-up over Gimp and other free and non-free alternatives. However, I incist that products that include content protection must NOT gain any support from anyone. This is without regard to the other features in a package. I'm sure 99.9% of Photoshop users can do with version 7 that they can do with 5.5 just as easily... without giving up little chips of freedom.

    If a content house wants to keep images/documents secure, there's plenty of software to do it (encrypted filesystems, secure OSes, etc.). Encrypting/password-protecting documents with proprietary software is not the answer and must not be acceptable.

    • Re:Great... Content Control Features For Creators? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shinma ( 106792 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @02:51PM (#3061257) Homepage
      Oh, for God's sake.

      The "little chips of freedom" you're so afraid of giving up are the ability to steal. People these days are so busy proving Hobbes right about his opinion of human nature that they don't stop to consider why his "social contract" is necessary in the first place.

      As someone whose livelihood depends on his writing, I can tell you that a secure way of distributing electronic media is vital to publishers and authors, both big and small, before they consider the internet anything more than a playground. Password-protected documents are, to me, a much better choice for content distribution than the alternatives, where it can only be used with one e-book reader and/or system.

      You do not have a right to access content that you do not own. Ownership implies that you were given the password to access the data.

      You don't present any valid reason that it is a bad thing other than your reactionary comment about the DMCA. Care to give some reasons that password-protected files are a bad thing?

      • You don't present any valid reason that it is a bad thing other than your reactionary comment about the DMCA. Care to give some reasons that password-protected files are a bad thing?

        Great. Now I have to preach to the choir. *sigh* I thought we had technical readers on this site that could reason these things out. Here we go...

        The schemes are proprietary. Non-public protection schemes can be changed by the owner without the consumers' knowledge. As a result, much power is given in the hands of corporations to limit access to your own content if you do not meet their approval. ("Upgrade to Photoshop 11, or we'll revoke the unlocking scheme in your existing software.") This does nothing but give more power to Adobe down the line. Soon, these protection schemes will work their way into all of Adobe's products and file formats (the latter of which I'm sure have already been implimented). With software becoming more and more connected to the developer, and subscription fees more and more likely on the horizon... what do you think that restricting access to the file actually means? Think about it!

        There already exist a plethora of superior, open-standard protection schemes for securing data. These are, but not limited encrypted data storage/transmission (SSH/PGP/GPG/etc for securely sending your PS/PSD/PDF/SUX/etc to your coworkers), one-time access to a resource, and so on. Tools to secure data have been in development since long before Adobe entered the graphics market. These tools and open standards are far superior to any offerings Adobe can make. Why not just use them if you're interested in protecting your IP? I'm sure that Adobe is also not interested in really protecting your data. These schemes are almost always token just so that companies can leverage laws in their favor. This is not reactionary or imaginary. It's reality, stupid. And as mentioned, if you're serious about protecting your data, you use tried and true methds of doing it - not some buzzword feature fizzle in Photoshop. Otherwise, if you're going for protected public distribution, this is utterly useless.

        It's stupid. Purely feature bloat. PkZIP added this feature years ago just so you had something to spend more money for. Easily cracked. However, if you crack something like this... you get sued. And not by the owners of the content.

        You cannot protect your content once it has entered the public domain. It's not possible. There's always at least one person in the world that's smarter than you and will find a way around your protection. Adobe knows this but people are dazzled by their silliness. They think these features protect them. They don't. Makes Adobe stronger, doesn't increase security, and adds a tiny pebble as a stumbling block to anyone who wants to pirate content.

    • PDF content protection is intended, in this regard, for distribution amongst work groups in geographically distant loactions or even to make distribution between clients and designers easier. I can safely send a client a file in Photoshop .pdf with a pre-determined passsword we agree to. This way if someone not approved to view the images were to obtain them, perhaps a competitor working with the design firm (don't laugh - it happens) were to get a hold of the new ad then there could be serious reprecussions both to the client and the design firm. This will allow designers to use the web as a means of client contact thus streamlining the design process. This is an excellent feature that myself, and many designers, welcome openly. Personally, many of us couldn't care less what the Slashdot crowd thinks.
  • I have no doubt that you'll see support for Macromedia products on OS X. However, I don't think it will be native. Macromedia's #2 seller, ColdFusion Server, is going to J2EE. It's rumored that the CF IDE, CF Studio, is being rewritten too, and I don't think it'd be too crazy to see it rewritten in Java. Along the same lines, a Java-base for all products would make it quite easy to move into new platforms, with little or no new development required.

  • Why it took so long... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PrimeWaveZ ( 513534 ) on Sunday February 24, 2002 @04:30PM (#3061718)
    Before I started taking all of the CS classes I'm in now, I couldn't understand why Adobe was so slow in getting out a native OS X version of Photoshop. However, I've come to these conclusions:

    1. Carbonizing seemed easy, at first. When they demoed their "Carbonized" version of PS back in the day, there was really nothing to it. All they had to do was modify the non-complying API calls. However, since OS X's paradigm shifted so much, they also had to remake a lot of the interface to conform and work with Aqua. That is a very difficult proposition when you have a program with a code base such as PS.

    2. Their apps also seem to have a lot of legacy 68k-centric code. While I'm certainly not an expert in OS X programming, I'm sure that it doesn't help to have 68k-based instructions when you're trying to have your program run on a modern PPC-based operating system with a new set of APIs. It just doesn't make things easy.

    3. Trying to develop Carbonized apps is a difficult proposition because the API isn't set in stone. When the "Carbonization is easy" thing was first floated, most folks probably didn't think it was going to be still under development. A lot of people have likened it to a moving target. I would agree from my point of view, because if you don't know what is going to change from one CarbonLib revision to another, life becomes a bitch

    There are probably many inaccuracies in this posting, but from my point of view, Adobe isn't completely to blame. Right now, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and hope it was worth the wait.
  • so if adobe implements an alpha-blending algorithm in photoshop (i know ... very far-fetched idea, right?), are they infringing on apple's patent on alpha-blended computer graphics?

    if so, why is apple so excited to have someone breaking their patent?

    Take with 2 grains salt and call me in the morning.

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